Two Potters Art Opening
On Exhibit: June 5 – 12
Opening Reception: Tuesday, June 9 from 5:00 – 7:00 PM
Two Potters Talk with Guy & Matin: Friday, June 12 from 2:00 – 3:00 PM – In-Person & on Zoom.
Registration required for In-Person
ABOUT GUY WOLFF:
Guy Wolff grew up here in Litchfield County, the son of abstract expressionist painter and art educator, Robert Jay Wolff, and pottery enthusiast Elizabeth Arango Wolff. Though surrounded by the avant-garde, from an early age Guy was fascinated by the forms and crafts of the past. Old Sturbridge Village Living Museum brought many of these crafts excitingly alive to him — pottery, black-and tin-smithing, cooperage and woodworking, spinning and weaving. More and more, he came to wonder why modern handwork seemed to have less vigor than works from previous centuries.
His high school experience at High Mowing School in New Hampshire was a perfect fit where crafts and arts were taught and celebrated. His pottery teacher was the finest of the instructors and he spent four years diving into clay with her. The world of Asian ceramic traditions opened up. After his teacher’s inspiring instruction, he was motivated to seek out living masters of traditional pottery in America and the UK. He went to work for a summer at Jugtown Pottery in North Carolina where the Owens family had been making pottery for nearly two centuries.
After high school, he found longstanding potteries in the village of Ewenny in South Wales and later Wetheriggs Country Pottery in the north of England, where he worked and expanded his craft. Back home again in Connecticut, Guy opened his pottery shop in Woodville in 1971 and has been making pottery ever since. His current pottery is in Bantam, just 2 miles down the road from his first shop. In the 50 plus years that Guy has spent at the wheel, he has come back again and again to the search for vigorous, honest wares, inspired and informed by the very best history has to offer, and to a reverence for the material, clay, that has given so much to his life…
For more information about Guy, visit his website at guywolff.com.
ABOUT MATIN MALIKZADA:
A seventh-generation Afghan master of traditional pottery, Matin Malikzada is internationally recognized for his technical skill and elegant designs. A native of Istalif, Afghanistan, once a vibrant center of ceramic art and commerce, Matin was forced to flee Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover. Along with his family, he is now resettled in Northwest Connecticut where he continues his journey as an artist.
In Kabul, Matin served as head of the Ceramics department at the Turquoise Mountain Institute, an NGO founded by King Charles III, where in his youth he studied and honed the skills inherited from his father. Upon graduating, he was hired as a Master of Ceramics, and ultimately rose to lead the department. Matin revitalized a nearly lost art of symmetrical design and turquoise glaze derived from natural pigments unique to Istalifi pottery and has trained over one hundred artisans in these ancient techniques.
In addition to holding a bachelor’s degree in Law from Tabesh University in Kabul, he has earned Certificates in Design and Crafts from the City and Guilds Institute of London, been a visiting artist at the Institute of Ceramic Studies at Shigaraki, Japan, demonstrated his skills at Davos, and authored books on Istalifi Pottery.
He has received numerous awards in this country and recently, in collaboration with designer Bunny Williams and Bunny Williams Home, he created an exclusive collection of tableware and decorative pottery. For more information about Matin and his work, visit his website at malikzadapottery.com.
Oliver Wolcott Library
160 South Street
Litchfield, CT 06759
2026-06-09
