“I was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and I do know from what my parents tell me that I was always interested in art, although not very good at it.” KnowsArtParentBornCitiesVery GoodKansasMissouriKansas City Author:Warren MacKenzie
“At that [childhood] time, of course, if you were involved in art, it was going to be drawing and painting, because that's the only thing that was taught in the schools.” IfsArtSchoolCoursesChildhoodTaughtPaintingInvolvedDrawingDrawing And Painting Author:Warren MacKenzie
“I thought, oh, I'm going to be a painter. And eventually my family had moved near Chicago, and when I graduated from high school, I went to the Chicago Art Institute, and it was there that I thought, well, now I'm going to be a painter.” WellsArtSchoolHigh SchoolMy FamilyMovedPainterChicagoInstitute Author:Warren MacKenzie
“I went to the Chicago Art Institute, which was the best painting school in the area at that time. And I took painting classes - basic elementary painting classes and drawing classes of all sorts.” ArtSchoolClassPaintingAreasDrawingChicagoInstitute Author:Warren MacKenzie
“What I didn't know at the time [of my scholarship] was that the ceramic class was not really a very good class. This was many years ago and should not reflect on the conditions at the Art Institute of Chicago to this day, but we didn't know anything and we started to learn about how to work with clay.” KnowsShouldYearsArtClassConditionsYears AgoVery GoodThis DayChicagoClayScholarshipInstituteCeramics Author:Warren MacKenzie
“When we finished [training with my wife] we came to St. Paul, because St. Paul was the first place where we got a job offer and we needed some sort of a job to earn some money in order to set up our own studio. It's rather ironic that this job offer came originally through the Walker Art Center.” FirstsArtJobsOrderWifeNeededOffersTrainingStudiosMy WifeFinishedIronicWalkers Author:Warren MacKenzie
“Hilda Reiss was the head of the Everyday Art Gallery. Hilda Reiss came from Germany, had trained at the original Bauhaus in Germany, and her training inspired her to think of anything that she liked as art.” ThinkingArtTrainingOriginalsInspiredEverydayGermanyGalleryArt Galleries Author:Warren MacKenzie
“I took a number of graphic courses, lithography and etching and wood engraving [at Art Institute]. And particularly as I got more and more into ceramics, I thought, life drawing doesn't have anything to do with ceramics.” ArtCoursesNumbersWoodsDrawingGraphicInstituteThoughts On LifeCeramicsEtching Author:Warren MacKenzie
“I started to do silk-screen in the early days of my painting training, due to a woman who taught art history at the institute, Kathleen Blackshear. She was interested in silk screen and taught a class that I took.” ArtClassTaughtPaintingTrainingDuesScreensInstituteSilkArt History Author:Warren MacKenzie
“Chicago is a wonderful area because it's blessed with a tremendous number of museums of various sorts, not only the Art Institute of Chicago but the Field Museum of Natural History, the Oriental Museum on the south side.” ArtSidesNaturalNumbersWonderfulFieldsAreasBlessedSouthVariousMuseumsChicagoInstituteNatural HistoryMuseum Of Natural History Author:Warren MacKenzie
“Our main inspiration [with Alix MacKenzie], I think, came from the Field Museum of Natural History, because they had pieces which were selected not for art content but for their relationship to the anthropological history of mankind.” ThinkingArtInspirationNaturalPiecesMankindFieldsMuseumsSelectedNatural HistoryMuseum Of Natural History Author:Warren MacKenzie
“The two teachers that I had in the Art Institute who affected me the most were Kathleen Blackshear and Robert von Neumann; Kathleen Blackshear because she taught a class called design - I can't remember, design something, and in this class - it met once a week - we would do work centered around some theme, word or subject or technique or whatever, and bring it in for a three-hour discussion. And Kathleen was able, in watching and looking at our work, to direct us to all kinds of things which might relate to what we were trying to do, but she never attempted to tell us what to do.” TryingKindArtI CanTwoMightAbleRememberThreeHoursClassTeacherWeekSubjectsDesignTaughtMetsDirectTechniqueAll KindsRelateDiscussionThemeAffectedInstituteVon Neumann Author:Warren MacKenzie
“When I was in school in the Art Institute, we had several problems during the course of the time we were taking ceramic classes where we had to do a sculptural piece. And when I say a sculptural piece, it's nothing like what we conceive of now as a sculptural piece.” ArtProblemSchoolCoursesClassPiecesInstituteCeramics Author:Warren MacKenzie