Clay

Kenneth Price, a prolific Los Angeles artist whose work with glazed and painted clay transformed traditional ceramics while also expanding orthodox definitions of American and European sculpture, died early Friday at his home and studio in Taos, N.M. He was 77. Price had struggled with tongue and throat cancer for several years, his food intake restricted to liquids supplied through a feeding tube. Despite his infirmity, he continued to produce challenging new work and to mount critically acclaimed exhibitions at galleries in Los Angeles, New York and Europe.

Rafael Nadal beat defending champion Roger Federer, 7-5, 6-7 (3), 6-3, Sunday to win the Hamburg Masters in Germany and add the only major clay-court title missing from his impressive collection. It was the reverse of last year's final, when Federer won his fourth title in Hamburg and ended Nadal's 81-match winning streak on clay. Nadal rallied from big deficits in the first two sets, although he lost the tiebreaker in the second. He led 4-1 in the third and held on to raise his record against the top-ranked player to 8-1 on clay and 10-6 overall.

The museum at Scripps College in Claremont enlisted a Los Angeles art dealer as co-curator of a Getty-funded Pacific Standard Time exhibition, violating a prominent ethics code that warns museums against allowing commercial interests to shepherd shows in nonprofit venues. "Clay's Tectonic Shift: John Mason, Ken Price and Peter Voulkos, 1956-1968" focuses on three artists credited with breakthroughs that transformed pottery from a studio craft to a sculptural form widely appreciated as fine art. The work of the trio being highlighted at Scripps' Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery has been cited as perhaps the first movement in postwar L.A. art to win renown in the wider world.

Clay's "jokes" are nothing more than vicious attacks on subordinated groups that have long struggled for the social status and respect that we "SWMs" have historically possessed. Epstein's claims about the historical origins of this country are greatly lacking. There are numerous, complex reasons why the Founding Fathers/early immigrants/SWMs solely held the gifted "creator" role. Many first-arriving SWMs were afforded prominent advantages with the enslavement of minorities and the exclusion and persecution of women who sought to expand their extremely limited roles.

PARIS -- Serena Williams is not one to play down her chances at any tournament. So it should come as no surprise she likes her title chances at the French Open. Even if she hasn't been past the quarterfinals at Roland Garros since 2003? Even if she didn't show up for her Italian Open quarterfinal last week because of a bad back? "I'm pretty much insatiable. Like, I always shoot and strive for the best," the 2002 French Open champion said Friday at Roland Garros, where she is seeded fifth and could meet older sister Venus in the semifinals.

Israel is referred to repeatedly in the Bible — 17 times, in fact — as the "land of milk and honey," but until three years ago, archaeologists had discovered little firm evidence that beekeeping was ever practiced there. Many scholars, in fact, assumed "honey" referred to a nectar from dates or other fruits. Then, three years ago, researchers found a 3,000-year-old apiary in the Iron Age city of Tel Rehov in the Jordan Valley, the oldest known commercial beekeeping facility in the world, suggesting that the word "honey" likely referred to the real thing.

Todd Bark has heard the jokes before. Yes, it's a dirty business. Sure, his money is dirty. Of course, he's a dirt farmer. But that's what you get when your business is selling clay to major league baseball. That, and a rather nice living. Dense clay from Bark's bottomland has become the soil of choice for pitcher's mounds and batter's boxes at major league stadiums from New York to California, Florida to Detroit. It's the stuff St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire plants his cleats in and the footing for pitchers like Yankees ace Orlando Hernandez.

Art Clokey, the creator of the whimsical clay figure Gumby, died in his sleep Friday at his home in Los Osos, Calif., after battling repeated bladder infections, his son Joseph said. He was 88. Clokey and his wife, Ruth, invented Gumby in the early 1950s at their Covina home shortly after Art had finished film school at USC. After a successful debut on "The Howdy Doody Show," Gumby soon became the star of its own hit television show, "The Adventures of Gumby," the first to use clay animation on television.

Put 5-year-old Kurston Cook in front of a lump of clay and he might make a black widow spider or a caveman. Lately he has been making big, four-legged creatures. His fingers deftly roll out four chubby legs, a body and a long, serpentine neck. He shapes the head and uses a wood tool to form the eyes and a gaping mouth. Was there any special reason for the sculptures? "Because it's fun," Kurston answered while finishing his brontosaurus. "Because I like dinosaurs." Kurston, like many other students at Pacific Oaks College and Children's School in Pasadena, has had special art instruction since he was 2 in a program that introduces young children to clay, silk screen, painting, drawing and crafts.

