AFRICAN AMERICAN art sculpture Yvonne Edwards Tucker Start Price USD 3,500.00 Current Price USD 3,500.00 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Thursday, July 17, 2008 End Time Thursday, July 24, 2008 Location Michigan See more about 'AFRICAN AMERICAN art sculpture Yvonne Edwards Tucker' Description Yvonne Edwards Tucker rare sculpture pottery beautifully handpainted and sculpted is signed at base and measures approx. 5x6x12 inches. Obtained from the National Conference of Artists - an organization founded by Margaret Burroughs (and others) to support African American artists. 100% guaranteed to be by Yvonne Edwards-Tucker. See my other items  (and vintage photos) in my store "Teaching has a great impact on your work," she says. "I have to try and guard the time alone in the studio because it is important So I look forward to holidays, and weekends, and the summer. But with the additional hat of an administrator, it has become increasingly difficult to get quiet enough in myself to be in the studio and to produce-to isolate and clear my vision to deal with what it is I want to talk about. "on the other hand, a salary allows me to have a studio and a kind of independence that I need. I can make what it is that I want to make and I can do it my way. I often say that my work is my way of freeing myself and of maximizing that freedom. I can do what I want to do. Critics may not like it, it may not be bought, but it's mine." Yvonne Edwards Tucker The synthesis between life and art began for ceramist and sculptor Yvonne Edwards Tucker during her formative years on the southside of Chicago, She took music lessons, studied art at the Southside Community Art Center and at the Chicago Art Institute. "I had a very rich upbringing and a really good grounding in all of the arts," she says. "Also, I could see the differences between downtown experiences, which were primarily Western-European oriented, and the southside, which was more African American." After receiving her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois, she began graduate studies in art at the University of California-Los Angeles. The allure of the ceramics revolution under way on the West Coast at that time was great. Tucker soon transferred to Los Angeles' Otis Art Institute where she studied ceramics with Helen Watson, drawing from Charles White and Joe Mugnaini, and worked under the tutelage of Herman "Kofi" Bailey and ceramist Michael Frimkess. Her marriage to fellow artist Curtis Tucker began a formidable collaboration that enabled both to explore the significance of design, and of day shapes and forms, to African and African-American cultures. Her husband's death, in 1992, placed Tucker once again in the foreground of her creative works, a transition empowered by her belief that all true art belongs to the greater, ancestral spirits. As an art professor at Florida A&M, Tucker feels that she is challenged not only to explain what she has learned, but to explore the new ideas presented by her students' questions and discoveries. "I try to teach them that they are a resource," she says, "even if they are beginners. Whether the object turns out to be beautiful or not so beautiful--even if they have to throw it back into the reclaim barrel-they still have learned something from their mistakes as well as their successes." See her work at the Smithsonian: http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/dialogue/tuckerI.htm http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/dialogue/artists.htm Born Chicago, 1941B.F.A. Otis Art Institute (now Otis/Parson's School of Design), Los Angeles, 1968M.F.A. Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, 1968University of Miami, 1971-1972Florida State University, 1979-1980Assistant Professor, Miami-Dade Community College, South Campus, 1968-1973Associate Professor, Florida A & M University, Tallahassee, since 1973Co-founder, Harambee Council of TallahasseeAdministrator and project director of folk and fine arts festivals annually from 1980-1990Major Exhibitions:Contemporary Gallery of Fine Arts, Dallas, 1969Micanopy Gallery of Fine Arts, Florida, 1972Morgan State College, Baltimore, Maryland, 1975Malcolm Brown Gallery, Shaker Heights, Ohio, 1981Contemporary Art Center, Kansas City, Missouri, 1989Florida State University, Tallahassee, 1991 In smithsonian Yvonne Edwards Tucker's interest in the complexity of the artistic process is reflected in her work. According to art historian Michael Harris, before turning to ceramics Tucker originally had thought of herself as a painter. As this work indicates, she never abandoned this first love and would often incorporate elements of painting into her sculptures. The raku ceramic decorated with drawings (central to the Tuckers' compositions) represents one of the couple's signature works. To create such a vessel, Curtis Tucker would first throw the pot; the work would then be fired, using a technique they developed together derived from African, Native American, and Eastern ceramics called "Afro-Raku"; and finally, after glazing and burnishing, Yvonne Tucker would incise the pots with freehand, semiabstract drawings. Although the design of the pot in Tucker's vessel designs often vary in content and form to reflect her interests in Zen, African spiritualism, and anthropomorphic forms. Tucker describes her interest in the process of making ceramics as follows: "When throwing or hand building, I often hold my breath while centering myself in the moment in order to dance in partnership with my silent teacher, clay. It is then that I often feel my hands and mind becoming a conduit for greater forces from the inner realm of the spirit." Tucker's choice to represent herself and her husband, simultaneously touching the clay before them and creating what she describes as "the intangible quality of soul force," is an eloquent testament regarding the importance of the artistic process for the Tuckers.    Yvonne Edwards-TuckerAmerican, born 1941 When Curtis Tucker, now deceased, and Yvonne Edwards-Tucker worked together, they combined elements from African, Asian and European sources into one integrated cultural ensemble, demonstrating the pluralisms of African American artistic heritage. The shapes recall a combination of African and European pottery, while the raku technique is Asian. The subject matter, however, is distinctly African American.  http://www.iniva.org/library/resource/7670   On Jun-15-07 at 12:21:35 PDT, seller added the following information: On Jul-17-08 at 07:50:38 PDT, seller added the following information: Place a Bid!