“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
“We moved up here [to St.Paul with my wife] and started to teach, we very quickly found out we were not equipped either to teach or to run our own pottery, and so we decided that we had to have further training.” RunningFoundTeachWifeTrainingDecidedMovedMy WifePottery Author:Warren MacKenzie
“In searching for further training we turned to England and Bernard Leach. We thought since we had responded to his book so strongly that this would be the sort of training that we would like to have. We saved money, during the summer went to Europe, and the first stop was to go to England, visit the Leach Pottery and ask Leach if he would take us on as apprentices.” IfsFirstsBookWould BeAsksSummerTrainingEuropeEnglandSavedApprenticePottery 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
“I got drafted into the army and by pure chance was pushed into a silk-screen shop at this camp where I was, because they could not get training posters fast enough out of a central source in Washington, D.C. So they set up their own shop to print training posters: how to dismantle a machine gun, etc.” EnoughChanceSourcePureTrainingGunMachinesArmyScreensShopsEtcPrintCampsSilkPostersMachine Guns Author:Warren MacKenzie
“We [with Alix MacKenzie] had decided we needed further training, and certainly Leach was the one we turned to. So we went to England this summer and we took examples of our work along with us and showed them to Bernard Leach and told him what we were trying to do. And of course he took one look at our work and he said - very quickly he said, "I'm sorry, we're full up," and this was his way of politely saying, you just don't make the cut.” WayTryingLooksSaidCoursesCuttingExampleNeededSummerTrainingDecidedEnglandSorryI'm Sorry Author:Warren MacKenzie
“I do remember that when we left [Bernard Leach] after two and a half years, we went home on a boat again - this was before air travel became really easy - and Alix [MacKenzie] turned to me and she said, "You know, that was a great two years of training, but that's not the way we're going to run our pottery."” KnowsWayYearsSaidTwoHomeRunningRememberLeftEasyHalfAirTrainingBoatTwo YearsPotteryHalf A YearAir Travel Author:Warren MacKenzie
“In school we did all sorts of things, molds, slab building. We were not very proficient on the wheel because the woman who taught was not proficient on the wheel. And so we learned from her assistant who had learned from her assistant the year before and so on, and that was not very good training.” YearsSchoolBuildingTaughtTrainingVery GoodWheelsMoldAssistantsSlabs Author:Warren MacKenzie