May 26th - Jul 15th, 2018
The Clay Studio National is a biannual exhibition showcasing the full range of ceramic art being made in the United States now. Through this juried exhibition we highlight a diverse range of work, from functional to sculptural, and from traditional production techniques to cutting edge manufacturing technology.
Our esteemed guest juror this year is Beth Ann Gerstein, Executive Director of the American Museum of Ceramic Art.
Congratulations to Mark Goudy, who has been awarded the Ceramic Arts Network Merit Award for his piece, "Experience Objects."
In a wonderful review of this exhibition by Artblog, Deb Krieger writes:
"There’s a tug-of-war between my appreciation for the appearance of ceramic artworks and my desire to rub my hands all over them. Luckily, The Clay Studio National, which consists of submissions from all over the United States, provides plenty to activate both impulses.... The Clay Studio National has something for everyone, from both classic and boundary-pushing uses of the medium to explorations of important societal themes."
Opening Reception: First Friday, June 1, 5 - 8 pm
Jackie Brown
Medium & Materials:
Porcelain
Measurements:
13" x 9" x 4.5"
Date:
2018
Adam Chau
Medium & Materials:
Porcelain Tile with White Gold Luster
Measurements:
6" x 4" x 0.25"
Date:
2018
Description:
Text content is about my relationships with my ex-partners.
TXT is part of The Screenshot Series that examines screen-based electronics such as smartphones, tablets, and desktops, and reinterprets them to make a commentary on our everyday living. These porcelain tiles are the same dimensions of their electronic counterparts, and are painted with a CNC machine fitted with unique, handmade brushes. The relationship between the handmade brush and the CNC machine is parallel to the relationship between the electronic phone and the cursive written text messages. The messages referencing emotional connections to ex-partners add another layer of emotion to the human connections between ourselves and our digital devices.
Kit Davenport
Medium & Materials:
Stoneware, Wood, Epoxy, Paint
Measurements:
20" x 5.5" x 11"
Date:
2016
Description:
I am most interested in the expressive possibilities of sculptural form, where references of representation and of shape or gesture are vocabulary in a language, the purpose of which is to touch on, explore, or evoke previously unrecognized interior territory. These works have a presence as small(ish) objects, and as narrative tableaux, as well. They are modest in scale but represent for me a way to investigate and manifest anxiety, pleasure, humor, grief, and the ambiguities of consciousness.
Emily Duke
Medium & Materials:
White Stoneware, Glaze, Grout, Steel, Wood
Measurements:
36" x 10" x 15"
Date:
2018
Description:
I often find comfort in order, logic and the familiar. However, in this divisive time I have turned toward the depths of myth and folklore to make sense of the universe. Greed Has Two Mouths to Bite is pulling from interviews collected in Southern Georgia in the mid 70s that record firsthand accounts with a creature called the hoop snake. Within this piece I am pairing the symbolic hoop snake and an accumulation of custom tiles to address ideas of greed, luck, and mortality. I am presenting the viewer with the opportunity to look closely, believe in the unknown and trust in superstition.
Justin Donofrio
Medium & Materials:
Colored Porcelain
Measurements:
7.5" x 7.5" x 8.5"
Date:
2018
Description:
Through the lens of functional pottery I focus on questions about our relationship with objects. I explore the concept of humanity’s authority over landscape and record of construction as a form of time materialized. The geographical layered strata of each vessel represent fragments or glimpses into the density of every assemblage. With the intersections and overlaps, I contemplate the dynamic relationship between materiality and landscape and our attempt to control it.
Focusing on the fluidity of process and materials as remnants of making, I work with a limited number of tools and movements to allow the clay to actively inform the line quality and elegant volume. Relying heavily on the physicality of the technique I generously push and pull these lines to develop an undulation that resembles natural rhythms.
Mark Goudy
Medium & Materials:
Slipcast Earthenware
Measurements:
13" x 5.5" x 5", 16.5" x 7" x 6", 19.5" x 5" x 4.5"
Date:
2017
Description:
This work merges my engineering and artistic sensibilities. My continued passion with the medium is stimulated by the exploration of design, process, form, pattern, and the myriad levels of problem solving that are intrinsic to my work. I am drawn to minimalist archetypal forms that reflect the geometries of nature. Weathered stones are a central inspiration for me. These perfect forms emerge through the planetary process of plate tectonics where cooling magma from deep in the earth is brought to the surface and subjected to the physics of erosion over eons. These rounded shapes can be seen on any beach, in any streambed. Echoes of this timeless progression reverberate in my work.
