Richard Carter Studio

Clay in the Sierra foothills

 

Diane Bartholomew, Richard Carter and Adam Field at the Yuba river on a recent trip to the Sierra foot hills to dig clay.

 

Clay and Quartz

 

Richard digging clay
 
 

Shiro Otani, Trent Burkett, Peter Volkous, Ann Adair Voulkos & Richard Carter

 

Shiro Otani, Trent Burkett, Peter Volkous, Ann Adair Voulkos, Richard Carter at The Richard Carter Studio on Eight Street Napa CA 1997.

"Trust" acquired by the Crocker Museum

Trust, 1999
Stoneware, wood-fired
45 x 45 x 8 inches
Crocker Art Museum Purchase with funds from George and Bea Gibson Fund, Marcy and Mort Friedman Acquisition Fund, Becky B. Krisik Endowment Fund, Richard Carter, and Michael Himovitz Fund, 2009.22

Returning to the Bay Area in 1985, after studying with Ken Ferguson at the Kansas City Art Institute, Richard Carter was met by the AIDS epidemic and experienced overwhelming grief for his friends and contemporaries who were lost. In response, he began a series of elegies in clay entitled Life/Afterlife, which he completed in the 1990s. Trust is one of those works. At the outset, Carter embedded nails into ceramic slabs to express his pain. These were followed by a series of grid pieces memorializing close friend Troy Burdine. Burdine first approached Carter when he learned he was dying and asked that upon his passing Carter cast his body in plaster. The idea was that Carter could create from the plaster mold. This act would give Burdine a measure of immortality and hopefully also raise awareness of AIDS by the unusualness of such a posthumous collaboration. 

Burdine died on October 27, 1997, and Carter made the plaster cast the following day. It was neither immediately apparent nor easy to process how to go about creating an expression worthy of his friend’s memory. Many months of meditation went into coping with the loss and visualizing the tribute. A moving series of clay sections arranged into grids evolved over the next two years. Among the motifs featured were casts of Burdine’s head, legs, chest, and hands, evocative of suffering and sacrifice. For the artist, the squares composing the grid were a literal means of intellectualizing and compartmentalizing the emotions he was experiencing. In many ways, Trust is as much a form of self-portraiture as a tribute, something on which Carter projected and then exorcised his own fears and sorrow.

Excerpt from Smitten, A Love Story About Art

This is an excerpt from "Smitten a love story about art" a film by Nancy Kelly and Kenji Yamamoto.

Troy Simon Burdine II is Napa artist Richard Carters powerful, elegiac, tripartite piece memorializing the friend named in the title. When Troy Burdine was dying of AIDS, he approached Carter and asked that upon death, Richard cast him to form a whole body death mask, thus fulfilling Troys wish to be immortalized. It was also Burdines intention to help establish a greater awareness of AIDS through his posthumous collaboration with Carter. Troy passed away on October 27, 1997. Richard made the plaster cast of his body the following day. Troy was then cremated. Richard used the cast to form a clay body, which was fired in a wood burning kiln in April, 1998.

Read Richard Reisman's full press releas about the piece.

Upcoming show: Richard Carter Studio, Past and Present

Richard Carter Studio

Past and Present

October 31 - December 7, 2008

Reception: Saturday, November 1, 4-6pm

The Richard Carter Studio is a private working studio and artist residency program in Pope Valley, California. Established in 1992, it offers committed artists from around the world a place to live and work in a small, supportive arts community.

	Christian Batteau	Trent Burkett
	Richard Carter	Guy Michael Davis
	Adam Field	Michael Fujita
	Granite	Nathan Mabry
	Paige Pedri	Joseph Pintz
	David Price	Armando Ramos
	Scott Rosenberg	Jason Segall
	Jeffrey Spahn	Matthew Taleck
	Jayson Taylor	Nicholas Tranmer
	Kevin Tweed	Kathinka Willinek

The Quicksilver Mine Co.
6671 Front St/Hwy 116, Downtown Forestville
707.887.0799 www.quicksilvermineco.com
Gallery hours: 11–6 daily  Closed Tues. & Wed.

