Don’t Know, We’ll See: The Work of Karen Karnes
DVD, 62 minutes, Lucy Massie Phenix, director
$29.99

Our Founding Mudder: Who Art in Heaven: A Workshop with Peter Voulkos
DVD, 62 minutes, Martin Holt, director
$65,

Glass Masters at Work: Lino Tagliapietra
DVD, 59 minutes, Robin Lehman, director
$19.95

Emile Norman: By His Own Design
DVD, 60 minutes, Will Parrinello, director
$24.99

What do people hope for in an art documentary? A window into the secrets of creation? A better sense of the artist’s personality? Some biography, a touch of history, maybe even an idea or two? Probably all of the above, plus good filmmaking.

Karen Karnes is a beloved figure in the ceramics world. Don’t Know, We’ll See – the title is the artist’s response to a query about what she will do next – does a lovely job of suggesting why, by revealing her winning qualities as a person and the equally admirable character of her work. Karnes is a seemingly unassuming, sweet woman who nevertheless creates work of strength as well as refinement. The child of union organizers, Karnes had great freedom as a child, discovered her life’s work when she discovered clay, and participated in two notable developments in post-war cultural history. At Black Mountain College she ran the pottery with her then-husband David Weinrib, and at the Gate Hill Cooperative at Stony Point she lived with M. C. Richards, John Cage and David Tudor. She now lives in Vermont with her companion of 40 years, Ann Stannard. Director Lucy Massie Phenix indicates the relationship between the landscape and Karnes’s work effectively if too neatly by including images of the artist hiking by a river, where massive rocks have been sculpted by the water. The 1998 fire that destroyed the artist’s home and studio took place in the middle of the filming, and its immediate aftermath is shown, as Karnes salvages what she can from the wreckage and later, wearing a CERF T-shirt, helps out as a new kiln is built. This beautifully crafted film, which includes excellent interview material featuring Karnes, long-time friend Mikhail Zakin, and Paulus Berensohn, is worthy of its subject, whose spirit shines through it from start to finish.

A completely different approach animates Our Founding Mudder Who Art in Heaven, a portrait of Peter Voulkos based on a 1993 workshop in Norway. Voulkos is shown creating one of his signature stack pieces, assisted by Peter Callas, with luminaries such as Montana buddy Rudy Autio and Janet Mansfield making cameo appearances. Director Martin Holt records Voulkos at work over several days, accompanied by occasional live sound, a track with Voulkos providing biographical information and other comments, and lots of flamenco music. The sound mix may be less than perfect, but the portrait of Voulkos at work is memorable. With cigarette dangling, black t-shirt and blue jeans progressively obliterated by clay, and a mane of gray hair, Voulkos is a lion in winter. There’s no mistaking his intelligence, energy, and humor. What might seem a mere idiosyncrasy, the love of flamenco – think Brando and bongos – ultimately seems perfectly comprehensible, as Voulkos not only talks about but demonstrates his belief in spontaneity, improvisation, and rhythm. Voulkos the artist is all about direct engagement with the clay. The talk and the music help, but it is the images that tell the story as they show Voulkos working the clay, pushing, paddling, scoring, smearing, poking, ripping, slicing, smoothing . . . until the completed work emerges. The film’s title may be a bit silly but, like the rough-and-tumble form, in the end it seems just right for its subject.

Lino Tagliapietra is a god of glass. What can be done with glass, he can do. His modest English and his personal modesty make him a less than dynamic interview subject, yet there is no doubt that he embodies the qualities he says glass demands: “passion, curiosity, humanity.” In Glass Masters at Work: Lino Tagliapietra, a record of a workshop at Corning, an unidentified off-screen voice – presumably that of Bill Gudenrath – says that Tagliapietra has continued to experiment, finding new applications for traditional Venetian techniques. Filmmaker Robin Lehman nicely illustrates this observation with appropriate shots of Tagliapietra and his expert team in action. After that, however, the film is mainly a series of individual works being created, each segment dressed up with a different musical accompaniment, from Vivaldi to Stravinsky. The repetition of the basic actions, even dramatic ones such as spinning a glass form at the end of the pipe like a giant lollipop, makes the segments come to seem repetitive, and the music forced. With Tagliapietra’s work it is certainly not “Seen one, seen ’em all.” Glass aficionados therefore may welcome the “not-rock” videos of the pieces being made – Lino forever! –  but the maestro still deserves a more complete portrait.

Emile Norman: By His Own Design is refreshing, because it is so much more spirited than the usual art documentary. That is a testimony to its subject, whose self-determination and greatest artistic skill are both indicated by the subtitle, and to director Will Parrinello and his collaborators – his co-producers are the actors Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker. Norman’s formidable gifts are decorative in the best sense – he has a wonderful feel for surface design, pattern, and color – but he also has a gift for working in three-dimensions, as in his marvelous animal sculptures, and a special way with materials, including unconventional ones such as resin. The film’s historical framework emphasizes the allure of California and in particular Big Sur as a bohemian community. Homosexuality is addressed, as in Milk, with both forthrightness and reticence. For those, like me, previously unfamiliar with Norman and his work, this documentary will bring a pleasing sense of discovery. Norman has personality to spare, but in the end it is his creations that stay in the mind, a reminder of one more item on the list of what a good film about art should do: make the viewer want to experience the actual works, in person. The next time I am in San Francisco I will be sure to see one of Norman’s masterpieces, the immense mural window in the Masonic Memorial Temple, across the street from Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill.

Robert Silberman is associate professor of art history at the University of Minnesota.