Missing pottery raises suspicion in art dept.
During the winter break, a time of giving for many, one USU art student discovered some of his pottery missing from the kiln area at the Fine Arts Visual (FAV) building.
“It’s almost like someone went Christmas shopping,” said theft victim, and graduate student, Robin Dupont.
He said somebody took several pieces of his pottery – including a large jar that weighs 20 to 25 pounds, a teapot, a vase and a few plates.
“I don’t understand at all the mentality of someone stealing pottery or artwork in general,” Dupont said, “especially from someone who’s making an effort to support their family and put food on the table.”
The pieces were taken from an area close to the art department’s outdoor wood-fired kiln. He said this happened on or close to Dec. 19, 2010.
Dupont said it is hard to keep track of the large number of pieces involved in an exhibition.
“I just can’t fathom someone picking up this huge jar,” Dupont said. “I mean, you’d have to put it in the trunk of your car or on the passenger seat.”
Dupont said there was a buzz around the ceramics lab regarding two possible suspects. He did not identify the individuals, but said he is “pretty certain” he knows who did it.
“My suspicion is it’s an inside job … I think it’s an art student,” said ceramics professor and assistant art department head John Neely. “You know, the art department has its share of characters of questionable mental stability.”
Whether security will be tightened as a result has not yet been discussed, Neely said, but art students may be questioning the morality of their peers.
Neely said he does not think whoever stole the items in question did it out of jealousy or revenge. Rather, he said the motivation was likely “genuine aesthetic admiration.”
In other words, he said the person who committed the act probably did so because they liked the pottery and wanted to keep it for themselves.
“I don’t think anybody is going to go out and try and sell them,” Neely said. “It’s not that easy to sell pots, even when you do know where they’re from.”
Senior ceramics major Jake Herbert said he bought some of Dupont’s work because he admired it. Herbert said he overheard an individual asking Dupont to give some of his pieces away “for free.”
“There was a student, not a ceramics student, who was looking at his work and said, ‘You know, you should just give me some of those,'” Herbert said. “Very soon after that is when they went missing. I wouldn’t put it past him.”
Dupont said his research and thesis were based around a certain method of firing the pottery in the kiln. Some pieces required multiple firings which is the reason they were stored in the kiln area.
He said the loss of so many pieces was a major setback that came at a bad time.
“I kind of felt like, you know, if this work is really important to me I could confront this guy and talk to him and not really point my finger …, but even just say, ‘Look dude, this really screwed me over,'” Dupont said.
An individual looking to take something would have to know where the pottery is stored before it gets fired in the kiln, Neely said.
“Just an out-and-out thief, yeah that’s a possibility,” Neely said, “but also somebody who is just unbalanced.”
You must have a building pass to stay past midnight in the building, according to the FAV building policy. Neely said students are allowed to use the ceramics lab before 11 p.m. without a pass.
Dupont knows all of his fellow graduate students and they are all on good terms, Neely said. He also said the ceramics lab and the art department are, for the most part, secure places.
Neely said in the 27 years he has taught at USU there have only been a handful of cases in which artwork was stolen. He said he can remember almost all of them.
“I’ve had students take some of my pieces that I’ve used for demonstrations and glaze them and fire them and turn them in for a grade,” Neely said, when asked if any stolen work has ever been returned. “So yeah, they’ve been recovered that way.”
Capt. Steve Milne of the USU Police Department said they have no leads at this time.
– dan.whitney.smith@aggiemail.usu.edu