The Clay Studio is pleased to present an exhibition of pottery by three contemporary masters. Matthew Metz, Linda Sikora and Sanam Emami share a love of utility and history that they balance with lush, rewarding surfaces and classic forms.
Matthew Metz has been a making his living as a studio potter for the last 25 years. He resides and works in Alfred, New York. Born in Kendallville, Indiana in 1961, he received a B.F.A from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana and M.F.A. from Edinboro University in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. From 1989 to 1991 he was a resident at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. In 1991 he received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has been the recipient of two McKnight Artist Fellowships through the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota; first in 1997 and again in 2005.
Metz shows and sells his pottery throughout the U.S. and internationally- including the St. Croix Potter’s Tour (MN), the Old Church Pottery Show (NJ), and the Philadelphia Craft Show. Matthew’s work is in numerous private and public collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Erie Art Museum, Racine Art Museum, Schein-Joseph Museum of Ceramic Art, Alfred University, Rhode Island School of Design, Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, West Virginia, and Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, California, among others. In 2010, he was a demonstrating artist for the National Council for Ceramic Arts Education Conference. Matthew has been a visiting artist in Taiwan at Tainan University, and was a participant in “10 American Potters”, an exhibition at the Moegi Gallery, in Mashiko, Japan. He has presented professional workshops at universities and craft schools across the U.S and Canada, most recently Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine and the Anderson Ranch Art Center, Aspen, Colorado.
Linda Sikora resides with her family near Alfred NY where she has a studio practice and is a professor in the Division of Ceramic Art at Alfred University. Academic study in visual art along with a ceramic-based apprenticeship in British Columbia marked the beginning of a ceramic art profession in Canada. Formal education continued at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University (BFA) and, University of Minnesota–Minneapolis (MFA). Authored articles are printed in Studio Potter, Ceramic Review and, online at Interpreting Ceramics. Professional activities are national and international. Public collections include: Art Gallery of Nova Scotia; Racine Art Museum; Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art; LA County Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of the Arts; Everson Museum of Art; Huntington Museum of Art.
Sanam Emami is a ceramic artist and an Assistant Professor of Pottery at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. She received a BA in History from James Madison University in Virginia, and an MFA in Ceramics from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. She was a Visiting Assistant Professor in Ceramics at Alfred University, resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana, and has lectured at the Office for the Arts at Harvard University; the Kansas City Art Institute; Arizona State University Art Museum-Ceramic Research Center, and NCECA in Louisville, Kentucky. She received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant for Craft and her work has been in exhibitions at numerous galleries across the country including The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston; Greenwich House Pottery, New York City; The Art-Stream Nomadic Gallery; Northern Clay Center, Minnesota.
