Richard Shaw - "Canton Creamware Collection Spill" Ceramic tea set tumbling out of cigar box

Richard Shaw • American (B: 1941)

Canton Creamware Collection Spill C: 2018 • Glazed Porcelain With Overglaze Details 9” x 13” x 10.5”

Richard Shaw is a joker and, perhaps, a midnight smoker. He sure knows how to have some fun. For over 60 years he’s been creating clay sculptures that catch people’s eye and convince them they are something they’re not. It’s called trompe l’oeil, fool the eye, and it takes a yeoman’s talent and some inventive processes to pull it off. You’d expect the son of a Disney cartoonist to have a sense of humor, and Shaw doesn’t disappoint.

A native of southern California who floated north to the Bay Area, Shaw works and lives in what appears to be an antique New England filling station set among the redwoods and complete with a 1930s Model T in the garage. There he works in a shop strewn with thousands of carefully crafted molds that can be mixed and matched to form new creations.

A teapot first appears as part of a set, broken as it tumbled out of a box. Next it’s seen upside down atop a skeleton’s head.

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A log forms an old man’s torso and then becomes a wooden puppet’s leg bone.

Playing cards form a fragile stack atop an open book balanced on an upside down teacup. A guitar neck and cardboard box form a new instrument.

All of it is clay. Nothing is real. Everything is art. Shaw takes common objects and makes you realize how beautiful they are by using them in ways you’d never imagined before.

Since first falling in with a bunch of rebellious ceramic artists who called their work Bay Area Ceramic Funk, Shaw has pushed ceramics in new directions. .With a-half-bubble-off-plumb world view, Shaw turned pottery into sculpture and sculpture into surprise. There’s no potter’s wheel in his studio and his porcelain clay sits in liquid form in a large vat, waiting to be poured into one of his handmade molds. Glazed, assembled and fired, they create a wry world of misdirection. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me time and time again, say thanks to Richard Shaw.

Canton Museum of Art Permanent Collection • Purchased by the Canton Museum of Art 2020.15

4 Ways to Sound Smart When Viewing at The Canton Museum of Art

1.
“Did you know that even the box is made of porcelain? Fooled your eye, didn’t it?”

2.
“Those teacups are made from a form and have appeared in countless Shaw works. Waste not, want not.”

3.
“The Canton in the title is really not in Ohio. Rather he’s talking about a different ceramics mecca, Canton, China."

4.
“Why would anyone create art and then break it? Shaw does everything a bit differently.”

Shaw Timeline. Scroll over images to see timeline.

1941

Born in Los Angeles, California to a Disney cartoonist father and artist mother.

1956-59

Attended and graduated from Desert Sun School, a private high school designed to foster creativity in its students. Wanted to be a painter.

1960

Met his future wife, Martha, while a student at Orange Coast College. Also fell in love with ceramics and switched his creative focus to clay.

1963

Became serious about ceramics while attending the San Francisco Art Institute. Cites professors Ron Nagle, Jim Melchert, Peter Voulkos and John Mason as mentors.

1965

First major showing of his work at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City.

1965

After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute, he attended New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, because “where else do you go if you’re into ceramics?”

1966-87

Returned to the San Francisco Art Institute as a professor.

1968

Earned Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California, Davis.

1971 and 1974

National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships.