The Peter Voulkos Visiting Artist Fellowship at the Archie Bray Foundation honors the spirit of the late Peter Voulkos who began his career at the Bray in 1951. A truly remarkable artist who launched a revolution in postwar American ceramics, Voulkos, along with fellow Montana native Rudy Autio, was a founding resident artist at the Bray. The dynamic created during these early years at the Foundation set a standard of excellence, and firmly established the Bray as a center of experimentation and creative exchange.

Created by family and friends who understood Pete’s enormous creative capacity, the fellowship is awarded annually to provide an opportunity for a special visiting artist to work at the Bray. Each Voulkos Visiting Artist works as part of the Bray artist community continuing Pete’s passion for creative exchange through shared ideas. Previous recipients of the Voulkos Fellowship include Stephen DeStaebler, Don Reitz, John Mason, Takeshi Yasuda, and Patti Warashina.

As a founding Bray resident artist along with Peter Voulkos, one of the things Rudy Autio loved most about the Archie Bray Foundation was the creative stimulation he experienced working in the studio among other artists. Whether pushing the boundaries of clay alongside Voulkos at the Bray in 1952 or responding to the energy of international Bray residents in 2006, Rudy was always open to taking creative risks and following his curiosity wherever it took him. In addition to being a seminal ceramic artist, he constantly challenged himself— working with printmaking and digital imaging, collaborating with Finnish textile artists, and in the last months of his life, painting portraits of his family—all in the spirit of creative exploration.

The Autio Endowment for Creative Initiatives honors Rudy’s spirit by providing support for special projects that further creative exploration, allowing residents to challenge themselves as artists and take exceptional creative risks.