Nicole Gugliotti
Medium & Materials:
Porcelain
Measurements:
10ft x 10ft x 14ft area installed
Date:
2017
Description:
From 2003 to 2015 I have worked in reproductive health services alongside my art career, both for Planned Parenthood Affiliates in Florida and Pennsylvania (right down the street from The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, in fact!) and for Bread and Roses, an independent abortion clinic in Florida. Working in reproductive health, on the front lines, in the clinic, I received an incredible education in public health and patient safety. Reproductive justice is close to my heart and is the focus of my current body of work.
The goal of my piece, awe/agency, is not to combat critics. My goal is to challenge stigma and contribute to the changing dominant narrative surrounding abortion in the United States.
People who have had abortions are often cast as villains or as victims, and rarely as heroes of their own story. Building an installation around interviews with people who have had an abortion and self-identify this experience as positive, I hope to offer an alternative narrative.
Inspiration for awe/agency came from a close friend who shared her abortion experience with me. I was pleasantly surprised by the distinct confidence she modeled while sharing her story. Her experience was not without hesitation or complication; in fact, her story contained both. I think her confidence came from a solid place of knowing she was entitled to her humanity and control over her body.
Seth Green
Medium & Materials:
Stoneware
Measurements:
7" x 7" x 11"
Date:
2018
Description:
Symbolic details used in the creation of religious and royal architecture primarily influence my wheel-thrown and assembled ceramic vessels. Specific forms of inspiration are the cathedrals, palaces, and mosques of the Islamic world and the Czech Republic, that are topped with domes, spires, and finials that pierce the sky and reach heavenward. Spires and finials are prominently featured in most of my works, communicating spiritual and significant symbolism. Striking silhouettes, symmetry, and line also captivate my focus.
I take advantage of clay’s ability to retain carefully defined and metal-like details while using luxurious metallic finishes that are only possible through the ceramic process. Glaze applied to these ceramic forms accentuates, yet softens, their details and silhouettes. The use of crystal forming glazes and precious metal lusters communicate the same degree of beauty and luxury as the referenced historical objects and emphasize the important aspects of the work.
Chuck Johnson
Medium & Materials:
Ceramic
Date:
2018
Description:
The ceramic sculptures of Chuck Johnson depict narrative stacks of elements from the built and biological worlds. The hard-edged linear elements contrast with the organic curves of endangered animals and child-like dolls. His vertical towers achieve a precarious balance, wherein the living subject seems trapped and resigned to an impossible situation, as if born into a world of limited choices. The sculptures have a playful quality, but also allude to temptation and sin, the rift between man and nature, the accepted burdens of institutions and technologies.
Leah Kaplan
Medium & Materials:
Porcelain
Measurements:
7.75" x 6" x 6.5"
Date:
2018
Description:
My work explores dualities and navigates the continuum between opposing forces. Sometimes I am mediating aesthetic considerations or a way of working, and at other times, emotional states, or a way of being. Often it is both. From this ongoing dialectic, my forms emerge.
These dualities include: Light/Shadow. Translucent/Opaque. Intuitive/Intentional. Stillness/Movement. Part/Whole. Weighty/Light. Permanent/Fleeting. Perfect/Flawed. Solitude/Connection. Push/Pull. Ordered/Irregular. Novel/Familiar. Open/Closed. The list goes on, constantly evolving as some aspects take on greater importance, while others recede.
Patty Kochaver
Medium & Materials:
Stoneware
Measurements:
8" x 8" x 5"
Date:
2018
Description:
This body of work evolved over the years because of my fascination with form and process. As a longtime wheel-thrower I eventually moved from mostly utilitarian ware to forms created for the sake of form. Function was secondary. Each change in curve and direction was intentional to create a piece with balance, volume and nuance. Something to catch the viewer’s attention and invite an emotional response causing the eye to hold a bit longer. I strive to create a piece with presence.
