Does Art Choose Us?

Does Art Choose Us?

John Toki and Diane Ding

Epperson Gallery, Crockett CA, November 8, 2024

On the run-up to the exhibit, John and I talked about what the best approach to our conversation might be. Would I moderate in a formal way? Or what about a three-way conversation without worrying about the form? Diane was okay with either and John and I figured we’d just play it by ear.

The exhibit opened at 3pm. Our conversation was to begin at 4:30pm. The turn out was excellent, the atmosphere lively and people circulated looking at the art and chatting as old friends caught up with each other. Chairs were being moved into place at about 4:25pm and people began seating themselves. While this was going on, the three of us were trying to figure out the microphone set-up. One was pinned on my collar; we’d pass the hand-held one back and forth between Diane and John. A video camera was in place. We were figuring out our own seating arrangement and doing sound checks in the genial disorder when someone in the audience called something out to Diane. She must have thought it was time to begin, and started speaking. In the confusion, I forgot to turn on my own recorder and missed a few minutes.

We pick up here in the transcript as Diane is speaking for a second time. My introductory remarks were not recorded, so let me summarize what I said here.

Having known John for over 25 years, I wanted to mention the remarkable spectrum of his engagement with life. He’s well known as an artist and for managing Leslie Ceramics Supply (founded in 1946 by his parents). He was a member of the art faculty at the California College of Arts and Crafts. Fewer people knew that he owned and ran a company in Los Angeles making potter’s wheels and kilns. He’s also a writer (co-author of Hands in Clay in its fifth edition) and a consistently inspiring mentor for young clay artists - many who have come to the US to work with him. And beyond that, Toki is consistently a deeply generous man. I said that when I think of John Toki two words I’d never heard applied to artists, come up: “saint” and “guru.” 

I explained that I’d met Diane Ding in 2012 in studio visits with her husband, Wanxin Zhang, who I featured in works & conversations #25. I saw Diane’s work there and realized that besides her beguiling charm, she—like her husband—was also a very gifted artist. Five years later, I featured seven of her intriguing portraits along with an essay in the magazine (#34). As the transcript begins here, she’s making a reference to that.— r.w.

Diane Ding:  A few years ago, Richard wanted me to share where my art comes from. I did share so much of my personal life, like my mom told me stories. My mom had her big family and had really dramatic stories—Russian and Chinese. So if you want to know some details, they’re in his magazine [works & conversations #34]. So I don’t want to share too much about that—so emotional, so powerful, so much happiness and also very sad stories—and true stories that always stick in my mind.

I lived in Harbin, China, in the north, where there was so much Russian influence—so many layers— and when I come here to the U.S. I don’t feel like it’s too strange for me because in my home town I see so many mixed families. Also, I had a four-year, formal education in China for art—a Russian-system education in the 1960s when Mao took over China and make something like brotherhood. They influence each other, help each other, support each other. So talking about China, that education system—our culture building, everything—probably it’s part of my life, and when I’m doing my art, probably you can see my art has some sense from what I been trained in, like a picnic for painting. So this answer question or not?

[audience laughter]

Richard Whittaker:  Yes. And it’s very interesting. So John we might keep this symmetrical and ask for your thoughts around what has a place in your own art from your Japanese heritage. It’s bound to be there somehow. And you’re third generation?

John Toki:  I’m third generation. So of course, it’s very interesting for me to be with Diane and to hear her story from China with the Russian influence. My grandparents were immigrants, and my parents, Leslie and Rayer, were both born in California. My mother was born in San Francisco, my father was born in Sacramento. When he was two, his father was a businessman trying to set up a rice mill. He was going to grow rice. So my father went back to Japan when he was two and stayed there until he was eighteen. My mother was living in San Francisco and would go to Japan.

She was working with family members to have rice fields. She’d describe the leeches grabbing onto her legs. That’s all she told me! [laughter] But as a little kid listening to my parents, I realized my home front was a little different from my classmates. At our home, there were these scrolls on our walls, and I remember asking my father about one of them. “What does this mean?”

And he said, “This scroll is so abstract you can’t really decipher the meaning of it.” And I remember watching grandmother with kimono—there are parts of it that are so beautiful, and parts in the back (that little clump, that separation in the back) as a little kid, I thought, “That looks really odd.” But that really inspired my artwork.

I started doing pieces that were influenced by what I saw as a five and six-year-old kid. My influences were kind of blended with the U.S.— Disneyland, Davy Crockett, cartoons and hot dogs.[laughter] Don’t forget the mustard!

