Throughout our working together I was constantly amazed by the depth and intensity of the intellectual commitment he put into each piece despite all the social activities and business decisions that were invariably going on everyday. Over this entire period he never gave up on or fell short of any piece he made. His production over the last three years of his life was nothing short of phenomenal. In addition to the pieces that I helped him with, he was making at least one or more stacks a year with Peter Callas in New Jersey; and he also made several other works with the assistance of Conrad Snyder at Anderson Ranch and Sam Harvey at Alfred. The energy and stamina he put into his work over this period of time was prodigious ­ his mind and body were active.

In Voulkos' mind, the piece he was working on at the time was the most important he had ever made ­ and I believed him. He was operating on a level of maturity in his art that comes from a life well lived, from a person who is in touch with the world. A trait of most artists is an ability to observe what is around them, and in this Voulkos was no exception. However, he always went a step further: he engaged life, he lit up a room, literally and figuratively. He radiated warmth to anyone that was sincere, engaging everyone and everything that came across his bow.

Voulkos was aware of his stature as an artist; he knew that he possessed a kind of gravity that pulled people toward him. For his long-time friend Rudy Autio, it was a 50-year journey. For Jun Kaneko, it started 38 years ago with Kaneko's arrival to the US. For me it has been 18 years. For my students it was his last visit to Bowling Green, and for the waitress we met at Christmas it was only that one time, at dinner. You could not resist him.

John Cage wrote Ten Rules and Hints for Students and Teachers and Anybody Else. Voulkos taught me the last two rules himself: Number 9 ­ Be happy whenever you can manage it; enjoy yourself, it is later than you think. Number 10 ­ We are breaking all the rules, even our own rules, and how do we do that? By leaving room for 'X' qualities. He had a sense of the nature of things beyond himself and let it come into the work. He absorbed all of life's moments, from the profound to the absurd. He lived with it, digested it and then let it out in his work. I was always searching for his secret, to see if there was some kind of trick to it, but there wasn't. It was brilliance, unabashed and rock solid.

John Balistreri is a ceramic artist and professor at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA. Peter Voulkos died on 16 February, 2002. Portrait of Peter Voulkos on the title page is by Bowling Green student David Emitt Adams.

Reprinted by permission Ceramics Art & Perception.

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