Black Mountain College

Yeah.

So just to say learning through doing also comes from Dewey and the Black Mountain College approach to experimental pedagogy.

We had no business experience.

[laughs]

Found out that no one ever printed with clay.

Found out that Black Mountain College in North Carolina were experimenting with that.

Found out that Paul Gauguin was played with that idea.

A couple artists were actually grinding up pastel.

But, you know, Volkis has already developed a reputation at this point.

And so by the time 1953 rolls around, he's invited to the famous Black Mountain College in North Carolina by resident potters Karen Carnes and David Weinrib, both really incredible potters themselves.

And maybe tell us a little bit about Black Mountain, Paul.

Yeah, Black Mountain College.

I mean, I think that if we did a list of the top 10 art schools of the 20th century, I We go around, obviously Bauhaus and so forth, the very famous one.

Black Mountain College would be one of those colleges.

Famous for its experimental approach to everything early on.

The radical musician John Cage was there and teaching there.

This is how she got into drawing and making art.

And then she joined the Black Mountain College group and she developed these ideas of the role that artists can play in the educational system.

And she was very clear about the fact that mothers can be working artists too, which was at that time not at all an established idea.

And this is also something I had to grow into, like even working in the art world for a long time.