Arts Week

Paul Wisotzky

He is himself a potter, but Paul Wisotzky doesn’t talk much about his own art. Instead, it’s the work of the other artists at his gallery—the Blue Gallery on Commercial Street in Provincetown—that captivates him. And it’s easy to see why.

I started Blue Gallery as a way to bring a varied, unique and affordable portfolio of fine craft to the Outer Cape. The area has a rich and diverse arts community but is strangely lacking in venues for fine craft artists and makers to display and sell their work. I hope that Blue Gallery can help to fill this void.

We live in a world of mass production where little is known about the making of most of the objects in our every day life. Yet there is a rich and vibrant community of craft artists still creating, making and building on the history of American craft. I see Blue Gallery as a small window into that world and an opportunity for all of us to celebrate this diverse and talented community of artists, their creativity and the handmade.

I believe we need to bring the ethos of the eat local movement to the world of everyday useful objects. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we knew the name and a little bit of the story of the artists who make the items we use every day – the jewelry around our neck, the wallet in our pocket or the mug we drink our coffee from each morning. Even better what if the makers of these items lived in your community! Wherever you live, these artists and makers exist. I encourage you to seek them out and support them.

Blue Gallery hopes to play a small role in keeping the tradition of American craft and the process of making alive and well.

But to my mind the real feature of the gallery is Wisotzky’s own work. He is a master potter and an intrinsic light shines from his pieces.

He works out of a Truro studio called Blueberry Lane Pottery—after the little dirt road where he lives and makes his pots.

Paul is a studio potter, teacher as well as a gallery owner who fires his functional stoneware and porcelain pottery in soda and reduction kilns to cone 10.

He currently teaches at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill and has served as a studio/technical assistant at the Penland School of Crafts and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Paul also makes and teaches brush making working with a variety of animal hairs and bamboo as the primary materials.  Recently he has taken up book folding.

Paul sees his pottery as a collaboration between his mind and hands, the clay and glazes, and the fires of the kiln. He’s my guest on Arts Week on Thursday, May 28th; I hope you’ll listen it to the show or the podcast here on womr.org.