By Bolton Colburn, Special to the Independent
Richie White, a well-known contemporary ceramic artist and professor at Saddleback College’s Art Department, died Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2015, at his home in San Clemente.
Former students, peers, friends and family flocked to the campus in Mission Viejo this past Sunday, Feb. 8, to remember White at a New Orleans’ style potluck and second line march led by five jazz musicians. The procession culminated by partly encircling a veterans’ memorial White recently completed with Fred Olsen, one of the largest freestanding ceramic pieces in the United States.
White was born in Palo Alto, Calif., in 1952 and received his bachelor of arts degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz and his master’s in fine arts from Alfred University, N.Y. His art is in the permanent collections of the Long Beach Museum of Art, Laguna Art Museum, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art among others.
His body of work ranges from large public art projects and fired-in-place performances to small-scale figurative works and drawings. He had taught in the ceramics department at Saddleback since 1998 and served as the department chair from 2002-2010.
White is among a group of second- generation California ceramic artists based in the Orange County area (including Tony Marsh, Marlo Bartels, Jon Stokesbary, Scott and Naomi Schoenherr, and Ricardo Duffy) that has taken ceramics into the field of contemporary art, obscuring the boundaries between ceramics and art. White pushed the envelope further by insisting that the process of making ceramics, especially the ritual aspects of firing ceramics, be considered as important an artistic expression as the final object itself.
White delighted in lively conversation about art and its indefinable nature. He had a huge following of fellow artists and friends. An outpouring of personal tributes to the artist can be seen on his Facebook page under the name of Richard White. His art, including photographs from his fired in place performances can be seen at www.richardwhiteart.com.
White is survived by his daughters Isabelle and Madeline White; his former wife, the actress Nancy Hartman White, who remains his longtime friend; and brother Thomas E. White.
Donations can be made in White’s name to the Saddleback College Foundation at https://www.saddlebackcollegegiving.org/richiewhite. Please contact Jon Ginnaty at Saddleback College ([email protected], 949-582-4024) for more information on how to make a contribution.
Bolton Colburn is the former executive director of the Laguna Art Museum.
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