Wayne Potratz

Wayne Potratz received his B.S. from Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, and his M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. Since 1969, he has taught at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, where he has been department chair since 1985. His work has been exhibited at the Anderson & Anderson Gallery, Minneapolis; the Rochester Art Center, Rochester, Minnesota; and at the National Ornamental Metals Museum, Memphis, Tennessee. In addition, he has been invited to participate in several international mail art shows in Spain, former Yugoslavia, and Israel. Wayne has been casting iron since 1969 and operates a foundry at the University of Minnesota. He was interested in Arts/Industry as an opportunity to increase the scale of his work and experiment with enamels. He was able to do just that and enjoyed the time away from his university responsibilities to create his work. Much of Wayne’s art incorporates the totemic image of the turtle derived from Native American and Asian mythology. In Arts/Industry, he combined the turtle with a vessel form, some with relief designs, to create a ritualistic container and cast flat, abstracted turtle shapes which formed the bases of carts with cast, enameled wheels.