So I was getting influences from American culture, and from my grandparents who spoke very little English. I remember from when I was four years old that my grandfather, George Nishioka, was making soap, and it smelled so good. That’s pretty neat. So I learned that. I was gathering information as a maker. Then I learned, actually recently, that he was making large ikebana flower arrangements. I didn’t know that for 50 years grandpa was making these six-foot flower arrangements. It really meant a lot, because I work in large scale and I always wondered where that came from. I just had this desire to make big things.

My mother was a pianist and we had music in the house every Sunday. And our family guests were really interesting; Peter Voulkos, Ron Nagle, a lot of potters from Japan, business folks from Japan, Marvin Liposky—the glass blower—was there. I’d hear these stories and I was curious: what is an artist? What do they do?

Jim Melchert and Ron Nagle, and my mom would play the piano. It would start at 11pm after a lot of drinks. We had two pianos.

Ron Nagle would start playing, and then Jim Melchert would start playing. But my mother was really the best; she was a concert-caliber pianist.

So I’m this little kid watching and listening to all this and, of course, nobody told me what it was. I remember asking Bob Rasmussem, who was an artist who used to work with Richard Shaw—he was a house painter, too—so my parents hired him.

I think I was 12 years old and I wanted to see how a real artist handles the brush and I asked “Hey Bob, can I help you?”

And he said, “Yes. Sand that door.” [laughter]

What I learned as a kid is that it’s a lot of hard work. I was looking for some kind of answer to the mysterious question, “What is an artist.”

Richard:  A deep question. There’s so much there. [to Diane], are you teaching art now in San Francisco?

Diane:  I did teach for many years. Right now it’s not a main event.

Richard:  Can you describe what you were teaching?

Diane:  All students, they have different requirements, different age, so I teach them oil painting, watercolor, like basic, entrance levels—everything. Because I learning everything in my art school. I can do everything, so many things.

Richard:  John I wanted to ask you about that early piece you made, it was so large—many tons..

John:  Ten tons. It started out 29 feet tall, and it shrunk four feet. [laughter]

Richard:  So a 25 foot tall piece. The reason I’m asking is because I’ve known about it for a long time, but it’s taken a long time to realize what an epic journey that had to be. It took you how long?

John:  I worked on that piece for ten years. [reaction from audience] My studio is about from the door all the way to the other wall [gestures]. I was inspired by the movie The Great Escape where they dug a tunnel.

I made the thing solid, but then it didn’t look good. It needed more mass. Some of you have been there—you’re making a painting or a sculpture and it looks really good, but something’s wrong and you don’t know what it is. So I added four more feet, which weighed 1500 pounds; that’s 2500 pounds, wet.

I made this sculpture. But I couldn’t move it. So I looked through a catalog and bought a crane—the biggest one I could find. It was shipped to me all the way from Maine and I think it took me five years to set it up. I didn’t know anything about welding.

I didn’t know anything about cranes. But I had a vision. I remember telling Viola Frey, “Viola, I’m just going to buy a crane and set it up in my studio.” And I actually did it! 

So it really takes this huge foundation of determination to be an artist. I’m looking at the audience here of my friends and colleagues, and you know what I’m talking about when nobody believes in what you’re doing, but you believe in what you’re doing. That’s when you can see something happening. And that’s when the only person you’re going to be talking to is yourself. I really believe that.

In the beginning when you’re younger, you reach out and call somebody for help. My father used to say, “Can you make something a little bit smaller?” [laughter from audience] Then about a year later, when he said, “Can you make something a little bit smaller?” everything got bigger! [laughter]

It’s really important to understand where your heart is going with your aesthetic. It could be a tough road. It’s sort of like you’ve got a magnet pulling you this way and that way [gestures] What’s important for the artist, as you develop your aesthetic, is that you need to hang in there, especially when somebody else doesn’t believe it’s correct.

Sometimes, those individuals can be your teachers. They’re telling you, “Hey, Diane, I think you ought to me these more blue” “I think it needs to be bigger. I think it needs to be smaller.” Viola Frey was really great. If you made something big, she’d tell you to make something small. If you wanted something bright, she’d tell you to make it dark. But it can still be a good learning experience. [turning to Diane] How do you deal with this, Diane? How did you develop your aesthetic?

Diane:  I really think my art is a reply to my life. I’m a mother and now a grandmother. I always busy. So managing my time to do my art is really important.

I don’t always have long hours to do art. If I have short time, like doing this talk, and doing the cooking… But if I’m lucky and have the long hours, I can focus and do deeper work. I never listen to anybody tell me how to do art.

I want to share a little story with you guys. When I was a little girl about ten years old my mom was an artist and had a gallery, and an artist party in our home.  And then my uncle asked me about my drawing, “Why tree with an eye and monkey with mouth?” And I replied to him, seriously, I said, “Artists don’t talk about art. They making art.” And everybody laughed. That was something my mom told me all the time. So sometimes my personality feels like from my mom who was an artist. 

