His craft, steeped in the techniques of older foreign potters working in production pottery, was further developed through art schooling that led him to an M.F.A. in pottery at the University of North Texas. According to his colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Langhorne, associate professor of art, “It is precisely his earlier training, together with his arts schooling, that distinguishes his work and his teaching. This combination of art and craft allows him to train students to be functional potters while he educates them as artists.”

Since joining the Art Department in 1997, Garcia has sought to equip students in the development of their skills by using a range of media and techniques. Drawing on his own background in ceramics, he has initiated into the curriculum such new firing techniques as raku, pit-fire, low-fire, salt, and stoneware. Just as he gained “invaluable” experience from the production pottery masters at McQueeney Pottery near San Antonio, Garcia leads his own students through demonstrations of hand-throwing clay, mixing glazes, and firing kilns. Students often challenge Professor Garcia saying, “Make something big. Can you throw a 12-pound round vessel?” knowing full well that creating such a large, traditional form is very difficult. Garcia explains that he does not want to be imitated. “I want to equip students with technical information about construction, firing, and decorating so they can find their own direction and mold their own distinctive art.”

Carrying on the baton of teaching, Sherri Ostergren, an art education major in the master’s program, said, “He encourages us to keep a journal and gives us questions to prompt us to think so we can start the process of discovering our own personal art. His special flair for showing us how to express ourselves is something I’ve adopted in my own teaching at Vernon Center Middle School.” While the Art Department’s upgraded pottery wheels, clay mixer, and new updraft gas kiln are welcome resources for his students, Garcia is always “ready to go the extra mile,” said Ostergren, by inviting them to his home studio to use his own pit-fire kiln.

Whenever Garcia teaches raku firing, “It’s just magical,” exclaimed Sarah Rowe. Raku is a fast-fire process where a clay work is glazed, put into a kiln, removed at the temperature when the glaze melts, and then placed into a metal trashcan lined with paper or other combustible materials. Oxygen is depleted as the paper burns, and, if the flame is stoked and more oxygen depleted, “the colors turn iridescent—purples, yellows, reds,” explained Rowe. “It’s fantastic when the piece is plunged in water and the colors change in a short time to get something that beautiful with extensive variations.”

In his own art making, Garcia, through the raku firing process, has created a variety of metallic finishes using copper glazes and washes. “Many of these vessels fool the eye, appearing to be made from wrought iron or copper,” observes Garcia. Once a patron at the Paradise City Arts Festival in Northampton, MA, was explaining how he thought Garcia had created the work, saying Garcia had used old copper vessels and simply changed them. When the patron tapped the work, certain that it was metal, “He was completely surprised to discover that the piece was clay,” chuckled Garcia.


A Gifted Artist-Teacher who Sets High Standards

Garcia has taken his creative art techniques into the New Britain, East Granby, Windsor, Farmington, Glastonbury, Plainville, and Wilton public schools where he has been invited as a visiting artist. Teaching and demonstrating his craft, most recently at the Lincoln Middle School in Meriden, Garcia delighted sixth-graders with clay hand-building techniques in an interdisciplinary program that connected the visual arts with the language arts curriculum. During the program, students produced eight projects, including a “narrative container”—a carved and decorated box—intended to hold a special object. Then, he invited them to CCSU where the students raku-fired some of their work and used the potter’s wheel. In another program at Plainville High School, Ann Pingpank, art coordinator and ceramics teacher, commented, “Vicente is a gifted artist-teacher who sets high standards and my high school group was energized by his presentation and workshop.”

Since many of his students are preparing to teach art in public schools, Garcia takes seriously his responsibility to those in the Master of Science in Art Education program and others interested in pursuing M.F.A. graduate study. “I conference with students, assist them in preparing their slide portfolios, and write letters of recommendation,” he explains. Dr. Cora Marshall, assistant professor of art, who has worked with him on a number of master’s committees, said, “Not only does he provide guidance and constructive feedback, but he is meticulous about the myriad administrative details required for graduation.”

But the creative impulse is primary in Garcia who has done major competitive shows, such as Paradise City Arts Festival and Paradise East in Massachusetts, which draw over 1,000 artists representing 40 states. He exhibits in solo and group shows throughout Connecticut, and his work is found in galleries from Nashville, to Philadelphia, to Cape Neddick, Maine.

Having worked with clay and steel for some 20 years, Garcia tells his students the plastic quality of clay allows it to be modeled into a wide range of forms. Studying one’s artwork with a critical eye serves as the “inspiring or moving force for adjustment and improvements to make the work better.” He urges students to believe in their abilities “to make your art whatever you want it to be.”

Photo: “Clay’s plastic quality allows it to be modeled into a wide range of forms,” explains Vicente Garcia. Student Stephen Mills observes as the professor demonstrates throwing on the wheel.


— Geri Radacsi