The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
At the age of six, I attended a performance by the great Flamenco guitarist Carlos Montoya. Pushing my way through the crowd at the state capitol, I peered down to the circular space below me, to behold the artist. As he leaned toward his instrument,
his delicate, fiery, and thunderous strumming penetrated the enormous expanse. Awestruck, I was transported to a place vast, dramatic, and soulful. A lifetime ago, I have struggled since to comprehend my first experience of profound beauty. Then,
several years ago, I came upon the wheel-thrown and sculptural porcelain works of Charlie Olson for the first time. As I stood before his work, the exquisite beauty of his quiet forms cloaked in mystifying ethereal glazes turned my world upside down.
Shaken to my core, I knew that I was in for another grand, expansive ride.
Education and Early Sources of Inspiration
Charlie Olson grew up in rural Minnesota. His love of clay and wheel throwing ignited in high school. In 1969, he enrolled at Mankato State University, where he fell in love with glaze chemistry, learned mold making, and advanced in his wheel-throwing
skills under the mentorship of his teacher, William E. Artis. Olson discovered what became a lifelong preference for velvety white porcelain, the perfect receptacle for his broadening fascination with glaze, surface, and color experimentation.
During his formative years, Olson discovered several potters whose work deeply resonated with his awakening sensibilities. He became enthralled with the pottery of Gertrud and Otto Natzler, who together created otherworldly molten crater glazes to complement
delicate, simple wheel-thrown forms. Olson was also drawn to the work of Rose Cabat, who threw contemplative globular shapes, for which she and her husband Erni developed a palette of sensual, tactile, hypnotic glazes. These artists, like Charlie
Olson today, challenged the border between traditional craft and fine art, and pursued in their work a kind of simplicity and perfection of form, ethereal energy, and haunting beauty.
Olson also internalized the enigmatic explorations of Joseph Cornell, who conjured up intimate, dreamlike assemblages. Combining an austere aesthetic with fantasy, Cornell created a poetic language employing meticulous placement of found materials, fragments
of photographs, once precious objects, and bric-a-brac inside glass-fronted wooden boxes. By bypassing storytelling altogether to plumb deep psychological states, Cornell’s work expresses a quiet longing for connection and the loneliness of
containment. A delicate thread can be traced here to Olson’s assemblages and his most achingly beautiful pottery, yet to come.
Olson moved to Boulder, Colorado, to pursue an MFA in 1973, where he turned his focus to sculptural work. Like the Bay Area artists who were rediscovering the use of molds and slip casting, Olson explored cast forms with matte, sprayed-on coarse glazes
that incorporated Mason stains to achieve highly unusual colors and textured surfaces. Making his own “found objects” in porcelain, he created molds and slip casted the parts. After firing them in oxidation, Olson explored spatial relationships
as he moved his found objects around on a horizontal plane, piecing them together with adhesive to form his first assemblages.
Second Career After Retirement
In 1977, Olson was hired to teach in the ceramics department at the University of Wisconsin in Whitewater, where he remained until his retirement in 2012. During his tenure, he continued to create sculptural work using the approach he had devised in his
earlier years, made and exhibited pottery, and was widely collected around the world.
Transitioning from his teaching position to embracing life as a full-time artist, Olson set up his studio in his 2½-car garage. He made the decision to commit himself anew to wheel throwing, and switched over to electric firing. In preparation
for this new chapter, he conducted over 1000 glaze tests, eventually focusing on 26, providing a varied palette of extraordinary glazes for his new porcelain creations.
In his studio practice, Olson treats each piece entering the kiln as a grand experiment, ever improvising, overlapping glazes and carefully recording his choices with sketches and note taking, so that he might learn from each adventure. Based on decades
of testing and coaxing from his materials, he aims to build upon earlier feats, while simultaneously remaining open to extraordinary, unexpected flukes. To achieve his signature glazes, he fires his pieces to cone 10, with the cooling cycle controlled
over about a six-hour period, ending up at approximately 1700°F (927°C). At this point, the kiln is turned off and allowed to cool naturally. The controlled cooling cycle has a tendency to inspire microcrystalline growth and rich surfaces
in many of his glazes.
