Bottle, 1989. Stoneware, black slip design, salt-fired, cone 12. 11” h x 13” diameter. Collection of Forrest L. Merrill; photo by M. Lee Fatherree.

The Oakland Museum of California pays tribute to two venerated masters of ceramic art with the exhibition The Art of Vivika and Otto Heino. Fifty of the couple’s elegant bottles, bowls, platters, and tiles, most from the collection of Forrest L. Merrill, are on display July 23 through October 16, 2005. The exhibition was organized by the Ventura County Museum of History and Art and the Craft & Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles.

The Heinos collaborated from 1950 until 1995, the year of Vivika’s death. Their work is distinguished by its clean lines and distinctive glazes. Despite getting under way during the Depression, the Heinos supported themselves as potters throughout their careers. Their world was guided by a strong work ethic and a love of clay. Unfazed by ceramic trends, they remained true to their sense of what pottery should be—traditional and utilitarian.

Otto and Vivika were part of a generation that sought to redefine the art of ceramics in relation to modern art and culture. The “potters,” as the Heinos and their contemporaries were proud to be called, were influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement, Germany’s Bauhaus, and the potters of Japan.

“True craftspeople do much more than just make things,” Vivika said. “They live within their work, formulate a philosophy about the field, feel the aliveness of the materials and are aware of the qualities possible in the medium.”

Otto was raised on a dairy farm in New Hampshire, the first-generation son of Finnish parents. He credits his strong hands to years of milking cows. Otto was among the first from New Hampshire to be drafted during World War II. He served in the army, and later flew bombing missions over Germany. After his discharge, in 1946, Otto decided to pursue painting and ceramics on the G.I. Bill.

The couple met in 1948 in Concord, New Hampshire, where Vivika was teaching ceramics and Otto became her student. He was taken with both the teacher and the art, and, after marrying Vivika in 1950, became her lifelong partner. Over the years, the Heinos signed their pots simply Vivika + Otto, regardless of who actually made them. They worked side by side as equals for decades.

Vivika was an established artist when she met Otto. In the mid-1930s she had spent two years with the Works Progress Administration theatre project and headed the National Youth Administration in San Francisco. During this era she discovered clay, and declared, “Once I’d touched it I never wanted to do anything else.” Her pots were exhibited at the 1939 World’s Fair, and soon she began selling in stores across the country.

While in the Bay Area, she met Glen Lukens, a highly respected ceramist and teacher at USC, and asked to study with him. Lukens was renowned for his glazes; in his lab Vivika was able to explore colored clays, test new glazes, and experiment with raw materials. Later, she and Otto would devote a day a week to measuring, mixing, and testing new glazes at their studio, the Pottery.

Bottle, 2002. Porcelain, yellow glaze, wood-fired, cone 12. 13 _ h x 7” diameter. Collection of Forrest L. Merrill; photo by M. Lee Fatherree.

The Heinos shared a particular appreciation for Japanese aesthetics, due in part to British potter Bernard Leach, a champion of the refined simplicity of Japanese pottery and author of A Potter’s Life. Otto had met Leach in England, while on a military leave, and spent several days raptly watching him throw pots. For Otto, whose recent life had been a daily skirmish with death, the experience was life-altering. He saw a way to lead an independent, creative life on his own terms.

The Heinos moved to Los Angeles in 1952, where Vivika taught at USC and then at the Chouinard Art Institute. That year she became a technical advisor for Twentieth Century Fox Studios on a film featuring a blind potter. The Heinos were hired to create pots, rebuild kilns, and verify the film’s accuracy. They made 751 pots for the movie The Egyptian in 1953; it took Vivika 16 glaze tests to get the right turquoise for Technicolor.

Vivika and Otto lived and worked on both coasts before settling in Ojai, California, in 1975. The Pottery was a gathering place for potters in the area, including their neighbor, the colorful ceramic artist Beatrice Wood. Since Vivika passed away, Otto, now 90, has continued to work in their studio, on his own.

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