Vicki Gunter

Art Murmur Receptions: Friday Sept. 5 & Oct. 3, 7-10:00 p.m.
Performances at 8 and 9 p.m.
Closes October 18, 5:00 p.m.

THE READING CHAIR

Vicki Gunter's "The Reading Chair" is a children's story that
will be read in performance in the gallery. Ceramic sculpture, created to illustrate the story, will be on view.

The Reading Chair is a children’s story that was published in 2004 in Good News, the arts and literary magazine of Laney College. Over the past four years I have sculpted with clay in order to illustrate the book with photographs of ceramic sculpture. I love working with clay as a base material from the earth, pushing its limits and revealing its innate qualities.

I have written The Reading Chair in an inclusive way. There are no images or descriptions of people so that readers/viewers can imagine themselves in the story with whatever version of “family” is appropriate. We don’t all have mates or children or cats. But we were all children once and we all live in communities on earth together.

Our bodies, the earth, and all life on it are primarily composed of water and “clay”. Clay has a memory. It records your fingerprints and all the ways you held it in your hands. Our earth has a memory and responds to our manipulations. Our collective memories are being eroded by profit and power. It is time to remember where our food, clothing and housing come from and grow, gather and consume mindful of leaving the smallest fingerprint.

This story, which I will read as performance in the gallery, is for all children and adults, and for all the “babies” who have and are coming-up in my Oakland neighborhood—The Murder Dubs, Rolling Twenties, The Twomps (names developed by youth & gangs for 20th—29th avenues in east Oakland).

The act of regularly setting aside time to be together to, eat, talk, read, listen—to live the simple daily tasks of life together well—is the best—or as good as it gets.

As an artist, I am a dancer, writer, and sculptor. As a dancer I have sculpted space with my body all my life. I have sculpted other people’s bodies for 37 years as a massage therapist and dance and motion therapy teacher. And since 1966 (with a long break from 1975-2004) I have sculpted clay. I have danced in, choreographed and directed hundreds of live performances. This is my first gallery exhibit. --Vicki Gunter, 2008