Form and surface are equal in my view, and saggar firing is the way I like to work these surfaces, as a painter would work a canvas. The materials I apply on the surfaces of the pieces and interior of the saggars are chosen because of the color, line, flashing and masking effects they provide. There is little certainty in this type of sawdust ring, so I work instinctively using knowledge from previous rings with fingers crossed.
Patty Kochaver
Medium & Materials:
Stoneware
Measurements:
6.5" x 6.5" x 4"
Date:
2018
Description:
This body of work evolved over the years because of my fascination with form and process. As a longtime wheel-thrower I eventually moved from mostly utilitarian ware to forms created for the sake of form. Function was secondary. Each change in curve and direction was intentional to create a piece with balance, volume and nuance. Something to catch the viewer’s attention and invite an emotional response causing the eye to hold a bit longer. I strive to create a piece with presence.
Form and surface are equal in my view, and saggar firing is the way I like to work these surfaces, as a painter would work a canvas. The materials I apply on the surfaces of the pieces and interior of the saggars are chosen because of the color, line, flashing and masking effects they provide. There is little certainty in this type of sawdust ring, so I work instinctively using knowledge from previous rings with fingers crossed.
Andrea LeBlond
Medium & Materials:
Ceramic
Measurements:
14" x 18.5" x 4"
Date:
2018
Description:
Look closely, and you will notice that life is a delicate relationship of chaos and order. Clay, when unfired, disintegrates to dirt. Our homes, when lacking attention and care, accumulate with dust and clutter. Our bodies, when ignored and neglected, succumb to illness and disease.
My work is about cultivating order within the chaos of life. Drawing inspiration from cellular organisms, microscopic particles, and the geology of my environment, I welcome balance, symmetry, and precision into my pieces — invoking the order and stillness that is found buried within life’s inevitable disarray.
Through the juxtaposition of drawn line and wire onto the solid mass of clay, I enjoy the play between delicate and heavy, solid and ephemeral, structure and disintegration. These opposing sides represent for me natural order and balance, something I strive for in daily life, but which is hard won and fleeting. The moment order is finally achieved, it crumbles and the cycle begins again, much like the natural process of clay, from raw pulverized rock to malleable mate- rial, to red piece of art.
Nikki Lau
Medium & Materials:
Porcelain
Measurements:
19" x 13" x 15"
Date:
2018
Description:
I wanted to create work that honored the labor of three generations of women. My grandmother used her hands as a garment worker in San Francisco Chinatown to create beautiful clothes. My mother is in the food industry and has used her hands to feed and nourish countless people. I have dedicated my hands to ceramics. I recreated my grandmother’s sewing machine and sewed into the porcelain base the outlines of my mother’s hands.
Through large and small scale mixed media sculptural installations, I create narratives that invite the viewer to challenge hierarchy, privilege and power that governs American society. As an Asian American woman, my work sheds light on silenced voices of the “Other.” Using identity politics, I change the narrative of the “other” from object to subject. Through the sharing of untold stories, can we start to build understanding and empathy, in place of trauma and oppression. My hope is that the work is so confrontational, that viewers get past the fear of uncomfortable dialogues surrounding inequality and social injustice, and start to address society’s elephant in the room.
Richard Nickel
Medium & Materials:
Earthenware
Measurements:
20" x 14" x 10"
Date:
2018
Description:
We all begin as children: This simple, fundamental truth is at the core of Richard Nickel’s artwork. He shows us unforced poetic images, as if a child picked up a storybook and told the entire story without ever being able to read a single word. Quieter than his usual images, Carpenter is a simple, yet powerful image of the artist’s father, made soon after his passing.
Hannah Pierce
Medium & Materials:
Earthenware, Steel, Crochet Thread, Ribbon, Nichrome Wire
Measurements:
22" x 9.5" x 15"
Date:
2017
Description:
This piece is a dark, yet comical interpretation of a man-child drinking booze in a crib. It is meant to portray the concept of adults coping with their issues in excessive, child-like ways. The exaggerated perspective is meant to dramatize the ridiculousness of the narrative. These uncanny structures in my work are usually accompanied by weathered surfaces, references to smog, unknown fluids, and other depictions of urban detritus. The characters within these dismal spaces appear to be struggling with their perplexing surroundings.
