COMMENT

American Craft News: February 16, 1985 - Washington, D.C.
The American Craft Council (ACC), the country's largest
organization for the support of the contemporary craft
movement, tonight presented its 1985 awards for achieve-
ment in the crafts toe 12 individuals and one institution.
In a ceremony held at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in
Washington, D.C., the Council named six fellow and two
honorary fellows, gave a citation for publishing, and
presented three gold medals. The gold medal is the
Council's highest award given for outstanding and ori-
ginal contribution to the craft movement and has only
been granted three times previously in the ACC's 42-year
history. Joan Mondale, a trustee of the Council, and
Jack Lenor Larsen, ACC President, made the presentations.
Among those cited were:

John Mason, Ceramist, Los Angeles, CA. Mason is well-
known for his large scale sculptural ceramies. Like
Peter Voulkos, with whom he worked at Otis, and with
whom he shared a studio, Mason moved from traditional
pottery to an interest in clay sculpture and produced
his first monumental wall pieces in 1957. From 1959
to the present, Mason has had solo exhibitions in
galleries and museums across the United States.

Ted Randall, Ceramist, Alfred, NY. Randall has devoted
a lifetime to ceramics as an educator and a potter.
Randall's career in ceramics has encompassed both fune-
tional pottery and sculptural. In the last 10 years he
has concentrated on sculptural vessels that he calls
"lanterns" and that bear a resemblance to antique
Chinese bronzes. His work has been shown widely - he
has had no less than 23 exhibitions during the past 4
years - and is represented in the collections of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Everson Museum, the
American Craft Museum and the Lannan Foundation.
Randall headed the Division of Art and Design of the
College of Ceramics at Alfred University from 1958 -
1973, retiring in 1981 after 30 years as a teacher.

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