I start enjoying art in really early age. For me, it’s really like – I don’t feel like it’s self-confidence... It’s like I don’t care what people are saying about my art. I do art for myself.

Even right now, if some student asks me about the artist scene, I say art belongs to yourself. Please do whatever you want to do. Please do from your heart. 

And I continue with my art until right now. So this is my personality.  You can see my art. I don’t care what people are saying about my art. I just do what I love in my mind and my heart.

John:  Does anybody by the name of Wanxin ever say anything about your work? [laughter]

Diane:  Wanxin is a wonderful husband and a wonderful guy. I think he so spoils me, to be honest. In everything, what I hear. everything is “Amazing! Amazing!” [laughter] Sometimes I really want to hear something, maybe like a lot of people, a suggestion from him.

I critique myself. I tear down some of my work. I hate it. I just tear it down. So that’s why I welcome everybody here today to see my artwork. This is my artwork. I hope you think it’s amazing! [laughter]

I have so many artist friends. Here I see some of them here, and I talk with them about art a lot. Lucky, you know, to have an art community and so much enchanting art. We share with each other and, when they see my art, they say, “Oh, you have so many different styles.”

I think, you know, it’s because my life is like that. I come from another country thirty years ago. I’m learning a lot from here, but I cannot erase the things I learned from there. They’re part of my DNA, part of my life. When I do something, it just naturally comes through in my art.

Like, I hold two majors from my art college, oil painting and Chinese traditional ink. So that’s why you can see in some of my work: (battle oh you?)water color, Chinese ink fit—they fit together. So this is my art. I pick up whatever is easy to me, just for my heart. 

People ask me, how can I be a good artist? I think, “Follow your heart.” Because your heart is always pure, for yourself…  [turns to Richard] So what was your question? [laughter] I don’t think I’ve answered your question. I feel like I talk too much.

Richard:  Oh, no. Not at all. [laugh]

Diane:  I hope everybody can ask some questions to John. John is amazing. I think he has so many stories. In particular, in practicing clay. You’re talking so many clay artists and we know you become a pathway buy clay from your supply [Leslie Ceramic Supply].

John:  Right.

Diane:  It’s about time I realize, “Oh, this is an artist!… and a businessman!” Also a brother—like helping people for ANYTHING, everything. So people call you a [unintelligible] [more laughter]

John:  All I really do is sell crafts and clay for people around the world. [audience laughter] Really, though. I’ve worked with artists from, gosh... Switzerland, Viet Nam, England, France, Portugal and all throughout the United States. But really, it’s like stopping a big crack.

And I get outrageous questions. Mathew Barney had a big project out of New York and this got to me through Mission Clay in Los Angeles, “Hey, can you help these guys?”

I said, “What’s the issue?” (the clay slab was fifteen feet long.) “How tall ?” (Four feet.) “How thick?”(Three inches.)

I said, “It’s too thin. You don’t have one problem, you have a lot of small problems, but they’re all solvable.” And they solved all their problems.

I think a lot of the issues we face as artists is just around confidence and delving into the unknown—whatever that might be.

If I ask, “What’s you favorite color?” I bet each one is going to have a different one. Or, “What’s the best scale?”— (to Mort Cohn in the audience) Mort will have his. So I think it’s finding that voice within you, and it takes time. There’s no clock for it. Some people find it when they’re younger. Sometimes they find it when they’re older.

I think that—as an artist,or just a person—in our society there’s pressure to finish things, and that isn’t always helpful. There might be some musician here who’s working on finishing that one concerto, but doesn’t know what that finish is. Or someone here is working on a sculpture or a painting and it looks really great, but there’s something that makes you come back to wanting “to fix it”… 

I remember asking Stephen de Staebler, “How do you know when a piece is finished?” I knew he had to have an answer. We were working on a project together that was due in a week. He thought for a minute and said, “When your hand ceases from wanting to touch the piece.”

I thought that was the perfect answer. You keep going back to it because there’s something that brings you there. You might “ruin it,” but I think that’s the value of the next stage—or starting another sculpture—you have to have the confidence.

It can be scary delving into the deep to try something new. That’s what I learned from Stephen after I helped him take down his show at the James Willis Gallery in San Francisco. I went to his studio and

noticed something, “Steve, what happened to that sculpture?”  I said, “I think I know. Its top is on that piece and the center part is on that other piece and the bottom is…” [laughs] That was done for just one gallery show. But he hadn’t been satisfied by the way one of his pieces looked and made those changes for the show. I learned a lot from that.

