Artist strives to show
world something different
By SARA ANSPACH
She makes a careful hypothesis,
designs an experiment, scrutinizes her'
data and sometimes reaches a brilliant
conclusion. Janka McClatchey couldbe
considered a scientist.
She is also a chemist. The rows and
rows of dust-covered bottles lining the
shelves of her studio contain chemicals
she mixes and matches to create unique
glazes.
'The function of an artist is to show
you something you haven't seen
before.' -Janka McClatchey,
Ann Arbor Street Art
Fair exhibitor
McClatchey is a master craf-
tswoman, too. Her steady, clay-stained
hands can shape a bowl on the potter's
wheel in the time it takes most people to
thread a needle.
"The function of an artist," explains
McClatchey as she plops a lump of clay
on the wheel, "is to show you something
you haven't seen before."
The most fitting description of Mc-
Clatchey, then, is "artist"-by her own
definition. At the Ann Arbor Street Art
Fair McClatchey hopes to show the
wandering crowds something a little
different from the other artists. She will
be demonstrating porcelain slip-
casting, a technique in which porcelain
slip is poured, allowed to harden,:and
then lifted and shaped to create in-
tricate forms.
In her booth McClatchey will sell
stoneware, earthenware and porcelain
pieces. Most are one-of-a kind pieces
made with McClatchey's "trying for
something different" techniques.
"I am fascinated with glazes," said
the soft-spoken woman as she showed
how she mixed molecular formulas to
make original glazes. She experiments
with gold and persian lusters which
give her work a metalic quality. These
works appear irridescent when held in
the sfinlight.
Patterns, such as the inside of seed
pods, green peppers and walnuts, in
nature provide inspiration for McClat-
chey's sculptures. Looking to the
natural world for ideas lends an
"organic sense" to some of her pieces,
she said. For example, one of the works
she'll be showing at the art fair is a
distorted sphere of porcelain, with a slit
into the top. Peering inside, an observer
sees miniature coral like flowers
"growing" toward the opening.
"It's like an unreal world," said Mc-
Claltchey. Sometimes her work "looks
like it evolved somewhere else," she
said.
Slip cast porcelain sculptural forms,
like those McClatchey is exhibiting in
the fair, often have this eerie "other
world" effect. She creates this by jux-
Doily Photo by LISA KLAUSNER
ANN ARBOR Street Fair exhibitor Janka McClatchey enjoys the peaceful
view from the window of her studio as she fashions a bowl from fresh clay.
taposing thick and thin forms of tran- new idea she is testing. Sometimes
slucent porcelain together into a fragile these experiments are lost, but often
network in her sculptures. she is surprised at the results which
McClatchey has tried glazing her come out of the kiln.
porcelain pieces with a high tem- McClatchey, who exhibits her work in
perature technique called Raku. galleries and in two other shows says
Striving for something different, the ar- the Art Fair audience can give her
tist says she has had several successes renewed faith in her work. "You're
even though it is "theoretically im- dealing with people who see something
possible" for a thin substance like por- of what you saw in your work," she
celain to survive the quick firing and said.
high temperatures of Raku. "An artist can't work in a vacuum,"
McClatchey says almost every set of she added. "Audience reaction is so
pieces she puts in the kiln contains a important."
'U' STAFFER SHOOTS WITH 19-YEAR-OLD CAMERA:
Travel scenery fills photog's gallery
By MARJORIE BOHN
Armed with the camera he bought
as a high school graduation gift for
himself 19 years ago, Walter Pinkus
travels around the country snapping
pictures of cross-continental scenery
while on vacation.
When he returns to Ann Arbor and
his job as an electronic equipment
designer for the University Space
Research Program, the photographer
develops, mounts and frames his pic-
tures in preparation for the 18 art fairs
he exhibits at annually.
Photographs of mountains, beaches
and other scenes line Pinkus' booth on
East University during this summer's
art fair. "The best sellers tend to be
scenery shots with a graphic impact,"
he said. "Pictures that draw a person
into it."
He noted that pictures of children do
not sell well. "People don't buy cute
pictures with kids in them," he said.
"They take a good look at them, then
take their kids out and take their own
picture."
Photography has been almost a
lifelong hobby for Pinkus. "I received a
little box camera when I was about six.
Ever' since then I've enjoyed
photography," he said. '
His 'hobby' turned into a lucrative
project when Pinkus began exhibiting
in the art fair. "I started in the Ann Ar-
bor Fair by adding four of my pictures
to another guy's booth," said Pinkus.
"One of them sold and I got myself a
booth the next year." He then joined the
Doly Photo by LISA KLAUSI4ER University Artist and Craftsmen Guild
Pinkus to guarantee he would have a spot in
each year's fair.
.WhenWhe-patiipates an -fairs-
Michigan, _Wisconsin and Canada,
Pinkus earns an average of $12.00 on
each sale. The prints in his booth on
East University will be selling for
Iprices ranging from $4.50 to $42 during
the next four days.
Working in the fairs has fascinated
him. "Half the fun of selling at the fairs
is watching the people and listening to
their comments," he said. "The only
real problem is a heavy wind or rain."
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