Fairbanks Studio S.
1 total work
Essential Passions is a very personal account of the lives of American potter Richard Fairbanks and Finish potter Kyllikki Salmenhaara as told through their correspondence and journals. It celebrates a friendship spanning nearly three decades, linking two remarkable potters who remained connected despite the oceans, mile, years, and cultures separating them. It was a love of clay, a passion for ceramics, that bound Salmenhaara and Fairbanks together.
Kyllikki Salmenhaara came to the U.S. in 1956 as part of the Foreign Leaders Program of the U.S. Department of State. She was recommended for the program as "at the moment perhaps the foremost name in Finnish ceramics." Richard Fairbanks first studied in Finland in 1959 as a Fulbright scholar, where he met Salmenhaara as a guest artist at the Arabia Institution. The life and ceramics of each were forever enriched by their foreign studies and travel.