Pinnell gains inspiration from residency in Berlin
calendar icon15 Nov 2019 user iconBy Kathe C. Andersen
Lincoln, Neb.--School of Art, Art History & Design Professor of Art Peter Pinnell spent four weeks in residence this summer at the Zentrum für Keramik (The Center for Ceramics) in Berlin, Germany. His residency was supported with a grant from the Hixson-Lied Endowment.
The center is located in Pankow, part of the former East Berlin. Residents are provided with a studio space and private bedroom.
Pinnell said he took advantage of the residency’s proximity to the many museums in Berlin.
“What I wanted to do is take advantage of all the amazing museums in Berlin, so it was really about gathering a visual vocabulary,” Pinnell said.
He purchased a museum pass and a public transportation pass so he could travel freely to museums in the area throughout his residency.
“I went to a museum almost every day I was there,” he said. “I could go for an hour or two and get back on the train and head back to the studio.”
The museums he visited included the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Altes Museum, Deutsches Technikmuseum, the Gemäldegalerie (Painting Gallery), the Hamburger Hahnhof (Contemporary Art Museum), the Neues Museum, the Pergamon Museum, the Bode-Museum, the Bröhan Museum (Museum of Art & Design), Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts), the Märkisches Museum (History of Berlin) and the Musikinstrumenten-Museum Berlin (the Musical Instrument Museum). He also visited the Green Vault and the New Green Vault, along with the Zwinger and the Albertinum, in Dresden.
“To be able to go back and forth readily and repeatedly to museums was a very unique opportunity,” Pinnell said.
By the end of the residency, he brought home about 15 finished pieces (bisque-fired), several hundred photographs and about 40 sketches that he drew.
“I came back with hundreds of images that I’ll continue to work from for a long time,” Pinnell said. “My work is very informed by historical objects—ceramics and other utilitarian objects, the decorative arts, musical instruments. Those things have all contributed both direct ideas like looking at teapots and indirect ideas about massing or colors or textures or detailing. It’s just nice to go to those places and inevitably I’ll find something that just rings a bell when I look at it.”
Normally he might visit a museum and then try to recall what inspired him weeks later when he returns to his studio. During the residency, he could immediately respond to what he saw.
“It was really nice to be able to go and immediately work in response to that,” Pinnell said. “I had a hard time going to bed at night because I would go back to the studio and get to work, and suddenly it would be 10 o’clock at night. I would be tired, but I just didn’t want to stop.”
He looked at a variety of art to build that visual vocabulary for his work.
“No artist works from a vacuum,” he said. “No artist just reaches into their own head and finds things that no one has ever thought of or nobody has ever seen or conceived. It’s one of the reasons why for both our undergraduate and graduate degrees, we require students to take a lot of art history classes. That’s not just to turn them into scholars. It’s because we know that an understanding of and an appreciation for those objects will enable them to make better art.”
The architecture of Berlin’s buildings also provided him with inspiration.
“There is a synagogue in Berlin that was unfortunately partially destroyed before World War II and then again during the war, it was hit by a bomb,” Pinnell said “But the façade has all been restored, and it’s just an extraordinary late 19th century building with so many amazing details. I went to that one three times just to stand out in front and look at it. That’s the thing about going to a city like Berlin. That was actually not on my agenda. I just came up off the U-Bahn one day and happened to look down the block and see this place. And my jaw dropped, so I had to walk down and see it.”
Perhaps the best part of the residency, he said, was simply being away in Berlin.
“Being in Berlin was magic,” he said. “I have to say this, as someone who loves coming to work. I’m here every day during the summer. I’m here during breaks. I come in on weekends sometimes. I love coming to work. But it was magical being away, and no one could come and ask me why this piece of equipment was broken or when that’s going to be ordered or have I set up this committee schedule. It was nice to be able to just tell people ‘I’m out of town’ and just be completely immersed in my work.”
Pinnell is also keeping busy with a two-person show at Schaller Gallery in Michigan in November, as well as his work as president-elect for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA). He will become president following the NCECA Conference in March.
“Besides the nuts and bolts of getting things set in stone for the conference in March, we’re also doing longer range planning for future conferences and talking about the themes for future conferences,” he said. “Those are great philosophical discussions. What do you want to put together that will intrigue 6,000 ceramic artists.”
Pinnell began in college as a music major, getting his first degree in music. He was introduced to ceramics by a friend.
“On a Friday night, I was in the dorm with a friend, and he was taking ceramics,” Pinnell said. “He said, ‘Do you want to go to the ceramics studio?’ And I said sure, why not. I’ve always enjoyed making things, but I’d never worked in clay. I had never seen anybody work on a potter’s wheel. So we went there, and he gave me a ball of clay, and there were these stand-up kick wheels. And frankly, it just struck me as fairly intuitive. I threw a cup, which I still have, and that was the start of it.”
After he graduated, he took a ceramics class and fell in love with it.
“I was admitted to a grad program in music, so I called and canceled that and worked for a couple of years. Then I went back to school to get a second degree in art,” he said.
He worked as a potter in Kansas City for 12 years. He then saw a job opening at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and decided to apply just for the experience of interviewing.
“I wanted to have the experience of an interview just in case I ever wanted to actually teach,” Pinnell said.
Instead, he got the job.
“There was a large closet right down the hallway that I used for two years to store all this stuff I would need to go back into business as a potter, in case I didn’t like it in academia,” he said. “But I discovered I loved it here.”
He loves working with students.
“First of all, it’s so much fun to teach them. They’re so receptive to what we have to say. I love watching the light bulb go off. There are so many times when you can see them really get it, and they’re developing as people and as artists, and then watching that whole journey and then staying in touch with them after they graduate and watching what they do with their lives—that’s all very exciting.”
He also just likes being at a university.
“Universities are very interesting places,” he said. “The whole goal of sharing knowledge, increasing knowledge and serving the public—those are all really good goals, and I love being part of that and learning from that.”
Participating in residencies helps him grow as an artist.
“We’re always trying to grow,” Pinnell said. “That’s what makes us working artists. You can’t just make the same thing over and over again. The making of art can never be formulaic, and it doesn’t mean that we abandon all of our current ideas when we make new work. It’s always going to be an evolution. Periodically, it’s nice to have these sort of events to push us more in a revolutionary way.”
That evolution is important for his students to see, too.
“I think it’s important that my students see me working, see me staying late when I’m preparing for an exhibition and see that I’m making work that is not like what I was making in the past,” Pinnell said. “They can see the roots of it. You can look at my MFA show from 1982 and see what I’m making now. But it’s also very different work than what I made in 1982.”
The inspiration he received from the residency in Berlin promises to inform his work moving forward.
“I have some ideas that I didn’t have time to do. A month is a very short time, and I’m going to continue working with things I know I want to make,” Pinnell said. “I also want to continue looking back at those images and drawings. I’ll continue to draw from those images, and I’ll continue to work from those, but I don’t know for sure. I’ll continue making pots. Of course, I’m going to make pots.”
To see more of his work, follow Pinnell on Instagram at @pete.pinnell.