He took a whole finished piece, seven feet tall, and parts went into a lot of sculptures. He had the courage to do that, and I think each artist has to face that. I’ve faced it. And I’m sure Richard, with your writing, you do the same thing. How do you know when it’s right?

Richard:  Yes. Good question. On some pieces I do a lot of rewriting. When I go back two or three weeks, or a month, later, and I don’t want to change anything, then it’s done. Although, ten years later, I’ll still find things to change. [turning to Diane] I think you did a little fashion illustration, too.

Diane:  Yes. Right. After I graduate from art college in China, my first job was working as art editor in an art magazine. I did some fashion things and some things, called like “artist surveys” – I did everything. After I come here I built my own artist studio, so I teach students and some interested in fashion. Some I can teach them, no problem. I do a lot of watercolor…

Richard: And your pieces over there? [pointing]

Diane:  Yeah. I don’t call them “fashion,” but they have some of that feeling. Everything reflects my life. Big ones, small ones. I have more bigger pieces in the studio.

Richard:  [to John] Big pieces. Now I wanted to pursue that—the big piece you made that took ten years. Now you have a brother, older brother?

John:  Twin.

Richard:  …a twin brother who’s a physicist and your sister is doctorate in.. [mathematics, education]. You have quite a family—high level, successful. And you were also very interested in athletics, in running, and you’re working in clay.

So, as I was mentioning earlier, it’s taken a long time for it to sink in just how much work and persistence it must have taken you to make that first huge piece. What I’m trying to get at is, what do you think? I’ve heard you say that you wanted to make something you’d never seen before. The extraordinary drive that moved you to complete that ten year project just stands out to me as being really remarkable. There’s probably no other piece in the world—hand-made, at least by modern man—to compare with that.

John: Yes.

Richard:  So when I first got to know you behind the counter at Leslie Ceramics, I’d just finished the issue centered on Viola Frey (#4 in 2001). I rember talking with you and starting to learn that basically you were doing five careers at once: ceramics professor at CCA, having your own manufacturing firm in Los Angeles, making all your glazes at Leslie’s, writing this successful book – and I’m forgetting something..

Audience:  Making art in his art studio. [laughter]

Richard:  That’s it! [laughs] I think I asked you, “John, are you a Zen master?” [audience laughter] I don’t know if you remember that.

John:  I remember that. I remember who I was talking with, right in the middle aisle right next to the tools. Richard had his magazine with Viola. I remember exactly where you were.

Richard:  You demurred. But now I realize you are. [laughs] But seriously, it’s youe capacity to be present and related to these forces that are calling you.

John:  Right.

Richard:  And a lot of things are calling you. Like with your helping other people… For instance, there was a young man who was shot and killed a few blocks from your studio near a small store you’d visit sometimes.

John:  Yes. It was his father’s. [to the audience] This is a story about a kid named Petie Perez. His father was my neighbor, who I really didn’t know. I’d walk down to his store and see these big pictures of his kid who got killed. And every two years, I’d say to the father, “Why don’t we do something?” “Why don’t we make a mural.”

It was too traumatizing for him. Then two years later, I’d pass him and it was the same thing. After seven years, he said, “Okay. Let’s do something.”

I called all my friends who could help. And it was pretty good, all volunteers.

Richard: There was quite a crowd at the ceremony and several speakers, including the Mayor of Richmond. [city police were on hand for crowd control.] 

John: Josh Sanchez in Berkeley did the printing (photo of Petie Perez). We made two beautiful, ceramic-clad garbage cans and placed them in front of the store where he was shot. So it was a real healing project.

I’ve done a number of projects that are with community: Richmond Art Center, Berkeley Art Center, American Museum of Ceramic Art (Pomona, CA). I helped them navigate donations. That’s one of the things that’s part of my life—helping community, work in the studio, and writing books, which happened because Charlotte Speight asked me if I would be her technical advisor. We’ve worked together now for over 25 years and have produced two books [Hands in Clay]. I think there have been five editions. And that was my morning work!—a 700-page book. I had no experience, but I co-authored these books.

I’ve learned in life that it’s really about focus, paying attention to what you’re doing at the moment. So when I’m writing a book, that’s all I’m thinking about. When I’m working in the studio, that’s all I’m thinking about. I’m really careful about how I manage my time. Otherwise, you start feeling really bad.

So if you keep a clear distinction between those things, you become a lot more efficient. And then I have time with my dear wife! (Pam Stefl) ]She’s right there! (points). [laughter, applause]

Diane:  Pam’s also an artist—we’re artists, too!

