Mike Jackson, Owner
Jack Pharo
Jack Pharo was employed by the U.S. Post Office while launching his career in fine arts. He left the Post Office in 1957. Pharo's early background included several years' of studying painting, figure sketching, and lithography. His teachers and mentors included William Dickerson, an original associate of thePrairie Print Makers and one of Pharo's closest friends, B.J. Olson Nordfeldt, a much-listed and venerated painter, and Kansas native E. Bruce Moore, a well-known sculptor. Another important influence was Maija Grotell.According to William Dickerson's wife Betty, Pharo and Grotell became good, solid friends and exchanged much technical information.
Pharo joined the Wichita Art Association in the 1930s as a volunteer. He became one of the Assocation's ceramic instructors in 1947. The Association's first full-time ceramics instructor --from 1947 to 1949 -- was Susan Hanly Peterson, who had studied at Mills College. In 1949 Pharo was named head of the ceramics department, a position he held or 26 years. Pharo was a self-taught potter who made his own tools, built his own kilns and developed his own glazes. He would literally dig clay with a shovel and return to his studio with bags full of his earthen treasure. He reconstructed an old washing machine to mix clay bodies. The mixed clays were then strained by running wet clay through a screen into a crock. He never used clays that were purchased or processed by someone else. Pharo maintained total control of his pottery production process.His vessel forms show -- to some degree -- an influence of classic Chinese ceramicis. Surface treatments, while mostly abstract, can be considered derivative of ancient Egyptian representational styles. Pharo also has made ceramic sculpture.He threw his work on one pottery wheel and then shifted the piece to a second wheel to be trimmed and decorated. Using a large needle secured to a dowel, he would cut or sketch a design onto the surface of a piece as he rotated it on the wheel. Pharo was not known to do one-fire pieces; he sometimes fired three or four times depending on the surface decoration and glaze treatment.During his long pottery career he interfaced with a number of the most influential people in American ceramics. These included Antonio Prieto, F. Carlton Ball, Sheldon Carye, and Maija Grotell, most of whom he came to know through their participation in workshops and seminars held at the Wichita Art Association. He also spent time with British potter Bernard Leach, hosting a workshop for him in 1960 at the Art Association. Pharo treasured his meetings with Leach.In a teaching career that spanned four decades, he generously shared his extensive knowledge of painting, sculpture, and ceramics. Literally hundreds of students studied with Pharo during his tenure at the Wichita Art Association. Classes in pottery throwing, ceramics and sculpture were held in the workshop/studio. Morning and evening hours were available for study in addition to Saturday classes for children. Scholarships were offered to qualified students.
By Thomas G. Turnquist
Legend Fine Arts
620.791.8318
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