I tend to use visual metaphors that recognize our dependency upon man-made environments and our desperate attempts to conform to living in such unnatural conditions. Within all my sculptures, the figures are visually separate from their surroundings in their illustrative, two-dimension- al format. This separation personifies an underlying tension and a sense of estrangement that everyone in our contemporary society can relate to.
Raymond Rorke
Medium & Materials:
Stoneware
Measurements:
36" x 48" x 3"
Date:
2016
Description:
While digging in my garden one day, I found an old horseshoe. It was mostly rusted away, but I could tell instantly what it was. Someone made this, I thought — and I had a sudden thrill: here, in my hands, was human intelligence.
How is it that we can so readily recognize that a random scrap, even from a different time, is man-made? I want to understand this powerful, instinctive bond we have with objects, especially at a time when today’s digital devices — smartphones, touchscreens, Fitbits, GoPros — so actively privilege our hands’ sensory attention and have virtually merged with our habits and thoughts. To explore what’s behind our primal, connection with objects, I decided to create this series of “unintentional” tools, handmade implements that felt good in the hand, that were well-crafted, balanced, and only potentially serviceable.
With this series of handhelds I’m also exploring our cognizant knowledge about objects by arranging them in a consciously orderly fashion — a process called “knolling.” The term knolling was first used in 1987 by a janitor at Frank Gehry’s Knoll furniture design shop, where, each night, he would neatly arrange Gehry’s drafting tools. Knolling has since become a practice performed by artists and designers. It evokes archaeological finds displayed in museum collections, or exploded views of complex machinery, or even utensils hung on kitchen walls.
Ultimately, I’m exploring, through action and reflection, the poetic possibilities of everyday making as a way to connect our human past and present, and to understand what it means to say, “Someone made this.”
John Shea
Medium & Materials:
Ceramic
Measurements:
12" x 12" x 12"
Date:
2018
Description:
Historically, a plugger was someone who took out the center of a coin and replaced it with a less valuable material, a kind of counterfeiter, just not a fully committed one. Such counterfeits were made to deceive perceptions, yet I believe we pay the most attention to something when it doesn’t fit right, when something feels “off.”
The relationships between Plugger’s form, surface, and
color all seek to disorient. Color becomes light while form and surface flatten, asking the viewer to oscillate between their perceptions and what’s real. Like recognizing a counterfeit, sometimes all it takes is a second look.
Stephanie M. Wilhelm
Medium & Materials:
Porcelain, Glaze, Gold Luster
Measurements:
15" x 13" x 1.5"
Date:
2018
Description:
The unconditional love and loyalty that we find within our canine companions plays a significant role in our personal lives and provides a model for relationships around us. My ceramic work uses the narrative of the dog and human relationship to communicate the internal sense of belonging and comfort formed through companionship. Vessels depicting imagery of the dog and human interacting in quiet, intimate moments evoke a feeling of warmth to encourage the viewer to question where the sentiment of belonging genuinely originates.
Throughout Western art, dogs have also played a canonic role extending back thousands of years as a form of symbolism or essential to the meaning of a human cast of characters and narrative. Ceramics has a long history and
a profound connection to painting and storytelling: filling the entire surface of plates, challenging depth, and moving beyond the conventional plate. I reference these positions of the dog in art and the history of painterly ceramics to talk about intimacy and a sense of belonging, in the hopes that this work transcends plate and creates a sense of place.
Matt Ziemke
Medium & Materials:
Glazed Ceramic
Measurements:
22" x 1" x 18"
Date:
2018
Description:
The purity and visual harmony of ‘landscape’ has long occupied human cultural and spiritual idealism. From the Garden of Eden or Shangri-La to the rich canon of landscape painting, humanity seems to be in perpetual paradox. It is one where our presence inescapably alters the essence of the very thing for which we yearn.
An attempt to parse the combined visual and emotional experience of landscapes from my own life is the substructure of my work. I am drawn to methods of observing landscape like cartography and graphing. Acting as organizational tools for better understanding our surroundings, these visualizations simplify and create a geometric order of otherwise overwhelming swaths of information and geography. As technology advances our ability to chart with greater detail and map with more precision it seems there will always remain subjective aspects of the human experience of landscape.