Aesthetic Focus
In recent years, Olson has focused on creating work for solo and group exhibitions at Abel Contemporary Gallery in Stoughton, Wisconsin, close to his home and studio, as well as participating in local pottery events. In general, his work reveals a stunning
mastery of his medium. The intense control Olson exerts in his rigorous studio practices results not in squeezing the lifeblood from his work, but rather, in opening his interactions with his medium to experimentation and intuitive play. A consummate
artist, Olson somehow infuses energy, warmth, and calm into the core of his creations. When studied closely, these subtle qualities seem to quietly emanate from his pieces.
In his explorations, Olson consistently walks a fine line between restraint and daring, gravitas and playfulness, comforting rationality and upending mystery. Like a high-wire artist, Olson’s balancing act results in a delicate yet palpable tension
that animates his work. He employs unexpected, subtle juxtapositions of color, proportions, and contours to keep the viewer ever so slightly off balance and questioning, while offering delicious concoctions of color and surface.
As a mature, highly sensitive, and curious artist, widely traveled and immersed in the study of world art and life, it is impossible to simplify the inspirational sources of Olson’s mysterious aesthetic. Other than the earliest sources of inspiration
that set his artistry aflame, already mentioned, Olson wisely avoids attempts to further dissect, pinpoint, and pigeonhole. However, in dialog with him, his fondness for a book he discovered as a youth, as well as his attraction to the masters of
20th-century abstraction and expressionism, emerge as integral factors in understanding Olson’s aesthetic.
As a young man searching, Olson discovered the 1946 Yogic literary classic Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramhansa Yogananda. The book, like Olson’s inviting works, is written in a tone that is both earnest and tender. The reader gladly
accompanies Yogananda through stories of ever-expansive life experiences and mind-bending miracles, insights into what lies beyond the veil. Part mystical, part scientific, the book offers profound glimpses into the unknown, into the divine. Like
this book, viewers are inextricably drawn toward the gentle beauty of Olson’s forms and his hypnotic surfaces, many suggestive of the vast skies above and the mysterious unknown.
Olson has expressed admiration for the work of Piet Mondrian, the master of simplification, who pared down his compositions to the bare bones. Likewise, Olson chooses to distill his forms to a state of quiet simplicity, to provide an uninterrupted canvas
for his astonishing glazes. Similar to Paul Klee’s more abstract work, Olson employs expressive passages of color, texture, and shape to weave his magic. Like Klee’s playful paintings, tender intimacy, sly humor, and surprising illogic
co-mingle and come alive in Olson’s work. In his hands, a jaunty, angular lid reminiscent of a hat with a brim turned slightly upward, sits atop an elegant, curvilinear, gourd-like shape. A tea bowl, generously bulbous like a flower in emerging
bloom, is supported and elevated by an impossibly narrow, stem-like foot. A lonely, alien-like vertical shape accentuates the belly of an elegant bottle, a shape that ends with a whimpering, shimmering drip of hot blue set amidst deep, variegated
darkness.
Like a speaker whose quiet, careful delivery causes listeners to lean in and listen intently, Olson’s pared-down forms, silken surfaces, and subtle, luminous palette call out to the viewer to come close. Drawn in almost hypnotically by the comforting
glow of his gentle color palette, the seemingly casual pour of a glaze that appears to glide over and accentuate a mounding contour, we are captivated by the splendid soft halos surrounding passages of color, tiny crystals dancing along like stars
in the sky, and layering of glazes that appear to magically hover and float one over another. Like the emotive, meditative, almost vibrating color field paintings of Mark Rothko, Olson uses simple form as his canvas, applying washes of ever-so-subtle
pale blues, yellows, and pinks over a buttery cream, to draw us into his world. He is not telling us a story, but rather, drawing us into a place of profound beauty, emotion, and mysterious vastness.
the author Marlene Miller earned a BFA in ceramics and painting from Bradley University, and an MFA in ceramics from Syracuse University. Professor of art and design at Illinois Central College for 20 years, she left her position in 2000 to focus on her ceramic sculpture and wall-relief commissions. Miller has exhibited throughout the US and abroad for over 40 years. To learn more, www.millerclay.com.
We understand your email address is private. You will receive emails and newsletters from Ceramic Arts Network. We will never share your information except as outlined in our privacy policy. You can unsubscribe at any time.
You have read of of your complimentary articles for the month.
For unlimited access to Ceramics Monthly premium content, subscribe right now for as low as $4.85/month.
