Richard is a ceramic artist based in Albuquerque. In addition to many regional and national awards, Richard’s work has been selected for inclusion in the Arnot Museum’s “Re-presenting Representation” exhibit in April, 2003.

Galleries:
A Muse Gallery; Columbus, Ohio:
Turner Carroll Gallery; Santa Fe, Nm:
Richard Garriott-Stejkal's website

My work is about the human condition. Not specific people, but a kind of general statement about the condition of human kind at the dawning of the 21st Century. I work using the human figure and head as a starting point. By putting a recognizable human form in front of the viewer to connect with my work. I juxtapose the figure with elements that may at first seem discordant in order to create metaphors that will I hope shine a glimmer of light on man's place in the world. My work can be funny, sad, scary and at times and to different people all three. I love word plays and I love visual puns. Like T.S. Elliot's "J Alfred Prufrock" I hope my work makes the viewer smile and at the same time squirm with recognition.

My first experience with clay was in Tennessee. I was in first grade and my father had been called back to active duty during the Korean War. We moved to a trailer court just outside of Fort Campbell. The ground was a lovely red clay. One day I made a whole set of clay toys and tools and left them to dry on the porch steps. While wonderfully plastic, the clay didn't hold together as it dried. I returned to find them all cracked apart. The first experiment linked forever clay and my imagination. It also made it clear that the importance is in the making not in the keeping.

I coil build almost exclusively. Coil building has a rhythm that I like. It is a very different process from throwing or from carving. I almost conceive of the form of a coil piece from the first coil. I am building a shell around an imagined structure almost like a CT Scan, layer by layer. By the time I do the belly I am aware of where the head should be. I read somewhere in a commentary that potters shouldn't try to make figures because they'll look just like sausages. But, I find that building a figure is a bit like conceiving of a glove with a hand in it. The structure, bones, and muscles all have to be imagined to be there for the form to look right.

Developing rhythm, I begin to feel as if I have become a kind of a channel for ideas. It is doing the work that seems to be the stimulation for ideas and making the connections that I probably couldn't ever make consciously. I had a painting instructor who was fond of saying "art is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration." It isn't anything terribly original, but it has taken me a fair amount of time to really know what he meant. It is that doing the work is what generates the ideas. I use to feel that the technical aspects of my work were pretty basic. That, I think, is because I have been doing it for a while. I do try to keep things simple. I use a good sculpture clay. I build the pieces over a few sittings. The surfaces are smoothed and then lightly textured. I use things like fine cloth and rubber stamps for texture. I am careful to dry pieces slowly on sheets of newsprint and under plastic. I usually spread a thin coat of placing sand or grog on the shelf under the piece for firing. It seems to help reduce cracking on larger pieces by reducing the friction caused by shrinking. I fire very slowly (bisquing with a 50 degree F rise to 200 degrees F with a four hour hold, then 85 degrees F per hour after that). I bisque at C/05 and do my final firing at C/5 (85 degrees F per hour to 2150 F with a ten minute hold). Most of my pieces are finished in an iron based stain (50%) red iron oxide and 50% Albany slip by volume) with low fire underglazes brushed on top. However, if it weren't so impractical, I'd prefer to show my work at a leather hard state. I love the low glowing sheen where no detail is covered or obscured. As I get older I look back a bit more. I can see more of a pattern to my ideas and interests. They weave through my life. The other day I reread Kafka's Metamorphoses. It was both as I remembered it and not at all the same. In some ways my new work is a reseeing of some ideas from a very formative place. I still feel a sense of wonder as each idea appears and reappears for me.