"My brain goes to the best places when I'm working on artwork." The Palo Alto native and San Jose State grad, who now resides in Campbell, refers to his livelihood as “self-unemployed.” While his inventive ceramic sculptures keep him busy—and happy—he also holds down regular freelance graphic design gigs to help support his art and to pay the bills. Back in the 1970s, he worked as a production potter, turning out hundreds of cookie-cutter-style pieces a day that were sold at fairs around the state. But while the job made him a working artist, it just wasn’t enough to quench his creative thirst. “I kind of switched over. I like making one-of-a-kind pieces,” says Yokel, 62, who works out of his home, mostly in the back yard. He realized being a sculptor wasn’t likely to make you a lot of money “unless you’re famous or dead, and I’d rather be alive mostly. So if I do graphic design work…and then I’ll go back to working on some of my bowls or pots.” Indeed, Yokel’s routine is free form, and his process is ever fluid. These days he’s all about studying the human form and capturing in his sculptures individual, frozen moments of an event. He starts by sketching his figures and inventing titles that correspond with the exact instant he captures them. He likens it to a freeze-frame in a movie that offers enough information for the audience to understand the emotion and action of a scene. E A R LY M O L D I N G S Yokel discovered his unbridled enthusiasm for art when he was a teenager at Sunnyvale High School. He loved all types of art, but “ceramics really put it over the edge. … Making something three dimensional is always more fun.” Yokel finds inspiration comes in part from closely observing forms in nature. Oddly weathered objects intrigue him, whether wood or stone. “I like gnarly tree trunks, cool rock formations,” he says. “Right now I’m doing a lot of what I call ‘woodies’. I’m working on a couple of bowls where the outside is going to look like either driftwood or weathered, gnarly wood.” On his website, titled “Jestures,” the free-spirited Yokel calls his work “sculpture with personality.” As he explains, “My brain goes to the best places when I’m working on artwork. ” Fred Yokel, That Was Close, coil-built ceramic, carved texture, glaze and underglazes, raku fired, 12½ in. x 16 in. x 10 in. 76 South Bay Accent — F R E D Y O K E L
South Bay Accent - AugSep 2016
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