Garth Clark's statements

To coincide with the 2003 Solo Exhibitions of Ken Ferguson & Richard Carter at Garth Clark Gallery, Garth Clark published the following statements.

Press Release - “Troy Simon Burdine II”

“Troy Simon Burdine II” is Napa artist Richard Carter’s powerful, elegiac, tripartite piece memorializing the friend named in the title.  When Troy Burdine was dying of AIDS, he approached Carter and asked that upon death, Richard cast him to form a whole body death mask, thus fulfilling Troy’s wish to be immortalized.  It was also Burdine’s intention to help establish a greater awareness of AIDS through his posthumous collaboration with Carter.  Troy passed away on October 27, 1997.  Richard made the plaster cast of his body the following day.  Troy was then cremated.  Richard used the cast to form a clay body, which was fired in a wood burning kiln in April, 1998.

Richard spent most of the following summer at the Yuba River meditating on what to do with his new material.  A series of grid pieces using clay sections of Troy’s body followed.  The first of the series, entitled “Memory,” is a part of the di Rosa collection.

At the end of 2000, Carter felt he had exhausted his possibilities with Troy and assembled the last work using Troy’s mold. It consists of both halves of the plaster cast flanking the full body image made in 1998, which now contains Troy’s ashes.  “Troy Simon Burdine II” is Troy’s own urn and his dream to be immortalized.

Richard Reisman
Rene diRosa Preserve curator
2000

A Residency at Pope Valley Pottery by Ryan VanHoy

“You see, being here is not about this!”  Richard lifts a beautiful thrown ceramic pitcher and thumps the fifteen-foot dining room table with it emphatically staring me down with a cold and resolute expression of absolute authority.  “Being here is about the person.  How one walks, talks, eats, and breathes is directly reflected in the work they make.  Develop the person and the pots will follow.  Like Ferguson always said, you’ve got to dig a deep well!”

Conversations, dialogue, polemical debate, frustrated raging lunacy, story telling, food and wine, fine art and pottery have been the substance of my Pope Valley Pottery residency. For Richard Carter, this 80-acre parcel of land provides a home, a studio and a way of life.  Residing full time on this converted 130 year old farmstead and ranch just outside of the Napa Valley, Carter maintains two wood-burning kilns, a studio, a garden, a gutted and renovated farmhouse, an orchard, tent cabins, and a gallery showcasing resident work.  Richard seems to possess an acquired sense of immaculate order tempered by an intuitive understanding and acceptance of a higher natural order.  This is apparent in every aspect of his life as far as I can tell.  On the ranch, old farm buildings are falling apart yet are reverently kept in check as virtuous mediators to a bygone era.  Little white and yellow flowers have been planted and have taken seed along the foundation of the farmhouse’s wrap around porch.  They are sprouting serendipitously from one of three terra cotta planters both defining and obscuring the line between the perimeter of the house and the adjoining courtyard of raked pea gravel.  Once, Richard was given green plastic lawn chairs for the kiln area.  They eventually were passed on because they just didn’t fit with the aesthetic.  This place is Carter’s canvas; every detail considered and attended to as part of his daily routine.

Richard Carter Studio is a kind of Nirvana

For those seeking to develop both their ceramic skills and aesthetic understanding, Richard Carter Studio is a kind of Nirvana. It is nestled in the hills of Napa Valley, at times bright and sunny, at others swathed in mysterious mist. This private valley has kind of magic to it. Richard Carter continues the traditions of Ken Ferguson's commitment to individuality and competence. A man of exceptional empathy, he provides support without structure. If I were a ceramicist wanting to grow and work, I would high-tail it to this community of artists.

- Garth Clark

Relaunch: Richard Carter Studio

This is the inaugural post of Richard Carter Studio's new website!!