Victor knew there was magic in the earth. His two passions, ceramics and gardening, both involved coaxing life from mud. In the garden, he grew thriving plants, bringing to life vegetables and fruits that in turn nourished him and his loved ones. In the studio, he grew ideas. He turned clay and metal into playful and spirited artworks.

Victor’s studio was full of magic. Sometimes, when I showed up to work, I would come in to find that it had transformed overnight into an enchanted grove of bronze trees. Branches like this pear bonsai would be growing from every available surface. They were crammed onto tables, chairs, and the floor, their precious bronze fruits and leaves wrapped up in protective layers of foil. Metal quietly waiting for paint to bring it to life. It was surreal.

Victor always said that sculpting with clay was a primal thing, that kids knew how to do it instinctually. If you put a lump of clay in front of a child, they will start to roll it, pinch it, squeeze it, pat it, and shape it into something. Perhaps deep inside of each of us, we know the rituals that bring mud to life.

Despite the wonders of the studio, we were often both distracted by the magic of the garden. One afternoon, we both couldn’t stop staring out the window at the Red Admiral butterflies playing in the vines on the garden fence. So, we abandoned our work that day to go stroll through the garden to see what else was thriving there. The outside world was too vibrant for either of us to ignore.

The earth was generous to Victor, and he paid that generosity forward. I often left his place balancing bags of produce. My arms overflowed with bunches of blushing leafy loboda, the thick green stalks of walking onions, and jewel-toned tomatoes. Sometimes he shared his garden’s wealth because he had too much and didn’t want the food to go to waste. Other times it was because whatever he grew delighted him so much that you just had to try it too. He heard that you hadn’t tasted this or that vegetable before, or he grew an heirloom variety that you just had to taste. Sometimes it was because this one had so much iron, or vitamin C, or any other nutrient he knew would keep you healthy. He cared for his community through food.

When I look at the man in New Potatoes, I like to imagine he is reaching over the fence to share a bountiful harvest. The way Victor might have. Like so many of the people in Vic’s artworks, this potato man feels like a caricature of an Eastern-European elder. Victor had a reverence for the knowledge of his ancestors and often talked about his own Romanian heritage. I have to wonder if he saw himself as one of these Eastern-European elders towards the end of his life, semi-folkloric in the wisdom he held? Or did he always see himself as the one being cared for by those ancestors?

We often talked about life and death as we worked. Death was not a taboo topic in his eyes, just a part of nature’s cycles. Repeatedly, he told me that he wanted to die in the studio, landing face-first in the clay. I was to fire that clay as his final artwork. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to make that final collaboration, as both of our life situations led us away from that magical studio. But I like to think that he’s returning to the earth, to be the spark in someone else’s soil.

Nikki Little, one of Victor’s former studio assistants and a friend.

All Articles