KATZ
A common question is how I came up with the idea for an organ attached to a series 60 gas jets. Given the circumstances the thought had to occur. It was the chance finding of appropriate solenoid valves that brought me to pursue the idea.
My father, a pharmacist, played clarinet, recorder, and dabbled on keyboard instruments. When I was a child he bagan repairing old reed organs in the basemnet as a hobby. Uncle Bernie, a professional pianist, bought a harpsichord kit, quickly discovered that he didn't have the skill or patience to build it. He gave it to my father. This began a series of about 10 keyboard instruments that my father built, mostly from scratch.
My bother Ralph is a klezmer clarinetist, and I grew up with violin lessons and in choirs. Unitl I discovered that I hated group rehearsals I thought I would be a choir director or music teacher. I taught myself to play our WWII vintage portable reed organ (manufactured in the US transported to Europe and then returned to the U.S. ). I soon was practicing ragtime on a piano, playing classical music on harpsichords, and taking piano lessons. By eleventh grade, I had pretty much given up on piano lessons, but they were kitty-corner from the Detroit public library where I would go to check out Ceramics Books.
I have an engineering bend to me. I fix things. I often feel more at home in science museums than art museums.
So about two years ago a colleague from the music program here at the Island University asked if I wanted an old pipe organ, and said I could probably have it for free. " A church is getting rid of it and is going to have to pay a lot of money to have it removed" he said. I wasn't sure, but I am a dumpster diver at heart, and a pipe organ with 120 year old pipes was tempting. I went to see it. After seeing it thought of throwing the organ away became repulsive. I got it not knowing what I would do with it.
A few months later Josh DeWeese, the resident director of the Archie Bray Foundation asked if I could build one of my "kilns as art" for the Bray's fiftieth anniversary Celebration. I had been thinking of moving towards more complex kiln structures with multiple chimneys and the thought of combining it with the organ seemed a natural, one flame for each note on the keyboard. The only feasible way I could come up with was with solenoid valves for gas jets. At a hundred bucks a pop these were out of my price range. A few days later I was looking through a C&H Sales catalog, they sell surplus, and ran into propane solenoid valves that ran on 12V D.C.. The pipe organ controls ran on 15V D.C. so I thought I should buy them. Rather than gamble that the price would go up or they would disappear I bought 61(five octaves) of them for 11$ and change each.
I have long been interested in a simple question, " what is studio ceramics". A part of the question is "what dfferentiates it from painting." I have explored the question through my work, often pushing the edges trying to find where an object ceases to be "Ceramics" and ventures into other realms. I see it as a separate paradigm from painting. It is not really a matter of medium. I have painted functional paintings, signs offering ceramic objects for sale. I have painted on textured plaster images of kilns. I have made paintings of kiln safety systems. Although not the first, I have made brick, refired underfired historic brick, and made kilns as ceramic art. I display glaze tests.
Five Octaves, my pipe organ flambe' piece takes a foot and firmly places it outside ceramics. Sure it is tied to ceramic history, fire, and yes, kilns. It also deals with music, and performance. But if I were not performing for ceramists I would simplify the apparatus and use pilots rather than a kiln to ignite my 61 gas jets. It is the audience that most strongly ties the work to the greater clay medium. Audience is the most under appreciated part of the art world.
Louis