ABOUT BOB WILSON

BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1945 in Southern Illinois, Bob began his life surrounded by music. His father, Floyd, was a highly influential educator and music director who pioneered music programs in the suburban area. His mother, Sybil, was a registered nurse and a prominent and loving support in Bob's life.

Demonstrating regionally acclaimed skills playing the trombone, Bob intended to study music in college and pursue a musical career in his father's footsteps. Destiny had other plans, and in his senior year of High School he was able to fit an art elective into his class schedule. This art elective forever changed his vocational trajectory.

Bob discovered his passion for clay in 1966 while a student at the University of Illinois, where he earned his BFA degree in Art Education. His degree led to a his first job teaching fine art at Barrington High School in 1968. At the time, Barrington only had three art teachers all covering a varied curriculum from 'Art I' to 'Art IV' classes. Bob's area of interest became the 3-D Program which he developed himself.

Bob's early years at Barrington, stationed in front of a wall of chemical glazes. c. 1970

Bob supervises a student-faculty art show c. 1972

The Classroom 68-79

In the mid 1970's the art department took on additional faculty and expanded it's courses. Described as a premiere art program in the state of Illinois, (and winning the award of "Best Art Department in the State of Illinois"), the success of the program was strengthened in that all faculty worked outside the classroom as a practicing artists outside of the classroom.

A notably humorous and expressive crowd, the art faculty was known for their elaborate Halloween costumes and incessant puns shared with their students. The faculty's dedication was also evident in the many after-school hours all art staff donated daily.

At home, Bob was able to create his first of three personal ceramic studios in his garage.

CARBONDALE

In 1979 Bob took a leave of absence from teaching to pursue his MFA degree from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

During this time, aided by his experience at Barrington HS, he taught with an assistantship. It was at S.I.U. that Bob learned a new art medium in glassblowing.

The year before arriving at Carbondale for Grad School, Bob went down to SIU to visit and interview with the head of the Fine Arts Department, Bill Boysen.

"He was a terrific and knowledgeable artist and teacher. Making the personal decision to leave BHS for two years was a big deal -- a non-paid leave of absence."

Bob, in the midst of a divorce, used part of the sale of a house in Lake in the Hills and money from an assistantship to support himself for two years.

Joliet Herald News Press Photo c.1982

Focus on Glass

Initially, the facilities at SIU were great, especially for graduate students. It boasted individual studio cubicles, three electric kilns and two 70 cubic-ft gas kilns. The scale and resources were exciting in Bob's envisioning of larger works. However, when Bob arrived in the fall, Boysen no longer taught ceramics--only glass. Harris Deller had been hired to teach ceramics. The as Deller's first job, he had been hired directly from graduating from Cranbrook.

In the middle of his first semester at SIU both of the larger kilns were torn down to be replaced by a computerized "Super-Kiln" to be build on-site. This super-kiln wasn't completed by Bob's second semester. Once it was unveiled the computerization frequently malfunctioned leaving first year students with no way to produce high-fire pieces. Deller took a sabbatical, and all seemed chaotic.

Bill Boysen was teaching glass, and in his first semester at SIU Bob excitedly signed up.

Bob would later recount that blowing glass with Bill was his saving grace. Realizing that having an exceptional thesis show in clay was not realistic, he realigned his focus towards glass. The combined nature of the "Ceramics/Glass" degree made for a fluid transition. In Bob's last semester, only two of the nine graduate students were able to display a thesis show and complete their MFA degrees. Bob was one of the two.

Bob's thesis was displayed at the University's main museum in Faner hall and consisted of 17 blown glass vessels and 11 stained glass windows. His stained glass works were framed in antique wood windows and trims salvaged from his grandparents farm-house and farm buildings.

