Paul Soldner

After a brief time studying medicine, and eight years teaching art in public schools, Paul Soldner became Peter Voulkos' first student at the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now the Otis Art Institute). He earned an M.F.A. in 1956, and upon graduation, began a thirty-seven year teaching career at Scripps College, in Claremont, California. In the 1960s, he became a leader in the field, developing a new genre dubbed American Raku which was strongly influenced by traditional Japanese Raku, a firing technique which incorporated a smoking coloration process during the firing. He is also credited with developing an innovative low-temperature salt firing technique in the late 1970s.

Education: B.A. (fine art), Bluffton College, Ohio, 1946; M.A. (fine art), University of Colorado, Boulder, 1954; M.F.A. (ceramics), Los Angeles County Art Institute, California, 1956