We understand your email address is private. You will receive emails and newsletters from Ceramic Arts Network. We will never share your information except as outlined in our privacy policy. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Subscribe to Ceramics Monthly
The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
At the age of six, I attended a performance by the great Flamenco guitarist Carlos Montoya. Pushing my way through the crowd at the state capitol, I peered down to the circular space below me, to behold the artist. As he leaned toward his instrument, his delicate, fiery, and thunderous strumming penetrated the enormous expanse. Awestruck, I was transported to a place vast, dramatic, and soulful. A lifetime ago, I have struggled since to comprehend my first experience of profound beauty. Then, several years ago, I came upon the wheel-thrown and sculptural porcelain works of Charlie Olson for the first time. As I stood before his work, the exquisite beauty of his quiet forms cloaked in mystifying ethereal glazes turned my world upside down. Shaken to my core, I knew that I was in for another grand, expansive ride.
Education and Early Sources of Inspiration
Charlie Olson grew up in rural Minnesota. His love of clay and wheel throwing ignited in high school. In 1969, he enrolled at Mankato State University, where he fell in love with glaze chemistry, learned mold making, and advanced in his wheel-throwing skills under the mentorship of his teacher, William E. Artis. Olson discovered what became a lifelong preference for velvety white porcelain, the perfect receptacle for his broadening fascination with glaze, surface, and color experimentation.
During his formative years, Olson discovered several potters whose work deeply resonated with his awakening sensibilities. He became enthralled with the pottery of Gertrud and Otto Natzler, who together created otherworldly molten crater glazes to complement delicate, simple wheel-thrown forms. Olson was also drawn to the work of Rose Cabat, who threw contemplative globular shapes, for which she and her husband Erni developed a palette of sensual, tactile, hypnotic glazes. These artists, like Charlie Olson today, challenged the border between traditional craft and fine art, and pursued in their work a kind of simplicity and perfection of form, ethereal energy, and haunting beauty.
Olson also internalized the enigmatic explorations of Joseph Cornell, who conjured up intimate, dreamlike assemblages. Combining an austere aesthetic with fantasy, Cornell created a poetic language employing meticulous placement of found materials, fragments of photographs, once precious objects, and bric-a-brac inside glass-fronted wooden boxes. By bypassing storytelling altogether to plumb deep psychological states, Cornell’s work expresses a quiet longing for connection and the loneliness of containment. A delicate thread can be traced here to Olson’s assemblages and his most achingly beautiful pottery, yet to come.
Olson moved to Boulder, Colorado, to pursue an MFA in 1973, where he turned his focus to sculptural work. Like the Bay Area artists who were rediscovering the use of molds and slip casting, Olson explored cast forms with matte, sprayed-on coarse glazes that incorporated Mason stains to achieve highly unusual colors and textured surfaces. Making his own “found objects” in porcelain, he created molds and slip casted the parts. After firing them in oxidation, Olson explored spatial relationships as he moved his found objects around on a horizontal plane, piecing them together with adhesive to form his first assemblages.
Second Career After Retirement
In 1977, Olson was hired to teach in the ceramics department at the University of Wisconsin in Whitewater, where he remained until his retirement in 2012. During his tenure, he continued to create sculptural work using the approach he had devised in his earlier years, made and exhibited pottery, and was widely collected around the world.
Transitioning from his teaching position to embracing life as a full-time artist, Olson set up his studio in his 2½-car garage. He made the decision to commit himself anew to wheel throwing, and switched over to electric firing. In preparation for this new chapter, he conducted over 1000 glaze tests, eventually focusing on 26, providing a varied palette of extraordinary glazes for his new porcelain creations.
In his studio practice, Olson treats each piece entering the kiln as a grand experiment, ever improvising, overlapping glazes and carefully recording his choices with sketches and note taking, so that he might learn from each adventure. Based on decades of testing and coaxing from his materials, he aims to build upon earlier feats, while simultaneously remaining open to extraordinary, unexpected flukes. To achieve his signature glazes, he fires his pieces to cone 10, with the cooling cycle controlled over about a six-hour period, ending up at approximately 1700°F (927°C). At this point, the kiln is turned off and allowed to cool naturally. The controlled cooling cycle has a tendency to inspire microcrystalline growth and rich surfaces in many of his glazes.