These are two players with drastically different resumes. Oregon linebacker Michael Clay is the Good Samaritan, who spent Thanksgiving weekend helping provide dinners for the needy. Kiko Alonso is the Ducks' troubled linebacker, suspended twice after scrapes with the law. The common ground for the two was the Rose Bowl on Monday. Both came up with key defensive plays in a game where little defense was played. Alonso intercepted Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson's pass at the Badgers' 39-yard line, near the end of the third quarter to set up a Ducks' touchdown for a 42-38 lead.

Clay Matthews' star power has captured the attention of both the NFL fan base and offensive coordinators, who've spent this season seeking to double-team the third-year Green Bay Packers linebacker from USC. Matthews' sack and tackle numbers are down from last season, when he contributed 13.5 sacks and nearly four tackles a game for the Super Bowl champions. After Sunday's 46-16 victory over the Oakland Raiders, Matthews has six sacks and 38 tackles. As the calendar turned to December in a big game last week, Matthews began asserting himself at critical times, intercepting a pass by New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning and returning it for a touchdown, recording a sack and forcing a fumble.

Ara Parseghian was honored before Miami (Ohio) played Army on Saturday when a statue of his likeness, along with those of John Pont, Bo Schembechler and Earl Blaik, was added to the school's "Cradle of Coaches" plaza. The plaza recognizes the accomplishments of eight Miami graduates who earned recognition as college or professional coaches of the year or have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. The statues unveiled Saturday joined those of Weeb Ewbank, Paul Dietzel and Carmen Cozza that were dedicated last year.

A refurbished dirt surface with more sand and less clay will get its first racing test with the start of the 24-day Santa Anita autumn meeting Friday. The Arcadia track was shut down for 12 days in July to change the composition and lessen the clay content. Trainers were consulted, and early reports on the new surface are positive. "I think everybody's really excited," trainer John Sadler said. "The surface looks fantastic. The horses seem to love it. We think it has a chance to be the best surface in America.

Raunchy comedian Andrew "Dice" Clay, 53, banned for life by MTV in 1989 during his heyday, is a recurring character on the new season of HBO's "Entourage," beginning next Sunday. He plays himself as a has-been comedian who gets a shot at making a comeback as an animated character — and who is determined to get revenge on Hollywood for years of dumping or ignoring him. So where have you been? I brought up my sons. I went through a bad divorce, and both my boys live with me. When I went through that breakup, I really didn't care about the career.

Clay Matthews is locked out of the sport he loves, but the Green Bay Packers linebacker still gets to do something that's only a fantasy for most NFL players. He gets to punch a reporter. "And when haven't I wanted to do that?" said Matthews, who may have been joking. The reporter on the other end of those fists is Jay Glazer, who leads a bizarre double life. When he's not working as the NFL insider for Fox, he's at a gym in Hollywood, training some of the league's elite players in mixed martial arts.

Christopher Knight wonders about the next generation of ceramists ("A Visible Crack in a Fragile Art," July 23). The younger generation of ceramists are being led by Pier Voulkos (Peter's daughter) in a new direction, with a new clay. Polymer clay has led these ceramists to give up the heat and expense of kilns and torches for the simplicity of a toaster oven and a pasta machine. Because polymer clay cures at 275 degrees and can be molded, sanded, lathed, polished, sawed, carved and incorporated with precious metals, a whole new art form has emerged.

A judge, school superintendent and county clerk have been indicted on charges they extorted money from political candidates so they could bribe voters in a scheme to rig several elections, authorities said. The U.S. attorney's office said charges include racketeering, bribery, extortion and voter fraud against Clay County Circuit Court Judge Russell Cletus Maricle, school Supt. Douglas C. Adams, Clay County Clerk Freddy Thompson and others.

Forget funding the government or sorting out conservative social policies. In some quarters, the question of the day in Congress was, "What would Henry Clay do?" Revered as the nation's "Great Compromiser," Clay has made an extraordinary number of cameos in the current budget drama — a saga filled with people who claim to be aspiring to, but moving slowly toward, compromise, great or not. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday declared that Clay — a former House speaker best known for the slavery compromises that delayed the Civil War — was "one of the greatest speakers of all time.

Archaeologists have found a clay tablet bearing the earliest known writing in Europe, a 3,350-year-old specimen, which makes it at least 150 years older than other known tablets from the region. Found in one of the palaces linked to Greece's King Nestor of Trojan War fame, the tablet not only is older than expected, but also appears at a site, called Iklaina, where researchers did not expect to find writing, said its discoverer, Michael Cosmopoulos of the University of Missouri-St.