Touring and the 1980's

After graduating in 1981, Bob would go on to 'tour' with his teacher Bill Boysen in a mobile glass blowing unit built by Bill. They blew glass at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, and the following summer at the Fourth of July in St. Louis under the arch. Bob recounts;

Nothing like blowing glass in front of glass tanks (2000 + degrees) outside with weather over 100 degrees. 'It's your turn' was heard often, and NO one was that anxious to take their turn at the pipe.

After graduation, Bob returned to Barrington High School where he started back in teaching ceramics alongside Dave Engle. He balanced two clay classes and three sculpture classes before returning to clay exclusively several years later.

It was then that he had the freedom to be more experimental and creative in his ceramics curriculum and teaching techniques.

The Classroom

A Daily Herald article from September 2000 paints a timeless atmosphere of the ceramic classroom. Bob Dylan music plays in the background while students throw on wheels, conceptualize sketches, and finesse their glazing approaches.

These after-school hours were a testament to Bob's passion for teaching and leading by example. His classroom studio was alive. Diagrams, formulas, sketches and puns littered the panels of chalk boards surrounding the room. Masonite boards laden with cutout images from ceramic magazines served as inspiration and visual references.

Touring and the 90's

In his post-graduate school years at Barrington High School, Bob expanded his teaching and knack for art education by conducting clay workshops at various High Schools in the North-West suburbs including Elmhurst York, New Trier, St. Charles. Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg.

In 1992 Bob was honored as one of 20 high school teachers in the country to be recognized for outstanding ceramics programs and their teaching abilities with clay. Subsequently, he was invited to participate in a workshop at the prestigious Alfred University in New York. With an award-winning group of teachers, he worked with nationally renowned ceramicists including Val Cushing, John Gill and Wayne Higby.

Changes at BHS

In the year 2000, with a renovation of the entire high school, new facilities were created for the art department.

Among additions to the renovated 3-D facilities, there was a hope of adding a functioning glass lab was outside from the ceramics room. A concrete slab was laid, but with no surrounding building came after. Bob's equipment for glass blowing sat under tarps for a few years before the glass facility plan was scrapped, along with the rusted out equipment.

at home

Over the years Bob's ceramic work has continuously explored both the traditional functional as well as the contemporary sculptural realms. His works show his passion for unique surface textures through manipulating slips, stains, self-made stamps, and self-created glazes. His work enhances surfaces by revealing the unique essences of clay itself -- the way it can stretch, crackle and fold, and the way it can attain contrasts in color and sheen in his self-made glazes. A primary goal is to merge clay surfaces with nature.

Bob built his second home studio in Cary in the 1980's. The room had a nearly two story storage with custom hand-made shelving that held boxes, glazes and countless ceramic works all the way to the top of the peaked-ceiling. In this home studio Bob also build a shed containing a full size gas kiln where he was able to fire through the evenings while spending time with family at home.

After moving to a new home in 2003, Bob built a third studio. He was able to freely map out walls and storage with the blank canvas of an unfinished basement. Two electric kilns, a spray booth, two potter's wheels and a glaze mixing/formulating station all surround the cozy basement space.

Today

Bob retired from Barrington High School in 2005. He has started careers of the new generation of ceramic artists, many of whom have gone on to teach and/or work as ceramic artists. After 37 years, his legacy was felt. An outpouring of love, thanks and admiration met him at his Barrington High School ‘Retrospective Show’. Dozens of faculty, and former students, many now teachers and ceramic artists, were able to reunite.

During Bob’s last semesters of teaching, he designed a final installation project with his clay students. . . a clay mural outside the entry door to the ceramics classroom. Moments of student’s work dance alongside small homages to Bob's legacy as future generations walk into a ceramics program built from passionate, prolific artists.

Through his career, Bob's work has been showcased in galleries in Chicago, Evanston, Lake Zurich, Lake Geneva, St. Charles, Hoffman Estates, College of Lake County, Joliet Junior College, and the Barrington Area Arts Council.
A master of the ceramic artistic discipline, and an inherently prolific potter, he has affected and inspired the lives of many.

Now in his 80's, Bob continues to work in his studio daily.