Art | Celebrating the poetry of porcelain

Philadelphia Inquirer, The, November, 2006 by Edward J. Sozanski

Paula Winokur enjoys a reputation as one of Philadelphia's most prominent ceramic artists, but as an exhibition of her work at Arcadia University confirms, she's more than that. She's an uncommonly poetic sculptor, who happens to work in clay - white porcelain, to be precise. The exhibition, which celebrates Winokur's 30 years of teaching at the school, is called "Geological Sites." When you see the sculptures, the reference is obvious.

Winokur's stark white pieces - some wall-mounted and others set on the floor - evoke the starkly beautiful landscapes of the southwestern United States, and, for contrast, Alaskan glaciers. In truth, the contrast between the two is minimal, because all the sculptures evoke an evolutionary history, one that includes glaciation, volcanic...