Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Clay Artist

Vince Pitelka has been a Tennessee studio clay artist for 33 years. He has been teaching ceramics since 1986, and currently holds a position at the Tennessee Technological University's Appalachian Center for Craft.

Pitelka covers his work with patterns resembling patchwork quilts, stone textures, wood grain, and other patterns. He achieves this with inlay work on handbuilt pieces, a method that dates back to the Tang Dynasty. Pitelka uses a porcelainous stoneware claybody colored with Mason stains. The colored clays are combined in complex ways to create 'loaves' with intricate patterns.

Vince Pitelka says that his "work addresses the visual and narrative power of pattern, and the dialogue between surface, form, and containment. I am interested in the way pattern and surface inform our perceptions of exterior form and interior space. I explore a wide range of vessel forms incorporating influence from architecture and industry and/or reinterpreting traditional vessel types. Of particular interest are classic utilitarian vessels in clay, tin, and copper made before and during the Industrial Revolution. The simple expectations and parameters of utility have always informed vessel design, and I find beauty in commonplace industrial vessels such as gas cans, oil dispensers, and waste receptacles".

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