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Stan Bitters is a twenty-first - one C troglodyte . In a windowless steel edifice on an industrial strip of Fresno , California , the 76 - year - honest-to-god sculptor shapes earth , water , and flaming into primal ceramic form . It is a ritual based more on instinct than intellectual precept . “ It ’s not about guess about the Henry Clay , ” he say . “ It ’s really take in there and cook it — coquette it and beating it — until it produces some feeling of admirability , something earthy and textural . ”
A Stan Bitters piss wall in a Hollywood Hills , California , home . Photo by : Richard Powers . SEE MORE photo OF HIS oeuvre
Bitters ’ art bears the mark of his own two hand , often quite literally . “ Stan ’s oeuvre is exceptional because you could see the physical process , ” says Pamela Shamshiri , a better half at the Los Angeles plan corporate Commune who has commissioned Bitters ’ study for residential interiors , gardens , and the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs , California . “ I intend , his thumbprints are in it . ”
As a innovator of the organic modernist craft movement in the sixties , Bitters has been grow rough - hewn ceramic birdhouse , planter , pedestals , wall painting tiles , totem , boulder wall , and fountains for more than half a century . He has magnetise architect , landscapers , and gatherer from the outset but was recently name by a hip young interview . Actress Cameron Diaz has a Bitters water wall at her beach family , and Commune commission him to create a group of two - story fireplaces that are focal point at the Ace Hotel .
Bitters ’ employment is specially popular in Southern California , fitting in with homes that rank in flair from modern to Mediterranean . John Heiden , owner of the Los Angeles nontextual matter firm Smog Design , put pedestals made by Bitters onto his flag - pave patio and top them with his bonsai collection . Stephen Kaufman , a political constabulary attorney , moved a Bitters paries carving from one firm to his current residence in Los Feliz . “ We had it reconstructed as a free - standing small-arm , ” Kaufman says . “ It complement the garden , but when you look out at it from inside , it looks like an extension of the theater . ”
A ceramic tile and stucco fireplace frieze is the starkly vertical focal point of this Los Angeles garden , designed by the Commune design collective . Commune commissioned Bitters to create a wall painting that would emphasize the garden ’s high walls , which were rear to supply concealment , conceal the noise from pool auto-mechanic , and create the feeling of a sunken courtyard . “ The shell of his work is incredible , ” says Commune ’s Pamela Shamshiri . “ He has taken ceramic art and pushed it to its terminus ad quem . ” Photo by : Lisa Romerein . SEE MORE picture OF HIS workplace
landscape painting designer Matthew Brown suppose bitterness ’ work is more about a office - the mountain and desert landscapes of California - than a clip period . “ His pieces are so of nature that they fit in seamlessly in a garden , ” Brown says . “ You might not even notice his work at first , but when you do it really feels part of the out-of-door experience . ”
Bitters gain a bachelor ’s degree in painting from UCLA , but he chose a different course in 1959 when he signed on as a decorator for Hans Sumpf , at that time the creation ’s largest manufacturer of adobe brick . “ They gave me 20 lots of clay , ” he recalls , “ and asked me to give rise a sellable object . ” He made birdhouse , pots , tiles , and enormous planter for shopping shopping centre . He also explored the architectural software of his work with friezes and clay roofing tile that could be string together and used as way dividers indoors and as bombastic - scale wind bell alfresco .
Sizable commission followed , including an iconic fountain titledDancing Watersin a shopping plaza designed by landscape architect Garrett Eckbo . In 1969 , Bitters dispatch a fantastical 300 - pes - long high - backup man wall painting for the Fresno headquarters of Duncan Ceramic Arts , a producer of product for hobbyist potters . The mural boast circular medallions in fair color , elements that deliberately echoed folkloric Scandinavian and Mexican craft , the work of designer Alexander Girard , and the optimism of the hipster era .
Bamboolike totems with actual bamboo in the backcloth . Photo by : Michael Wilkinson . SEE MORE PHOTOS OF HIS WORK
Another intake , Bitters says , is “ the gestural attitude ” of abstract expressionist potter Peter Voulkos . “ He showed what could be imparted in clay , ” Bitters says . “ Having grow up in Fresno where Duncan was really the scene with its minuscule ashtray , his work was a thinker - cetacean . He wake up an energy that oblige me to do raw , organic body of work on a large scale . ”
Bitters documented his process and process in the 1976 bookEnvironmental Ceramics , which has since been reissue and serves as a schoolbook of sorts for his clients . “ There were a lot of how - to books at the time , and my quest was to enlarge the thinking and mental ability to go beyond make the small hand - held teacup , ” he explicate . “ I saw ceramic as a centerpiece - indoors or out of doors - something that live on forever and a day with grain and color that engages you visually and physically , a bearing that can be felt and touched . In contrast to pristine marble and bronze sculpture you coif away to view from a distance , my textile allow you to be involved in it . ”
With the advent of what Bitters calls “ spyglass box ” architecture in the 1980s and 1990s , the creative person felt pushed aside but continue to pursue his sculptural employment . But in the last ten , a revival of interest in post - and - ray and font study architecture as well as midcentury New interiors and gardens remind a rediscovery of Bitters ’ hand-crafted work . His vintage piece start out to fetch agiotage monetary value at Los Angeles gallery like Reform , which sold giant thumb pots ( distinguish for the textured radiation diagram imparted by bitterness ’ thumbs ) for up to $ 5,000 each .
In 2001 , artist congresswoman Scott Nadeau , owner of Ten 10 Design in Los Angeles , found a Bitters while among midcentury pottery he was grease one’s palms from an land . Intrigued by its form , he tracked Bitters down and has since place Bitters ’ work in galleries , including a current show ( through June ) at find on Melrose Avenue . He ’s also the creative person ’s rep for more than two 12 residential commissions .
“ I ’ve always been hip , ” says Bitters , laughing . “ It was just a subject of being see . I am last being recognized and people are aware that I am not dead yet . ”
Far from it . In add-on to clay , Bitters works in bronze and stainless steel and just make out his first fountain made from concrete and colored glass for a business district Los Angeles high - raise . He hopes to travel one twenty-four hour period to the Turkish archaeologic site at Göbekli Tepe to see the 12,000 - yr - old carved limestone columns recently unearthed there . “ They had just descend out of the caves , ” he say of the unknown woodcarver ’ place on the evolutionary timeline . “ I was bodge away by how much they copy what I was doing with my monoliths in the late 1960s . ”
This is humor , not hubris , bitterness - style . The sculptor , who happily calls himself an “ old hippie ” and describes events as “ happenings , ” feels a creative kinship with the first creative person . “ I suppose a cave man seat by the flack , looking at his drawing on the wall and call up about what he has done for his surround , ” he says . “ I ’m an organic human being . I sit with the caveman . It ’s where I am well-situated . ”
Check outten10site.comfor additional conception and graphics byStan Bitters . Get up close and personal with Bitters ' work at the Ace Hotel Palm Springs ( acehotel.com/palmsprings ) .
This clause appeared in the June 2012 issue as " An Artist ’s Touch . "
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