Ken Price-throwing small bumps (off the hump), Alfred, NY, 1958.
Ken Price-riding small bumps, Malibu, CA, 1961. (1st seen on AB's)
Before joining the Otis group , he had been something of a Beach Boy Dadaist, a surfer-turning-artist who , like most other Otis potters, had "no idea what it meant to be an artist because there weren't any of them around." The closest thing to artists and art were surfers and surfing, whose finest moments, as with any sport, had given Price a glimpse of grace achieved through the efficient mastery of relative simple means: a waxed board, a wave, a little wind, a distance to cover. If nothing else, being an artist meant attaining, then preserving indoors, the sense of freedom, control, and even elegance Price had experienced outdoors, riding waves at the beach.
Edward Lebow, Ken Price, The Menil Collection, Housten Fine Art Press, 1992.
there is a story of ken price running over miki dora at malibu. miki' leg was cut and he was so mad he broke off ken's fin. ken to make up for it made him a ceramic piece which he brought to malibu a couple weeks later as a gift for forgiveness. miki was still angry and tried to throw it at ken and slipped and broke his femur. greg liddle witnessed it all and still has the ken price piece which somehow survived unscathed.
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ReplyDeleteliddle i have been told sold the piece when he had a garage sale in kauai. titus kinimaka bought it and keeps it on his mantle at his surf school in kauai for good luck. He claims it is a good luck charm to keep caucasian surfers from getting hurt. If you go to hanelei be sure to visit him and check it out.
greg mentioned this to me once and it was one of the reasons he left california.
ReplyDeleteWas Ken Price riding them Liddle hulls you up standing gentlemen like to ride on occassion?
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ReplyDeleteI got punked by an ex J Crew modelin-stand up paddle boarder from Huntington beach and a bongo playin charletan from Mt Washington-two (too) funny guys.
...cancel that flight to Kauai!
hats off A+. Thomas Pynchon could not have spun it better charliep
ps, charlie, is it true that the p stands for "Pearl Jam necklace?)