Rebecca Zweibel
Medium & Materials:
Earthenware, Terra Sigillata, Wax
Measurements:
15" x 5.5" x 4"
Date:
2018
Description:
I use various methods to form my vessels, always using clay slabs and sometimes adding a thrown foot. This variation
in process allows for a desired uncertainty in the outcome of each piece. The surface of the pieces are used as an ever changing canvas for line and color, and I find that the use of dark clay beneath the applied tinted layer allows for a more intense expression of these qualities. I work instinctively, with no preplanned design in mind. Clay gives me infinite challenges, inspiration and the means of expressing my love of working with my hands.
Carly Slade
Medium & Materials:
Ceramic, Embeoidary, El Wire, Mixed Media
Measurements:
20" x 14" x 20"
Date:
2018
Description:
Since moving to Philly last August to be the resident artist at Tyler I have been greatly influenced by the city’s architecture, particularly the corner stores of low-income neighborhoods. I have observed that there is impermanence in our lives spent in the buildings we inhabit and work in, and I am frightened by the precarious nature of the working class. And thus, I think a lot about people, and a lot about the spaces they inhabit. People in each other’s space, spaces after people have left, about who makes the space, people who lost their space; about what they left behind there, or maybe took with them. I am interested in space as both an archive and a façade.
Even after their transformation these buildings still contain within them the residue of the people who passed through them. I make each building to represent a family, a community, a person. They serve as both commemorative relics to the tradespeople who built the original structure, and like a canary in a coal mine, signal the precarious state of the working class.
Tiffany Schmierer
Medium & Materials:
Ceramic
Measurements:
10" x 13" x 19"
Date:
2017
Description:
The underlying theme of my work is the interconnection that we have with each other and our surrounding world. Along with dialogue, themes of home, dreams, and links to our environment are woven throughout the work. I have always been inspired by my surroundings, which has been the cities of San Francisco and Oakland for the last two decades. The intersections between the natural and constructed landscape; the pulse of the city, with its organized and chaotic networks and systems, energizes me.
I create assembled sculptures with a visual density of pattern, imagery, and detail. Rather than edit down to the minimal, I embrace the complexity of our visual culture. Using a “maximalist” approach, I construct an accumulated and intricate viewing experience. This method of layering information leads the viewer into the piece on a non-linear journey, in which connections are formed in a variety of ways. I think of my sculptures as three-dimensional collages, where chains of ideas are layered to create a cohesive whole.
Josephine Larsen
Medium & Materials:
Ceramic
Measurements:
15" x 15" x 15", 20" x 0.25" x 38"
Date:
2018
Description:
My practice revolves heavily around notions of scale and composition. I am infatuated with these two categories, especially scale, and how it influences the embodied experience attained when meeting three-dimensional matter. I am interested in the affect of material existence, the (initially visceral) raw and immediate bodily response to a physical manifestation.
The possibility of limitless experimentation with the properties of clay is ultimately what keeps me coming back to this unique material. I have an undeniable fascination and inclination towards exploring the techniques associated with clay. I am captivated by the challenges that arise when executing ceramic work. I appreciate that the material I work with challenges me as much as I challenge it.
Brian Gillis
Medium & Materials:
Porcelain, Copper, Steel
Measurements:
28" x 10" x 10"
Date:
2016 - Present
Description:
This object was designed for use as a directional antenna
to broadcast pirate radio. It is a part of a series that investigates ways specific orientations of connected antennae can lead to systems of interference that generate directional transmission.
Central to my work is the use of material and intervention
to chronicle and extend socially relevant information. I am most interested in the intersection of history and its consequent social outcomes, and the ways access to this junction can influence a sense of one’s world. My practice ranges from the production of objects and editions of multiples to site-specific installations and actions. I see it as not bound to one genre, material or strategy, but rather that which is investigative in nature and takes whatever form is necessary. I condition my work to exist as an archive and a mine so that the confluence of primary source material, related objects or images, and a given context piques awareness and provokes exchange.
