[Music] People can say about me well if it doesn't work if it doesn't do anything, we know it's art, must be art and one of the things I remember you know someone saying, well I don't know about him but he made a great cup.

[Laughs] A modest mug for tea can be a Peter Shire an elaborate sculpture that's 15 feet high can be a Peter Shire and extraordinary paintings can be by Peter Shire.

His work extends through all these materials, media.

The colors are always very, very distinctive.

The surfaces are distinctive and there's this mixture between an industrial aesthetic this handmade aesthetic and the tradition of modern design.

I grew up in Echo Park and I live in the house my dad and mom built.

My parents were very interested in modern architecture.

My dad did the carpentry.

My dad was a natural.

You know, he could draw he could do anything you know, you want to see a horse, here's a horse.

I never went to school more than four miles from home including Chouinard Art Institute.

It was a school that had an authenticity to it.

The smell of oil paint was ground into the floorboards.

Being an artist, a maker of things became a viable career choice.

A little more.

Good.

Somehow within my Chouinard experience an emphasis on ceramic being a sculptural medium took off.

I thought to be a potter would be the most romantic thing ever.

It still had an aspect of production and work and being part of the world and society but it also was bohemian and nuts.

For 50 years, I've been making pottery, making cups things that are handmade have a touch that goes outside the chain stores that really have all the same things.

It becomes of interest and of value and sellable and you know put a fine point on it.

In the 80s, the Memphis Design Group Milan was the most innovative design group of its period.

It's associated with Ettore Sottsass.

Ettore said come to Italy we'll put you up so I went.

These were surrealists and futurists and cubists working together.

They had an idea that design and quality of materials would create a better quality of life.

I think it was a natural fit because of Peter's aesthetic even if Echo Park as far from Milan as you can possibly get.

My approach which I believe is very Californian is to wow, you know, you just blast you.

Everything's not only got to come forward but vibrate and be fighting each other no two colors the same.

There's an aspect to my ceramics which is completely operative in my sculpture now and that is the volume inside.

Once I could deal with metal, I could all of a sudden do lines but the lines are still suggesting volume.

This teapot is the product of my wife's daring me.

She said well you're going to make them far out why don't you open the whole thing up and put holes in it.

[Laughs] We've been married 45 years.

She's a partner.

It wouldn't have happened this way without her.

It's good, mmm.

and she's the only one who has a sense to bring any food.

You may have noticed that there's an ongoing fascination with tawdry things and of course Barbie is all highly questionable.

I didn't know there would be a movie.

I'm innocent but well there's my furniture in with, you know, mixed in with this phenomena and she's got a motor scooter.

Well this a 1966 Vespa, you know these are love objects.

I started painting it, modifying it something that I even did in high school, I had one in high school and so there's an idea of whacking it out with having sculptures on it.

When I'm making things, of course I think about how people will feel.

Making people happy, well yeah, we're, that's our business.

[Laughs] All right.