Aesthetic Focus
In recent years, Olson has focused on creating work for solo and group exhibitions at Abel Contemporary Gallery in Stoughton, Wisconsin, close to his home and studio, as well as participating in local pottery events. In general, his work reveals a stunning mastery of his medium. The intense control Olson exerts in his rigorous studio practices results not in squeezing the lifeblood from his work, but rather, in opening his interactions with his medium to experimentation and intuitive play. A consummate artist, Olson somehow infuses energy, warmth, and calm into the core of his creations. When studied closely, these subtle qualities seem to quietly emanate from his pieces.
In his explorations, Olson consistently walks a fine line between restraint and daring, gravitas and playfulness, comforting rationality and upending mystery. Like a high-wire artist, Olson’s balancing act results in a delicate yet palpable tension that animates his work. He employs unexpected, subtle juxtapositions of color, proportions, and contours to keep the viewer ever so slightly off balance and questioning, while offering delicious concoctions of color and surface.
As a mature, highly sensitive, and curious artist, widely traveled and immersed in the study of world art and life, it is impossible to simplify the inspirational sources of Olson’s mysterious aesthetic. Other than the earliest sources of inspiration that set his artistry aflame, already mentioned, Olson wisely avoids attempts to further dissect, pinpoint, and pigeonhole. However, in dialog with him, his fondness for a book he discovered as a youth, as well as his attraction to the masters of 20th-century abstraction and expressionism, emerge as integral factors in understanding Olson’s aesthetic.
As a young man searching, Olson discovered the 1946 Yogic literary classic Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramhansa Yogananda. The book, like Olson’s inviting works, is written in a tone that is both earnest and tender. The reader gladly accompanies Yogananda through stories of ever-expansive life experiences and mind-bending miracles, insights into what lies beyond the veil. Part mystical, part scientific, the book offers profound glimpses into the unknown, into the divine. Like this book, viewers are inextricably drawn toward the gentle beauty of Olson’s forms and his hypnotic surfaces, many suggestive of the vast skies above and the mysterious unknown.
Olson has expressed admiration for the work of Piet Mondrian, the master of simplification, who pared down his compositions to the bare bones. Likewise, Olson chooses to distill his forms to a state of quiet simplicity, to provide an uninterrupted canvas for his astonishing glazes. Similar to Paul Klee’s more abstract work, Olson employs expressive passages of color, texture, and shape to weave his magic. Like Klee’s playful paintings, tender intimacy, sly humor, and surprising illogic co-mingle and come alive in Olson’s work. In his hands, a jaunty, angular lid reminiscent of a hat with a brim turned slightly upward, sits atop an elegant, curvilinear, gourd-like shape. A tea bowl, generously bulbous like a flower in emerging bloom, is supported and elevated by an impossibly narrow, stem-like foot. A lonely, alien-like vertical shape accentuates the belly of an elegant bottle, a shape that ends with a whimpering, shimmering drip of hot blue set amidst deep, variegated darkness.
Like a speaker whose quiet, careful delivery causes listeners to lean in and listen intently, Olson’s pared-down forms, silken surfaces, and subtle, luminous palette call out to the viewer to come close. Drawn in almost hypnotically by the comforting glow of his gentle color palette, the seemingly casual pour of a glaze that appears to glide over and accentuate a mounding contour, we are captivated by the splendid soft halos surrounding passages of color, tiny crystals dancing along like stars in the sky, and layering of glazes that appear to magically hover and float one over another. Like the emotive, meditative, almost vibrating color field paintings of Mark Rothko, Olson uses simple form as his canvas, applying washes of ever-so-subtle pale blues, yellows, and pinks over a buttery cream, to draw us into his world. He is not telling us a story, but rather, drawing us into a place of profound beauty, emotion, and mysterious vastness.
the author Marlene Miller earned a BFA in ceramics and painting from Bradley University, and an MFA in ceramics from Syracuse University. Professor of art and design at Illinois Central College for 20 years, she left her position in 2000 to focus on her ceramic sculpture and wall-relief commissions. Miller has exhibited throughout the US and abroad for over 40 years. To learn more, www.millerclay.com.
Unfamiliar with any terms in this article? Browse our glossary of pottery terms!
Click the cover image to return to the Table of Contents