John:   I think she’s questioning the “saint part” you said, Richard. [laughs] And also, we have this great exchange as a couple. Pam is super-sensitive to life, which is so important to me. I mean, I like to look at everything we do—all of it.

And things that you do, too. Maybe tonight, think about ten things—count them on your figers: you’re a good cook, you’re an artist, a family member, right? And see how all of that meshes together, because that’s really what I believe makes up the human condition, and the individual.

I’ve spent many, many years watching [Lisa ??] navigate her life as a family person; remember, you were sculpting your daughter at the COFI Conference? [yes] Seeing that was really memorable for me. I was moderator and Lisa was there sculpting her beautiful daughter.. I thought, this is what we need. I was talking with Diane and Wanxin about their grandson. He’s really enriched their lives. It brings them great joy.

Diane:  I agree. And a lot of expression doing something through art. I’m doing right now, I was painting about childhood and the stories. And it’s come about. His face is very cute, very cute. I’m grateful.

John: Life’s really special.

Diane:  Yes. Very special. You know, John, I think people really love you. I think you’re really important for the art community. Not only for the artists, for the whole community. You do something really meaningful for society, you know. Compare you, I do so much my own thing. I’m trying to be a good person [sympathetic audience laughter] to do something like you. But it’s not like everybody have the ability to do that. You’re very special.

It’s why I talk to Richard and think that you should share your stories and your family history to people. Maybe they don’t know some detailed story about your momma, Leslie. And your art collection at the Oakland Museum..

John:   Yes. The Toki Family Collection. That entire collection, much of it, over 500 pieces, was collected through and by gifts from our friends. I helped Stephen de Staebler for over 12 years, and out of his gratitude, he gave me a number of pieces. And then my parents bought some of those pieces in the collection. And the same with Ron Nagle, and then Viola Frey.

I remember my mom bought a piece of her sculpture called Pink Lady. That was donated to the Oakland Museum. My family, without saying anything, sort of unconsciously said, “We’re never going to sell these pieces.”

We didn’t buy, or receive, these pieces to resell them for profit. So I kept that in the back of my mind and donated 177 pieces—of course, all the best pieces: Ron Nagle, Peter Voulkos, Viola Frey, Stephen de Staebler…. And there are a lot of artists who you might not know, but when the museum curator [Sue Vasy?] and I went through the collection—it took three months, there were a lot of artists who produced  beautiful pottery, which were received by the museum because they were important to the fabric of ceramics in the Bay Area. [Gary Holt ?] was in there, a great potter. Anyway, that’s how that collection happened.

Wanxin Zhang: [from audience]: Richard, I have a question for you.

Richard:  Okay.

Wanxin:  You know, your magazine works & conversations, for many years, every time I get a new issue I look at every article. Your magazine is not just cover artists. You cover all kinds of different people—writers [unintelligible]…

Diane:  Where do you find the people?

Richard:  Where? I tell people “It’s an organic thing.” There’s, let’s say, vibration I need to feel. And when I feel it, I just turn toward it like a bell in the distance. What’s over there, right? So the magazine is like having a magic vehicle. It’s like what artists can do, you get to follow these subtle, but deep, promptings. So I head in the direction of what spoke to me and, as I get closer, I’m asking, “Is this interesting?” And if nothing stops me, there I am meeting someone and talking with them. And then I can ask, “Would you be willing to have a conversation with me?”I think it’s a calling. It’s very much in line with what Diane and John have both said.

I asked Viola Frey what she said to her art students, knowing how difficult the artist’s path is—what did she tell them? And she said, “Everyone wants to be an artist, but the question is, ‘Do you need to be an artist?’” So if you’re wired in a certain way, it’s such a compelling thing, that little thing that’s recognizing something. Who knows where it comes from?

Then, if you’re lucky, and you’ve got help, and you keep doing it, then this is an act… it’s not an act of self aggrandizment, it’s just following love, really.

I’ve often thought that underneath whatever it is that draws a person into the arts, is the unconscious— or partly conscious—wish to have a real life.

Those are just words, but they’re important words. What is a real life? Most of us, most of the time, I’m not in my real life. And sometimes I wake up and I exist. I’m here. It’s unbelievable. What do you think, Wanxin?

Wanxin:  That’s amazing. I like reading the magazine articles.

Richard:  Thank you, Wanxin.

Audience: - Mark Masset? I’ve had a question I’ve wanted to ask you, John, for years. You’re one of my favorite abstract artists and one of the things I find about abstraction is that it’s a land where you have to go in with tremendous courage, and there’s no guidelines. I know you’re dealing with tremendous technical challenges and finding an acceptable expression in abstraction, and I’m wondering is there a push and pull? And how to those two deal with each other?

