SSC Art Club Visits Local Accomplished Artist

Seminole State College Art Club students visited the studio of professional ceramicist Paul Pfrehm recently to learn his process of horse hair raku ceramic firing. Pfrehm, an artist who has a working ceramic studio in Seminole, has shown his artwork in six different galleries in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

Local artist Paul Pfrehm (left) explains the horse hair raku ceramic firing process to Seminole State College Art Club students (from left to right) Kristen Ivey, Montana Douthit, Cassie Duncan, Antonio Torralba, Nicholas Billie, Kaylen Richardson and Janelle DeFries.
Local artist Paul Pfrehm (left) explains the horse hair raku ceramic firing process to Seminole State College Art Club students (from left to right) Kristen Ivey, Montana Douthit, Cassie Duncan, Antonio Torralba, Nicholas Billie, Kaylen Richardson and Janelle DeFries.

Pfrehm showed the visiting students his electric, gas and raku kilns, discussed how he mixes his clay body and glazes from scratch, stressed the importance of showing work and understanding the function and form of the pieces that are produced. 

Students watched a demo on horse hair raku firing. During the process, pots are fired to a temperature of \1,650 degrees. Horse hair is then placed onto the pottery to burn linear designs into the pot. Pfrehm also showed students his gallery area where he has pottery on display for sale to the general public.

Pfrehm was an adjunct at East Central University teaching from 1975 to 1979. For ten years, he participated in the Artist in Residence program for the Oklahoma Arts Council and taught ceramics to many young people throughout the state. Pfrehm has produced art to sell and has taught workshops all across the United States and served as an adjunct professor at SSC teaching Ceramics I & II in the Fall of 2015.