Art Ltd. on Robert Brady

Literally, the first object that Berkeley-based artist Robert Brady made with clay changed his life. It was in his senior year of high school in Reno, Nevada, where he grew up. The art teacher handed Brady some clay and a rolling pin and told him to make something. “By the end of that period, I had absolutely fallen head over heels in love with clay. It was magic for me,” he says. And from there, Brady, now 66, started on the path of life as an artist. He went on to study ceramics at Oakland’s California College of Arts and Crafts, after which he pursued a career as a potter. But he quickly found that to be unfulfilling.

“When I quit doing pottery,” recalls Brady, “I became depressed about art and what it was for me.” But a moment of inspiration flashed when Brady, who had started working as a house painter, read an article in Art in America. “One morning I got to the house I was painting,” says Brady. “I make a cup of coffee and opened a magazine and there is an interview with Isamu Noguchi. It resonated so powerfully that—this is 8:15 in the morning–I got up, I wrote a note saying that I came but I had to go, and I’d be back tomorrow. I went home where I had two big barrels of clay stored, and I dived into that clay and turned all of it into objects that day. And not one thing was a pot. After about two years, I thought I was at a point where I could apply to graduate school.” To read more by Cherie Louise Turner, Art Ltd., click here.