John:  So with the piece that Richard talked about—the big sculpture, the 24-footer—my goal was to make something I’d never seen before, and I learned how difficult that is. You finish a piece and someone says, “Yeah, I see the face.” Or, “I see the dog.” I’ve been called a fish, a whale, a bird—all kinds of things. It’s kind of neat. I say, “Well, if you see it, it must be there!” But going back to my roots as a Japanese-American, looking at those scrolls [often details found in Toki’s large sculptures] looking at those abstract [Japanese] scrolls, that really influenced me. And one of my pursuits is to make something that is brand new, and the only thing that gives away that is was made in, say, 2025, is that I signed and dated it.  My art hopefully has some kind of lasting aesthetic that’s difficult to associate with a movement or a style. That’s my tough goal. It’s not that easy because there always seems to be a connection: “Oh,  it looks like Stephen’s [de Staebler] work or Pete’s [Voulkos] work, or another artist’s work.

Same person:   How do you balance the desire to make things that are expressing a part of you and also [unintelligible]...

John:  The question is “...also a part of yourself, and a piece that is financially viable.”

Audience: (2nd person) Excuse me. Can we take a moment and acknowledge that when that question was asked we all had a moment? [general laughter]

John:   Diane, how do you answer that?

Diane:  I love your question. I think that’s practical question. Usually people are talking about, “Oh, you’re learning art; you’re an artist. Probably you’re going to be “a starving artist.” I have a friend in London and he called me and said, “I have a situation right now and I cannot promise you your (money?)…”

So you always get this message, I think, from your artist friends. Since I was born in an artists’ family—in China my momma wasn’t only an artist, she worked in a museum, so financially, it was really good for my situation. So I never think about the financial thing to pattern my art life.

For me, I think art is just totally my best friend. I didn’t do anything but making art. It’s like making myself, and it brings me great joy.

Maybe I’m smart. When I come here, I build my own artist studio. I teach a lot of students. So that income support myself a lot. But some artists, they think doing art will be about physical time. They want to be artists, but how can you? I don’t have the money, I can’t do good art. This balance is really challenging for many artists.

But as I’m getting older, I often say, “Just do whatever you want to do. Some day, somehow…”  Like my abstract work in the other room, I spent some time on something new, thinking maybe something will work.

I didn’t care so much and I hung them in my studio. And someone come to my studio, a collector and an assistant for Larry Ellison—you know, Oracle. She’s an artist-writer and she saw my work. So she showed it to Larry Ellison. She showed him like twenty artists and this big guy chooses six of my pieces, and a really big one. And I got a big check. I mean, just like that.

So I think to myself, “Oh, wow! That’s a miracle!”

I don’t want to lie to you, if you do something from your heart and work hard, some day your art will be found by somebody. I’m not trying to hurt you, but if you feel money too much, you cannot do the art.

Audience:  I’m not sure what my question is. I just really love your painting where you have two figures together, and there’s so much implied in the relationship and the contrast culturally, and between the age, the gender... And I know you said earlier, “I don’t want to talk about art, I just want to make it” ….

Diane:   That’s when I was a student. Right now try to stop me from talk. [general laughter]

Same questioner:  I’m just talking about the subject matter. I feel like there could be a lot of things implied in them and you might not want to give answers, but if you could talk a little about what some of your feelings are when you’re working on…

Diane:   This series, right?

Same questioner:   Yeah, I love this series.

Diane:   Yes. I think maybe 10 years ago, Richard interview me and we talk only about this series—the Secret Garden Series. This series coming from my museum studies. I come here and I visiting museums. I just see some face attract me, speak to me, and then make a sketch. I bring them home and hang them in my studio for awhile. Then later on, I think, “I have to put somebody next to that person.” So my imagination goes very wild. My memories, what I learned from China, my neighborhood – you know, in that region there are a lot of Russians and Russian people marry Chinese. And here, too. White guy, Chinese girl—and everything. I mean, by imagination from here and the memories, the culture, you know, I recall something. You cannot say who they are. At an opening, one lady asked me who they are.

I say, “I don’t know who they are. I made them up.” Maybe they enrich my mind. I feel them. Maybe I see some face here, maybe Chinese, maybe like Wanxin [audience laughter]. I do like that. I’m just the artist. Sorry. I’m weird. [audience laughter] Sorry, you can see some weird things there.

Audience:  That was a great line you said, “I’m just the artist.”

Diane:  You’re in my painting! Come on, baby! [laughs]

Audience: [to John] When you were talking about the ten-ton sculpture that was solid, I don’t know what stage it was at when you fired it, but did you ever get to the place when you think about chemical water?

