Kahmer, Ray (1930-2007) wheel-thrown stoneware jar

Kahmer, Ray (1930-2007) wheel-thrown stoneware jar
Ray Kahmeyer (1930-2007) wheel-thrown stoneware jar, signed with "K" stamp in foot, good condition, no chips or cracks, measures: 7 tall x 4.75 diameter. Ray Kahmeyer was a graduate of Kansas State University with a BFA and MFA. He also attended Alfred University in New York. He was a Professor of Art, teaching ceramics, at Bethany College, Lindsborg, KS. He also served as department head, retiring as the Mary J. Mingen back Distinguished Professor of Art.Kaymeyer belonged to the Kansas Craftsman Assoc. National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and American Craftsman Council. Ray Kahmeyer (1930-2007) was born on September 10, 1930, in Nashville, Kansas. Kahmeyer taught ceramics for 25 years at Bethany College (1967-92), heading the art department after his first two years and then earning the endowed position of the Mary J. Mingenback Distinguished Professor of Art in 1973.Kahmeyer graduated from Pratt High School in 1948, and for some years worked as a butcher and did renovation projects for homes in the Pratt and Great Bend area along with woodworking with his father. After a stint in the US Navy during the Korean War, Ray returned home and decided to use the G.I. Bill and his construction skills to become an architect.Settling in Manhattan at Kansas State University, Kahmeyer discovered his life work by chance, taking a ceramics course as an art elective and immediately “got bit” by the clay bug, as his sister Joy Davis described in 2016. Kahmeyer earned both his bachelor’s degree and Master of Arts from K-State, finishing a thesis on the raku method of ceramic firing and glazing to graduate in 1967. The bulk of Kahmeyer’s work is wheel-thrown, high-fired stoneware, suitable for domestic use.His friendships with important American ceramists Warren MacKenzie (1924- 2018) and Paul Soldner (1921-2011), with their own crucial influences of England’s Bernard Leach (1887-1979) and Japan’s Shoji Hamada (1894- 1978), continued to inform his work in functional pottery throughout his career.Kahmeyer exhibited his pots widely throughout his career, showing in a variety of regional exhibitions each year and occasionally sending work further afield to other states across the country. He earned numerous purchase awards and his work appears in a host of museum and private collections. The professor was also invited often to other colleges and high schools to present lectures, demonstrations, and workshops.Kahmeyer taught ceramics at Bethany for two and a half decades, imparting hard science lessons in the chemistry of glaze mixing and the physics of materials under forces of motion and heat, but gave all his students much more than a typical college education. The ceramics professor retired in 1992 but continued to work in his home studio – a re-constructed chicken barn rebuilt with salvaged materials, including a plethora of old windows that provided good lighting.Kahmeyer and a few other Lindsborg artists began inviting people in to view and purchase work, inadvertently establishing the annual Artist Studio Open House that continues today.
Condition: good
Dimensions: 7 x 4.75 x 4.75 in
Weight: 2 lb