Variance

VARIANCE

The exhibition and catalog for Variance were produced by the ceramic art graduate students with generous financial support from The School of Art and Design, The Miller Endowment for Excellence in the Arts, The Division of Ceramic Art and The Marcianne Mapel Miller Fund for Ceramic Art.

Š 2015 Division of Ceramic Art, School of Art and Design New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University

Alfred University 1 Saxon Drive Alfred, NY 14802

ISBN: 978-0-9840078-5-1 art.alfred.edu For additional information please visit: http://www.alfredceramics.com/

VARIANCE A Survey of Graduate Student Work at the Alfred University School of Art & Design

The WURKS

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45 Acorn St. • Providence, RI 02903

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March 25 - 28, 2015

A View at the Intersection Wayne Higby

The major intersection in the village of Alfred is an imaginary one. It is located at the philosophical center of the University’s ceramic art program. Here the seemingly, mutually exclusive worlds of Art, Craft and Design intersect. The principles of Alfred’s Ceramic Ar t Division are focused by a desire to embrace the kaleidoscopic nature of ar t. The Division looks for artists of different backgrounds to study in the MFA program. We are grounded in ceramic practice. We are in rigorous pursuit of the unknown.

It is essential for the ceramic artist to engage information across disciplines. Discovering individual strengths and seeing them via the use of multiple lenses is indispensable. Today, humanity resides in a time of great liquidity. Individual initiative backed by rigorous engagement, together with a strong set of personal values, are the keys to credibility.

Variance is an appropriate title for this exhibition. Thanks to the guidance of Jesse Ring and Dennis Ritter, Variance offers a closer look at the intersection and the generalities I’m bringing to the fore. It serves to reveal a group of serious, gifted artists and to offer a sample of what is current in Ceramic Art 2015.

In a nutshell, the dynamic suggests a scene in which Picasso and Duchamp are arm wrestling with fans betting on their personal hero to win - everyone is hedging their bets just in case.

Ar tists are often suspicious of their primary strengths. Reasoned cognition seems to secure relevance. Graduate School, by its very academic nature, puts artists more into their heads than into their hands. This is good background, but inevitably it is essential to take pleasure in hard work and to put Duchamp and Picasso in their relevant place.

Introduction Meghen Jones

As Wayne Higby and I viewed and made selections of the objects, assemblages, installations, and documentations for this exhibition and catalog, it became clear that the MFA students whose works are illustrated here defy easy categorization. Their Harder Hall studios yield clay objects fired and unfired, figurative and abstract, functional and metaphoric, plastic and ethereal. The results are both of and about ceramics. Here, ceramics = photographs, drawings, mixed media, social engagement as well as fired clay sculpture, vessels, and pots.

There is no single Alfred style, no single Alfred genre. As these works demonstrate, Alfred is a postmodern ceramic art incubator extraordinaire. Long ago have the boundaries separating ceramics and “fine” arts media melted away.

What unites the work on these pages is the dedication of its makers to the pursuit of individual vision. I first encountered this when I arrived to Alfred at the star t of the fall 2014 semester. To an auditorium filled with the entire School of Ar t and Design, the incoming MFA students powerfully articulated their singular visions. They showed us that they had packed well for their Alfred journeys, prepared to dedicate themselves to their personal artistic quests. Looking back to that day, I wonder what Charles Fergus Binns, the founding director of the New York State School of Clay-Working and Ceramics (now the New York State College of Ceramics) would have thought. In his preface to The Potter’s Craft of 1910, Binns pronounced, “The attempt has been made to lead every student to experiment and to think for himself.” Over 100 years on, this ethos prevails. Alfred students are thinking, experimenting, and generating a new ceramics discourse whose history is unfolding before our eyes. Thanks goes to Jesse Ring and Dennis Ritter for organizing this project that documents and celebrates the multiplicity of ceramics at Alfred.

Rafael Corzo

Maya Amor, 2014 Various Materials 15.5’ x 21’

Henry Crissman

The Hedgerow Farm Bakery Pottery Project, 2014 The Hedgerow Farm Bakery Pottery Project, 2014 Pottery, and Contract Left: HenryCabinet James Haver CrissmanDetail and Bakery Owner, Peg Eisenhardt at Hedgerow Farm Bakery in Alfred, NY Right: Pottery, Cabinet and Contract Detail

Scott Jelich Yellow Covered Jar, 2014 Iron Rich Stoneware 14”h. x 11”w.

Purple Covered Jar, 2014 Iron Rich Stoneware 14”h. x 11”w.

Purple Covered Jar, 2014 Iron Rich Stoneware 14”h. x 11”w.

