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Showing posts from January 31, 2021

Frances Senska, (1914-2009) Ceramic Artist

                                                                          The first time I saw Professor Senska, I was a freshman at Montana State University. Attending a gallery opening, Frances, Jessie Wilber, Gennie and Bob DeWeese entered the crowded event, as they gilded in they greeted the Art School Director. By the time I entered school in 1975, these iconic art instructors were retired, yet the news quickly passed through the crowd, it was Bob DeWeese who was written about in the famed book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” that had been published the year before. Frances and Jessie were part of Montana art folklore; Frances the grand ceramic instructor of nationally recognized Peter Voulkos, father of ceramic abstraction and Rudy Autio, the father of figurative ceramics. Jessie Spaulding Wilber (1912-1989) was noted for her woodblocks, lithographs, silk screens and her oil and gouache paintings. Jessie and Frances were art partners and built a home in Bozeman where