dixie parker-fairbanks

I have consciously chosen other than the"murky Puget Sound" look in my work. And find certain materials–buff brick, weathered wood, warm red clay pots, red clover, sky-blue iris, yellow dandelions, dry grasses (Everydayness can be a joy!) that seem to belong in this [Kittitas valley] landscape.
Richard Fairbanks
Ellensburg, Washington
September 30, 1965
Engagement letter to Dixie Parker in Des Moines, Iowa

Critic Matthew Kangas, the first authority to assess the ceramic collection, shortly after Richard's death, wrote in his 1993 biography, Richard Fairbanks, American Potter:

By remaining within a strict and narrow area of studio practice, (handmade functional pottery), [Richard] attained the heights of artistic expression and plumbed the depths of international cultural references. His oeuvre, here chronicled, proves that great variety and beauty may be achieved within the humblest and most time-honored forms: a cup, a pitcher, a plate, a bowl.

In 1992, Director Cale Kinne, of Seattle’s leading Foster/White Gallery, confirmed Kangas’s opinion writing:

Over the years I have gone to hundreds of studios, seen work and apprised various situations. Never have I experienced such a situation as you presented me with last Friday. The 1,500 pieces …show Richard Fairbanks as a fine artist technically and creatively. He was a man of his time but like all true artists pushed at the boundaries of his time to bring us to the present. The pieces as a body act above any one artist’s work I’ve seen as a collection that is almost encyclopedic of contemporary ceramics executed in the last forty years. Yet with the tributes paid by Richard to other’s work and styles each piece is decidedly his own.

It was perhaps among his university students that my husband felt most comfortable. And, I am certain that it was for them that a number of his most successful pieces were created as examples to inform and inspire.

In 1993, Donald L. Garrity, President Emeritus of Central Washington University, provided the Introduction for the Kangas book stating:

Richard's students were the beneficiaries of inquiry around the world, endless creative trials, critical analysis, and creative inspiration intended to be expressed in his own artistry, but always to be shared and understood. It was never sufficient to create a magnificent glaze on a beautifully crafted piece. It was essential that he could conceptualize, describe, and discuss this with other artists and, most especially, his students. The legacy of Richard Fairbanks is shared with us in his pottery and in the work and understanding of his students. Together they form a treasure of accomplishments few achieve.

My eyes are lazy and don't see well.
With my hands I see, and that is good.
I can hold the whole world in my hands
when I am seeing with them a good pot.
Then there is the earth:
dense and hard, yet at one time it grew,
expanded and breathed;
there like seed to stalk to flower to fruit,
it patiently endured the potter's tactile search.

The clay speaks softly but firmly to the potter,
it is not afraid because it will always have the last word,
even if it must atomize itself to return again
and seeks its destiny anew in another's hands.

My hands see the clay and the clay murmers to them
take it easy, you're in good hands.

The dialogue continiues and long after that brief communication
when the hands and the clay see each other, they know.
They know.
Richard Fairbanks, unpublished manuscript, undated