This is What You Were Born For (After Goya)
Richard Notkin
Vaughn, Washington
This is What You Were Born For (After Goya), 2006
Terracotta
We have stumbled into the 21st Century with the advanced technologies of Star Wars and the emotional maturity of cavemen. If we can’t find more creative solutions to solving worldwide social and political problems than sending young men and women to shred and incinerate one another’s flesh with weapons of ever-increasing efficiency, we will not survive to celebrate the passage into the 22nd Century. We must learn that the myriad problems of human civilization and our fragile planet are far too complex to be solved by means of explosive devices.
For more than 40 years, my art has examined issues of militarism and war and the evils of nuclear weaponry. Do we really sleep more soundly at night with the knowledge that we can incinerate –many times over –the families of our supposed enemies?
Bio
Richard Notkin is a full-time studio artist who lives and works in Vaughn, Washington. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1970, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Davis in 1973. He has worked mainly in ceramics for more than four decades, averaging over one solo exhibition per year. His work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Japan. He has held visiting artist positions and conducted over 250 workshops throughout the world.