Banquet, 2014 Porcelain 2.5’ x 4’

Kelly Brenner Justice Desserts, 2014 Porcelain 2.5’ x 4’

Kelly Brenner Justice Desserts, 2014 Porcelain 2.5’ x 4’

Will Preman Untitled (Detail), 2013 Ceramic, Plaster, Powdered Clay Dimensions Variable

Occult Beach, 2014 Terra Cotta, Cast Paper, Poplar, Porcelain, Glazed Earthenware 48x36x70

Jesse Ring Forgetting Samuel Clemens, 2014 Glazed Ear then Ware, Colored Porcelain, Enamel, Birch Plywood, Found Object 50x24x56

Dennis Ritter Questions of Domesticity & the Mudane, 2014 Clay, Transformed Object and Light 9”h. x 8.5”w. x 10.5”d.

Recollection (Detail, Questions of Domesticity & the Mundane), 2014 Clay and Light 9”h. x 8.5”w. x 10.5”d.

Figure Two, 2014 Porcelain, Slump Body, Wire, Glaze, Sand, Rope 5’h. x 2’w. x 2’d.

Kate Roberts

Containment, 2014 Unfired Porcelain, Fiber, Wire 4’h. x 5’w. x 3’d.

Bailey Arend Creekside Abstractions, 2014 Stoneware, Glaze, Paper, Plaster, Charcoal Dimensions Variable

James Barker Dark Spaces, 2014 Ceramic, Fabric, Papier-Mâché, Wood, Vinyl 22’l. x 10’ w. x 6’ h.

James Barker Dark Spaces (Floor Piece), 2014 Papier-Mâché, Wood 10’ x 10’ x 6’

Emily Duke Modified Wrench I, 2014 Terra Cotta Clay, Cone 06 Glaze 22”h. x 15”w. x 7”d.

Modified Wrench I, 2014 Terra Cotta Clay, Cone 06 Glaze 22”h. x 15”w. x 7”d.

Profile, 2014 Mixed Media 52”h. x 48”w. x 18”d.

Gustav Hamilton Blue Arch, 2014 Mixed Media 32”h. x 48”w. x 8”d.

Jar, 2014 Stoneware, ∆10 Oxidation 6.5”h. x 5”w. x 5”d.

Lydia Johnson Cups & Saucers, 2014 Stoneware, ∆10 Oxidation 6”h. x 6”w. x 5”d.

Austyn Taylor After Gravettian, 2014 Earthenware, Graphite 12”h. x12”w. x 5”d.

Id and Ego-go, 2013 Earthenware, Graphite 21”h. x 24”w. x 12”d.

Hannah Thompsett Light Studies (Installation View), 2014 Digital Photograph, Ceramic Dimensions Variable

Light Study 2, 2014 Digital Photograph 16�h. x 49�w. (Hanging Dimensions)

Virginia Torrence Portrait 2, 2014 Ceramic 3’h. x 1.5’w.

Portrait 1, 2014 Ceramic, Paper 3’h. x 1.5’w.

GRADUATE STUDENTS IN THE EXHIBITION SECOND YEAR

FIRST YEAR

Rafael Corzo

Bailey Arend

www.RafaelCorzo.com

www.BaileyArend.com

Henry Crissman

James Barker

www.HenryCrissman.com

www.JamesPBarker.com

Scott Jelich

Emily Duke

www.ScottJelichCeramics.com

www.EmilyDukeSculpture.com

Kelly Justice kellybjustice@gmail.com

Will Preman www.WillPreman.com

Jesse Ring www.JesseRing.com

Dennis Ritter www.DennisRitterClay.com

Kate Roberts www.KateRobertsCeramics.com

Gustav Hamilton

www.GustavHamilton.com

Lydia Johnson www.LydiaJohnsonCeramics.com

Austyn Taylor www.AustynTaylor.com

Hannah Thompsett www.HannahThompsett.com

Virginia Torrence www.VirginiaTorrence.com

Wayne Higby is Assistant Professor of Art History in the School of Art and Design at the New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University. Her research and teaching center on the histories of ceramics, East Asian arts, and craft in transnational perspective. She has received fellowships from organizations including the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, the Fulbright Program, the Korea Foundation, and the Japanese Ministry of Education.

Meghen Jones, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Art History in the School of Art and Design at the New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University. Her research and teaching center on the histories of ceramics, East Asian arts, and craft in transnational perspective.

She has received fellowships from organizations including the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, the Fulbright Program, the Korea Foundation, and the Japanese Ministry of Education.

Project Coordinators: Jesse Ring and Dennis Ritter Catalog Design: Lydia Johnson Printed by: Alfred State Print and Mail Services