When Jack Turner was 5, he was fascinated by his mother’s fashion illustrations and portraits.
“I’d go to the attic and stare at her drawings,” said the Worth resident. “The realistic qualities amazed me. She had a natural ability.”
His own inclination for art surfaced while at a Chicago elementary school.
“When I was in kindergarten, they used my candy cane drawing for the (class) example and it was like that through 8th grade. I used to spend a lot of time making things–drawing and coloring. I was really good at Play-Doh,” he said, laughing.
Although he has had little formal art training, Turner, 44, has become a recognized artist whose pottery has garnered numerous ribbons and more than 20 awards, including first place at a Munster, Ind., show in the fall. His creations, an assortment of functional, unusual and whimsical items, appear in more than 60 galleries across the country.
Neighbors Jim and Yvonne Glasch purchased six pieces of his pottery this year.
“I wanted to get them before he becomes so famous that I won’t be able to afford them,” Yvonne Glasch said.
Turner and full-time assistant Angenita Pletke of Worth attend about 30 Midwest art shows a year, taking as many as 75 pieces to each show. At some of the larger weekend shows, such as Schaumburg’s Septemberfest, his sales may top $5,000. Small pieces start at $10, and his humorous-looking dogs, cats and fish sell for from $275 to $450, depending on the amount of detail in the piece.
“There aren’t a lot of potters around of his caliber. You can tell by looking at his work,” Pletke said.
Although some potters might make a few dozen similar vases or pots at one sitting, Turner said such a routine would cramp his creativity.
“Each piece is one of a kind. I have to fill a kiln with all sorts of things: angels, fruit bowls, mixing bowls, vases. It’s always a variety,” he said.
His sister Barbara Turner of Wheaton has taught art for more than 20 years and describes her brother as a true artist.
“We both got some (talents from our mother), but I think he got the most. Besides pottery, he does well in photography and watercolors. He’s driven to produce and to be creative, and he has constantly got new ideas,” she said.
An assortment of pottery in various stages of completion can be found throughout his home studio in Worth. A plump cat with a mischievous expression sports a real bird feather dangling from its mouth. Nearby are angels with delicately detailed hair and wings highlighted in gold paint. Egghead jars (oval containers with humorous three-dimensional faces) sit on a shelf alongside four snowmen, each dressed in a gold scarf and grinning as if one had just told a good joke.
“I love his egghead jars. They have such wonderful expressions,” said artist Jini Coolidge of Glenwood.
Coolidge and Turner were among 15 artists demonstrating their work on a recent weekend at Gallery in the Park, 8101 W. 123rd St., Palos Park. The gallery’s owner, artist George Favorite, was drawn to Turner’s whimsical pieces and decided they would fit in well with the other local artists whose works are on display.
“He’s the only potter I have. He has his own style. The coloring he uses and the designs he incorporates into a piece are unique,” Favorite said.
Sharon Vojtek of Palos Heights was among several gallery visitors who watched as Turner worked the clay into unusual shapes on his potter’s wheel.
“I like his bowls. They have very clean lines and very pretty colors,” she said.
Turner’s artistic success stems from more than 20 years of drawing, painting and creating pottery. Soon after his family moved from Chicago to Palos Hills (where his mother, Dena, still lives) in 1971, he enrolled in his first art class at Moraine Valley Community College.
“I took a freehand drawing class and loved it. I started drawing like crazy day and night,” he said.
Barbara Turner recalls seeing a charcoal drawing of a detailed milkweed pod that her brother had drawn from memory for a class project.
“It was beautifully done. I remember thinking at the time I didn’t know he had this gift,” she said.
He also began developing his skills as a guitarist and wrote and recorded his own songs. By 1975, he had moved to Palos Heights where he opened Woodland Recording Studios in his home. He worked days in housekeeping at Palos Community Hospital in Palos Park and spent the evenings and weekends recording local bands.
When a hospital coworker showed him how to shape clay and fire it in a kiln, Turner was hooked. He bought a potter’s wheel and began teaching himself the art of making ceramics. One of his first shows was at Ford City Shopping Center in Chicago in 1979, where he won an honorable mention.
“I was so drawn to clay I couldn’t think of anything else. I was an artist who drew faces, figures and people, so I began sculpting faces. Anything I made with a face–mugs, wine (bottle) coolers, vases–sold for me.”
Turner quit his job at the hospital in 1980 to pursue pottery full time, selling at Chicago area shows and at the Ann Arbor (Mich.) Guild Summer Street Fair, one of the largest in the country.
“I was having a blast–making money and doing something I loved,” he said.
The road to artistic success hit some serious potholes in 1982 when he was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat. To complicate matters, Turner, with his lanky 6-foot 3-inch frame, developed extreme back pain from bending over the wheel and work table. He found he couldn’t work more than an hour at a time.