Colleen McCall
Medium & Materials:
Brown Stoneware, Porcelain Slip, Underglaze, Tin Glaze
Date:
2017
Description:
Decorated from top to bottom, inside and out, my colorful hand painted stoneware pottery is a vibrant mash up of historical patterns from all over the world and maybe a few from my children’s dresser drawers too. Vintage textiles, wall coverings and cast glassware are all part of the mix to make the old new again, inciting a passion for nostalgic discovery and creative collaboration. Crafted from custom made plaster press molds and soft clay slabs I design unique one-of- a-kind dishes durable enough for everyday use. An opaque layer of porcelain slip creates a blank canvas for layering wax, colored slip and underglazes. The rich brown clay be- neath is revealed when I draw the final outlines, a technique known as sgraffito. The resulting dish is pure joy, empty or filled.
Daniel Molyneux
Medium & Materials:
Porcelain
Measurements:
6" x 10" x 7.5"
Date:
2018
Description:
Formal abstraction consists of combinations of elemental form, i.e., the cube, the sphere, the cone, the tetrahedron and their derivatives. Though it was during the modern era that we scientifically acknowledged the microscopic and macroscopic geometry around us, civilizations have long treated geometry as a universal language, to be found in every aspect of life. I think of abstract art less as part of
a modernist art movement, and more as a perennial language. Less as an indication of departure from reality, than acceptance of the reality that lies unseen. How does the saying go? That which is seen is temporary, and that which is unseen is eternal. Having majored in languages and comparative religion, with intense experiences in international politics over many years abroad, I find that the language of visual form strikes inherent chords in the human spirit. Form speaks to me from places where all other language, description and explanation seems to fall short.
“K2” is part of a series of small scale sculptures inspired
by uploading scans of my large scale sculptures into Rhino modeling software. I then apply the “explode” function and respond to those exploded three-dimensional forms.
Hitomi Shibata
Medium & Materials:
Wood Salt-Fired NC Wild Clay, Slips, Iron Oxide, Wood Ash
Measurements:
5.5" x 13" x 22"
Date:
2018
Description:
My job as a ceramic artist is to create a beautiful vessel. This ceramic work is made from North Carolina wild, local clays that local potters have used and loved for centuries. It’s really important for me to use natural materials from mother nature.
Wood firing is also an important process to complete my work, and it gives a sustainable energy and life to my work. It’s a very slow process, but I focus on every chemical change, the quality of my work, and my work ethic.
This sculpture is a vessel of life.
Laura Kastin
Medium & Materials:
Ceramic
Measurements:
18.5" x 6" x 8"
Date:
2018
Description:
This sculpture represents an organic form that is twinned yet connected, starting as separate entities that become combined and united. It develops in a tree-like pattern with branching extensions reaching out and upwards to unify in a harmonious relationship. Its title references the tree spirits of mythology.
The piece was created with a very coarse grogged clay that was scraped to expose and accentuate the texture. It was colored with underglaze before the first bisque ring, and then stained again with a darker tone before the final ring at cone 6, or around 2200 degrees F. It was formed from hollow elements using a variety of hand building techniques.
Mimi Logothetis
Medium & Materials:
Porcelain
Measurements:
22" x 4" x 4"
Date:
2017
Description:
This piece references the storytelling of ancient Greek pottery. The story is the relentless history of corruption by powerful agents to oppress people by religion for the gain of power and money. I work in porcelain, because
of its starkness, purity, strength and translucence, all de- pending on its manipulation. I use symbolic images and decorate the wet clay with a proprietary printing process with which I assemble and layer in order to create a story, a joke, or a surreal visual landscape. The hand built work is constructed to show process — seams, glue, rivets — or to resemble paper, speaking to the nature of preciousness and permanence vs. fragility and disposability.
Tiffany Bailey
Medium & Materials:
Porcelain
Measurements:
tile: 10.5" x 8.25" x 1", shelf: 2.5" x 8" x 6", spikes: 6" x 3.25" x 0.5"
Terri Saulin
Medium & Materials:
Porcelain
Date:
2017
Description:
For the past ten years I have been working on a series of sculptures that are responses to various literary inspirations. The books I return to most are Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. The vessel forms and their pedestals and display mechanisms are an accumulating landscape that represent memories of loose interpretations of these texts, treasured people and places.
When I first moved into my old, South Philadelphia house, everything that was falling down was buttressed with scrap wood, tied up with nude-colored, nylon stockings, and slathered with concrete. The supported structures were a mysterious and curious record of the architectural history of the landscape. My neighbors Quintina and Mario were alchemists who could build or x anything with a piece of string.
