Auction Honors Distinguished Art Grad — by Marjorie Smith ... The School of Art will celebrate its most famous graduate, the late Peter Voulkos, '51 App.Art, at this year's Mountain West Contemporary Art Auction, "Envision This Place." The live auction--featuring works by 50 prominent artists connected to MSU--is set for October 25 at the Gallatin Gateway Inn, with a preliminary showing at the Helen E. Copeland Gallery at MSU beginning October 6. The works are also available for viewing, and possible purchase, via the Internet at www.MWCartauction.com. Voulkos, a Bozeman native who enrolled at Montana State College after he returned from service in World War II, confessed a few months before his death last year that he put off taking a required ceramics course for as long as possible. "I didn't want to get my hands muddy," he said. But something about the combination of Peter Voulkos and clay, abetted by his first ceramics professor, Frances Senska, struck up a creative blaze that lasted more than half a century. Before long, the entire ceramics world was splattered with the mud that Voulkos flung about in the energetic pursuit of his art. "The Voulkos piece in the auction this year is very special," says Tony Waller, '81 Art, who chairs the auction. "Last year's piece was one from what some call Voulkos' "Angry Period," but this year's was done in the late 1950s when he was carefully crafting pieces." Waller's idea for the auction was that rather than just display the work donated by MSU alumni, faculty and friends for Bozeman-based connoisseurs, the art should be available to art lovers around the world. Some pieces will be sold via silent auction, and Internet viewers may place telephone bids during the live auction on October 25. "Our first auction last October was a such a success," says Jerry Bancroft, dean of the College of Arts and Architecture. "It enabled us to get the shell completed for the Senska/Wilber Graduate Art Studios. Now we need to outfit the studios." Waller, who grew up in Wolf Point, majored in professional design and has spent his career as an interior designer on the East Coast, says, "I'm thrilled about this year's donated pieces. I feel we're really pushing the envelope." Bancroft notes that in a state still best known for cowboy artist Charles M. Russell, the MSU Art School's focus on contemporary art is a driving force in the state. "Nothing like this auction is going on elsewhere in the state," he says. "Our faculty does contemporary work; we train contemporary artists. We're making sure art moves forward." "I think the works in the auction demonstrate how varied contemporary art can be," says Waller. "The show contains everything from abstract pieces to photo realism. It demonstrates the breadth of the work folks in and from Montana do. And since it's online, it can help everyone around the world 'Envision This Place.'"