The Full Moon Beach RAKU weekends that David Kuraoka organized, first at Davenport and then Pescadero Beach went on for 13 years with ceramic students from all the local Colleges pitching in. It was a lesson in the power of community, and we continued to participate with our own students for years after we graduated and got jobs teaching. There was always a Joe group event . A maypole , a giant cargo parachute, something that would unify us like a tribe and be visually amazing and of scale for the beach. We would get naked in Joe's geodesic dome woodfired sauna, where there was always room for one more.

Wonderful artist and person. I took  a ceramic class from him in grad school and he was 1000% friendly and supportive of my weird mud-pie efforts.  Another Bay Area art legend belongs to the ages.

I knew Joe when I was a graduate student at SFSU 1985-1989.  I have very clear memories of specific moments when in an instant, he helped me with my work.  I was always able to move forward after one of these encounters.  I am forever grateful to Joe for sharing his insight and keen ability to communicate.  Joe was generous, big hearted and honest in his dealings with students.  His praise was poignant and his criticism straight forward.  He also pushed us out of our comfort zones, as the cliche goes.  I remember when he assigned 'making  a video' to the grad students.   We were object makers!  It seemed daunting.  But Joe understood the importance of developing resilience and versatility in the arts.   My graduate school experience led me to teaching.  Teaching with Joe was my first real-life experience of it.  Those four years at SFSU, working with Joe and David, changed my life.  I am full of gratitude.   

Joe and a student

Here is a video of the 1969 Yellow Cab Event... 

Firing the wood fired kiln, Ferndale, Ca. 2009. Kent Child and Joe were students together at San Jose State working in ceramics and glass. — with from left to right seated: Fred Olsen, Kent Child, Joe Hawley. Standing Granite Calimpong on left, Conrad Calimpong on right.

In the mid '70s, I spent many hours with Joe sailing with him on his Chinese junk the Hang-Ho, when he had a live-work studio at Gate 5 in Sausalito.

Jorin ,

I can't think of Joe without smiling.

Here  is a memory from my second semester at SF state. I had the pleasure of being one of Joe's  students in the early 70's at SF state. I had a class that Joe taught with Mel Henderson titled: Events and Happenings. We made a huge inflatable tube out of a roll of thick clear plastic sheeting and tape with a big blower to keep it full of air out on the grassy space in front of the art Dept. People could get inside through an air hatch and could dance around inside at night with lights an music. It blew our minds that something so simple, made with the collective energy of the class could create a huge sculptural form of space, of light, of sound, and interaction with people exploring it inside and out. It took over the whole space of the commons. A pal with a small airplane was to fly overhead to film it. We waited in the overcast sky waiting to hear the plane. I was 19. It changed the way I looked at collaboration and at Art as Experience and Event forever.

Thanks Joe

Bill Abright

Jorin, I remember when I first visited California with you. It was only a matter of a day before I found myself with a bunch of people, including Joe, in the back of a van on our way to the Cow Palace for a show. Initiated by your father, all of us were wearing clown hats and noses to support the ethos of the evening. As I look back, to a young impressionable man at the time, hanging out with Joe, a genuine artist with his joie de vivre left an inedible impression, setting a standard of fearlessness and enjoying life well worth pursuing.   

Dearest Jorin...just saw this on Facebook. Much love to you dear sister. We need to Zoom!!!! Love you!

Hola Jorin

As the poet e.e. cummings once wrote, “words fail, they fall down…” And yet those and our feelings are really all we have to honor and remember those who have gone.

In Philly, Joe would have been known as a stand up guy. As an art professor he led by example, usually gently nudging us all on past our comfort level, as he did with himself.

When I think of him I think of the word encouragement. He was always willing to listen and advise, and he always advised us in the glass class to “give up our love affair with the bubble, and move in another direction with the material.” Advice I finally listened to and was grateful to him that I did. Hell, he even advised me to get together with Sonia,

who became my wife. Gracias, Jose.

Karoka taught us to really look at what we were making, Bud taught us to think our pieces through as far as it could go, but Joe encouraged us to listen to our hearts when it came to our work.

Joe was fun, whether in his every day outlook, or his art work. He lived large, and his world was large, not just about artists, but cops, firemen, janitors, etc. I picture Joe making his way through the Bardo’s, jiving and glad handing the Buddhas and demons alike, ever the egalitarian. Our world is a lesser place without him.

Que descanse en paz, José, gracias por todo. 

Michael Schmidt

When I had my Hammerfriar Gallery in Healdsburg I showed a sculpture of Joe’s that had living moss on it. It was inspired by a planet. It required me to mist it with water every day in order to keep it “alive”. I was happy to do that because I really loved the piece.

Later Joe became a friend and a group of us often attended the Cloverdale Friday Night Live concerts and dined at local restaurants. He will be greatly missed.

I spent my life blowing glass and still do. The first time I saw glass blown was while attending SF State. The studio in the sculpture yard that Joe put together was were it all started for me. It’s all you fault Joe. I wouldn’t have wanted my life to be any other way. Thanks for building that furnace. Love