Memories are delicate constructions. They are a labyrinth, a vast and intricate novel that at once documents, interrupts, and obfuscates, creating floating entry points. In the “Shaker” spirit, I imagine a tiny wasp-worker making imaginary homes for important collections of most special memories.
Judith Rosenthal
Medium & Materials:
Stoneware, Porcelain Paper Clay
Date:
2016
Description:
I delight in working with clay. The pull and the pinch. The rough and the smooth.
Most of my work is inspired by the beauty in nature. I try to bring that natural beauty to my work by using forms that are reminiscent of the sea, the earth, plants, trees, and wind.
The use of paper clay presents opportunities for creating pieces that are impossible in other clay bodies. I work with very thin clay that gives my work an atmospheric effect
of elegance and poetry. Contrasts of glazed and unglazed portions of my pieces are of interest to me. I also like to use varieties of textures and colors juxtaposed to create subtle embellishment.
Part of everyday should be a joyful and beautiful experience. Appreciating and making art does, in some unexplainable way, give me that joy.
Edith Garcia Monnet
Medium & Materials:
Porcelain, Earthenware, Cast Frozen Water, Cast Plaster, Underglaze
Date:
2018
Description:
There are many forms in which an artist works. My work is a way to record my unique individual experiences throughout my lifetime, the minimal occurrences that transpire each day, addressing contemporaneous issues specific to the human condition and grafting them into site-specific installations and objects. Informed by experiences that ignited new dynamic structures of thought, culture, and relationships, this recent installation of sculptural work aims to expose the sinister moments and playful innocence of the modern imagination.
Mary Cale A. Wilson
Medium & Materials:
Video of Site-Specific Installation Unfired Ceramic Bowls in the Ebenezer Creek, Georgia
Date:
2016-17
Description:
Betrayal at Ebenezer was a site-specific installation made
in Ebenezer Creek, a black-water creek in my home of Effingham County, Georgia. This work was made in response to an incident during the Civil War, in December 1864, when freed slaves were abandoned by Union Troops during Sherman’s March to the Sea. The troops, whom the freed slaves were following for protection, crossed the Ebenezer Creek but quickly pulled a temporary bridge before the freed slaves could cross. Stranded, the freed slaves panicked and attempted to swim across in harsh waters, but hundreds drowned.
In response to this incident, I placed approximately two-hundred un-fired clay bowls into the creek which slowly dissolved and sank into the water, memorializing the lives that were lost during the incident. This work was made to investigate the difficult aspects of history that are overlooked as well as to investigate the feelings of responsibility that are a part of my own identity.
Mark Goudy
Medium & Materials:
Earthenware, Painted with Soluble Metal Salts, and Microcrystalline
Date:
2017
Description:
This work merges my engineering and artistic sensibilities. My continued passion with the medium is stimulated by the exploration of design, process, form, pattern, and the myriad levels of problem solving that are intrinsic to my work. I am drawn to minimalist archetypal forms that reflect the geometries of nature. Weathered stones are a central inspiration for me. These perfect forms emerge through the planetary process of plate tectonics where cooling magma from deep in the earth is brought to the surface and subjected to the physics of erosion over eons. These rounded shapes can be seen on any beach, in any streambed. Echoes of this timeless progression reverberate in my work.
Mark Goudy
Medium & Materials:
Earthenware, Painted with Soluble Metal Salts, and Microcrystalline
Date:
2017
Description:
This work merges my engineering and artistic sensibilities. My continued passion with the medium is stimulated by the exploration of design, process, form, pattern, and the myriad levels of problem solving that are intrinsic to my work. I am drawn to minimalist archetypal forms that reflect the geometries of nature. Weathered stones are a central inspiration for me. These perfect forms emerge through the planetary process of plate tectonics where cooling magma from deep in the earth is brought to the surface and subjected to the physics of erosion over eons. These rounded shapes can be seen on any beach, in any streambed. Echoes of this timeless progression reverberate in my work.
Casey Whittier
Medium & Materials:
Terra cotta, stoneware, linen, polyfill
Measurements:
18 x 15 x 6 in
Date:
2018
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