John:  Oh, question about water and worrying about it blowing up? [yes] I did hollow them out. But they were still are four inches thick at the bottom and three inches at the top. The firings were  nine days long. The coolings were four to five days. So two weeks to finish. 

Audience:  How large was that kiln?

John:  Not that big. It was 3’ x 5’ x 6.’ The biggest chunks were 800 to 1000 pounds.

Audience:   John, do you know how long Jun Kaneko’s firings were?

John:  Oh, Jun Kaneko. Does everybody know Jun Kaneko? Oh, my god! Thirty-day firing. And he was telling me he dries them for 18 months. He’s just your extreme and we love him.

Audience:   John, did that big piece that took ten years, did that end up some place where we can see it now?

John:  That big sculpture right now is at Cal Shakes just outside of Orinda, but I’m going to take it down. My goal is to get it to a museum. I talked to a museum. But it takes forever to get there. I’ve been waiting six years. It takes a long time in the museum world to get there. But there’s a process. That’s always been my goal.

Audience: [Inaudible]

John:   And to your question, what did you mean? [inaudible] Okay. About pricing your work and selling your work—Well, I make stuff that nobody wants. I talk to my wife, Pam, and she says, “What are you going to do with that big piece?” [audience laughter] and I say, “That’s a really good question.” I’ve gone that route where my work is the vision that I see and I’m following it. [emphatic] And I’ve stayed the course. So I’ve been making these large pieces: 20’ 24’.. The small ones are like 13’. But these take five years to build.

That has been my… we’re talking about the heart. I’m following my heart. That’s why I have five jobs, Richard. [general laughter]

Pam Stefl Toki:  That’s why I have to work. [more laughter]

John:  That’s really, truly… Book writing was providing some income. And then, I ran a machine manufacturing in Los Angeles for five years. I ran Leslie Ceramics with my family on a monthly basis. I sell my artwork. I was teaching at the California College of Arts and Crafts. I was a faculty member there. So I was juggling five jobs. I was so busy. The one thing I never did was complain. That was how I was navigating my life, and I loved every moment of it.

Audience:  I want to a sewer pipe manufacturing facility where I was taking a workshop with my sister Joyce Biven? Bidden? and I met you there.

John:  Oh, that was Niles in Fremont? Does everyone know Mission Clay Art and Industry Pipes? They’re still going.

Same person:  I just remember you creating these huge slabs and using pounds of cobalt blue.

John:  I had a disaster. She’s talking about Fremont. I was invited as an artist. I think de Staebler was there, John Veiss? Jun Kaneko…  I made a piece that was ten feet tall in one hour. I figured, “Well, I’m here. I might as well go for it.” Wow. That was a good and bad idea. I remember, I said, “Just to be careful, let’s move this first row back.” You know, when you first hit the clay and it’s real soft. This was 1500 pounds. It came smashing down [audience “ohhhhhh”] and landed on the ladder.

So my advice is you’ve got to take some chances. Just don’t get anyone hurt. And you learn a lot. And somebody said, from that demonstration, she said to me, “You know, it was so great to see how you got out of it!” She said she’d never witnessed anyone going through.. “Yeah, I know, you mean, a disaster?”

So I cut all the pieces up and it turned into another sculpture. And unless you go for it,  you’ll never learn about adversity and about how much courage you have. I mean, it was like… there were a lot of people watching me do this. And I’d been called an “expert.” [laughter] Then that happened. I said, “That’s how you turn ten-foot, vertical sculpture into a four-foot floor sculpture.” [laughter]

I think the main thing that I’d like to finish with is that you really have to grasp the joy, as a maker.

Richard:   I hope we see more of your work, Diane. Are you encouraged by this?

Diane:  Yes. I think so.

John:  Diane, I already talked with Brian Dansell at Mission Clay. I said, “I think Diane might be pretty good with a brush on that pipe.

Diane:  Yeah. Maybe I’ll do that some day. Why not?

John:  Lisa’s been there. [points] You’ve been there. Pam’s been there. Anybody else been in their art and industry program?

Diane:  Are you still making Toki clay?

John: Toki clay?

Diane:  The kind when you make the big pieces.

John:  I used to make clay. I designed over 18 clay bodies. And now you can get some of those clays through Laguna Clay. I gave them some of my formulas. I think Wanxin was using some of it.

Diane:  You make clay. You’re a businessman.  You’re helping our community doing our work. You’re amazing John! [general applause]

Jeffrey Tover: Are there any more questions for the artists?

Yigling:  This is a tricky question. If you have your own job – this is heartbreaking -  sometimes you have no choice to become an artist, but becoming is an artist is your  choice. I mean, this hard decision. So what’s the most important reason for you?