“Several doctors thought it was in my head,” he said. “My heart would feel like it was racing, flipping out (of my chest).”
To ease the back pain and the anxiety caused by his racing heart, Turner said he began drinking. In too much pain to continue his ceramic art, he took a custodial job in 1984 at Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn. He quit after 18 months.
“I went to full-time drinking and I almost died,” he said.
He entered the hospital’s rehabilitation clinic in 1989, where he lived for three weeks.
“I could barely drive a car or watch TV when I came out,” he said. He turned to art to help with his recovery.
“Within a week I started drawing. All of it came back and I drew for seven days straight. I didn’t think I could do pottery anymore,” he said.
During the next year, he taught himself to make stained glass and began painting in watercolors.
“I did my first art show again in June 1990. It was all drawings,” he said.
Trips to several chiropractors and a rehabilitation specialist helped him deal with his back pain. “Stretching exercises help relieve the stress in my back,” said Turner, who still does the exercises.
It wasn’t long before the potter’s wheel called to him.
“He’s really driven,” his sister said. “I don’t think a day goes by without him thinking about art. You’re given a talent–I call it a gift–and he explores it to the fullest.”
Since 1992, he has exhibited during the Holiday Open House at the Arlington Heights home of Tom Lynch, artist on PBS-TV’s “Fun with Watercolors.”
“I’m very inspired by his painting. He’s been a great mentor,” Turner said.
Lynch has collected pottery for 15 years and now purchases only Turner’s works.
“He is an artist’s artist who has a whimsical imagination, dedication to his craft and technical skills to complement both,” Lynch said.
In crafting pottery, Turner each year uses more than a half ton of moist clay and numerous 50-pound bags of coloring agents, such as feldspar and copper. To concoct the glazes that give his pottery unusual colors, he has assembled a software database that contains more than 1,500 recipes, many original.
After “throwing” a block of moist clay on the spinning potter’s wheel, he shapes it into whatever strikes his fancy. Using a Japanese throwing stick, he flattens the bottom of the pot as it spins on the wheel. In just a few minutes, the clay reaches the desired shape. The detail work, which could take up to an hour or more, begins as he carefully constructs and adds facial features or other design elements. Many items feature elaborate cutout designs, done with a pottery knife before the item is fired in the kiln. Highly detailed angels, for instance, might take three hours or longer to prepare.
Before it is placed in the 11,000-pound gas-fired kiln, the pottery dries to a leather-like consistency, which takes a few hours to several days, depending on its size.
“The larger, more delicate the piece, the slower the drying time. If it’s a real important piece, I will baby it so there’s no warping or cracking,” Turner said.
An egghead jar is fired for six hours at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. He shuts off the kiln and lets it cool for 12 hours before the piece is removed. Pletke carefully applies liquid wax to the areas Turner wants to remain unglazed. After he applies the glaze, the piece is fired for another 10 hours, then cooled. Pletke finishes the piece by sponging it clean and removing any bits of glaze that didn’t run off the waxed areas.
For the past 18 months, Turner has begun creating raku pottery. Based on Japanese tea ceremony pottery, the pieces have a colorful, iridescent luster or crackled glaze.
“He teaches himself whatever he wants to learn,” Pletke said.
He most recently received the Best of Show award at the “Park Full of Art” show in Munster, Ind. Several other shows have given him purchase awards, buying his pieces and donating them to local community centers.
This spring, Turner will send slides of his work to several shows to be juried, a process in which artists are selected or rejected. To exhibit last fall at the Indianapolis Art Museum show, which charges visitors $15, Turner sent slides of his fancier Art Deco bowls and vases.
“I was `juried out’ and had to beg them to get into the show. The ironic thing is that when I did get in I quickly sold everything I had and took several orders for $350 angels,” he said.
“The art world can be very snobby,” Pletke said.
Turner agreed, saying that he developed the raku pieces as fine art that would pass muster with art show critics.
“They don’t think of the whimsical pieces as art, but they take as much time and thought as the raku,” Turner said.
Barbara Turner says no matter what he makes, her brother’s work is easily identifiable: “He has a certain style. It’s definitely a Jack Turner piece. He has a light touch to his work. You can tell he’s having fun.”
“He has an interesting sense of humor and we need that in the art field,” said Coolidge.
The Glasches display two of his raku pieces in their living room.
“They have a very unique structure. I’ve never seen the distinct iridescent colors in any other form of pottery,” said James Glasch.
“You can have a talent but not everyone uses it. He uses it. This is his life,” Barbara Turner said.
Turner plans to soon give demonstrations at several local art leagues and elementary schools. “That’s something I started doing this year. I want to pass this along,” he said.
He also hopes to pass the jury for a large show in Colorado, which could give him national exposure.
“My main objective, however, has always been to have fun and then all else follows,” he said.
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The number of Jack Turner’s home studio is 708-923-6008.