Diane:   Okay. I don’t think we choose the art. Art chooses us. I think that’s why don’t like to talk about art so much. They’re always making art. But your question is like “How can be artist?”

Yingling:   No. What’s the… because especially when you become an artist, you’re trying to find out about the ideas, like observing the environment and sometimes it’s exhausting to be an artist if you don’t have your audience with you. It uses too much of us. Maybe that’s why people give up on being an artist.

Diane:  Okay. Sometimes I also am thinking about art is my best friend. I cannot say goodbye to my best friend. I think art is the honest thing. It’s a very special thing. We got it from God. Art is in our DNA. That’s why I think everybody should be an artist. Everybody can do some art. Don’t think too much about financial things. Just do some art. Then maybe you’re using some other ability for making money to support art. That’s smart. But if you cannot do that and think, “Oh, I need to make art. Why no audience like my art. Nobody buy my art. So you don’t do art. I mean, that art does not belong to you. I think art is really from… It has a deeper connection with your life. If you don’t have that deeper connection, don’t be artist. Do something else. There are so many other things to do. That’s what I think. Especially for a young girl like you.

John:  Richard, how do you answer that question?

Richard:  Well, I resonate with what you’re saying, Diane. And I’m fortunate because something – it must be something I inherited - has made it possible not to give up on this magazine even though there aren’t many subscribers. I’ve been lucky, too, because good things have come my way. The website has had millions of views, so I know I’m doing good stuff. For me, each issue is art, even though it looks like “a magazine”…and when it’s been hard times, somehow I’ve been able to keep going. 

And what you say, Diane..  life is full, it can be full. I don’t have to be making the magazine to walk down the street and have an amazing encounter with a stranger. And maybe eventually that might go into the magazine. I mean, life is the thing, really—and a creative response to life. If I can find a way to be open and join life, life begins to feed one. I mean, there’s hard stuff, good stuff. It’s a good question.

John:  Well, first of all, Yingling was my book intern for two and a half years. What she has is great fortitude; she’s a hard worker—that says a lot—but I think I’d answer the question about how to keep going this way: surround yourself with people who love you and who support you and tell you your work is beautiful! [general laughter] 

Audience:  This question is for you and Richard, John, because you mentioned your writing. Can you speak of the compositional choices you make in writing in order to make something presentable and digestible, for instance [to Richard] you can write a 10,000 word essay and who’s going to read it? Or you can make a 24’ single piece, but you can’t transport it, or you can break it into parts and make that part of your composition. So can you tell as about taking into account the practicality of your piece whether it be writing or abstract ceramics?

John:  There are two questions. One is about writing and one is about sculpture. So this is what I learned about large scale sculpture. You need to pay attention to the concept; in my case, it’s the shape. When you get to fifteen or twenty feet, you have to maintain the big picture without forgetting that it’s the little details that make it. And I’m a perfectionist at the details, but on a piece that’s twenty feet I can’t be so nitpicking about them. But I like them both. I really pay a lot of attention to how it  looks, like with that little piece just around the corner.

One of my class projects when I was teaching at CCAC was “make a piece that’s worthy of a museum.” I wanted the students to step up the quality of their work, and that changes everything if you know your work is going to go to a museum.

So I pay a lot of attention to the details, even if it’s a big piece.  Those things bother me. I look at the spalling on a big piece—okay, it wasn’t intentional, but it’s there. Am I going to leave it or fix it? So it’s a struggle that I have. With the book writing… I became a text book writer with no experience. I was a solid “C” English student in college. But I was a really good C student. But what I had that I didn’t know I had was the determination to hang in there.

So I worked with Charlotte Speight for forty-five years. We were the perfect team. I knew the subject, but she was the writer. Now I don’t have her, so I have to rely on Yingling and three other editors to get through a 700 page manuscript. The editing process is – before a single line gets published, it has gone through 20 edits. 

Same questioner:  What I was kind of getting at is do you get a similar from when you’re writing from when you decide that your sculpture is finished?

John:  Yes. And they always take too long. The last publisher I was working with said, “You need to cut 100,000 words.” I cut seven chapters. So what I learned about sculpting and book writing on a 700-page book is really about the same thing. They all have to be telling a story. And there’s a beginning, a middle and an end.

That has helped me be a text book writer without having any experience. So if I can do it, anybody can do it. Two hours in the morning, two in the evening, seven days a week. In two and a half years with Yingling we did thousands of tests. We’d get some things right, and a lot of times we —remember Yingling? We couldn’t get that clear glaze from being foggy? [Yingling laughs] Anyway.  Thank you all.

[general applause]