SALES GALLERY August Featured Artists

Andy Bissonnette, Sarah Chenoweth-Davis, Gruchalla Rosetti Pottery, Matthew Krousey

Jewelry Spotlight: Bernadette Torres

August 1 – 27

Sales Gallery & Online

Andy Bissonnette

Andy Bissonnette holds a BFA in graphic design from Minnesota State University Moorhead. He began making pottery at the age of 17 and has melded his two passions into a style that emphasizes form, shape, texture, and pattern. He is currently experimenting with Raku firing, a process in which work is removed from the kiln red hot and subjected to postfiring reduction (or smoking), blackening the raw clay and causing crazing/ cracking in glazed surfaces. Functional or otherwise, Bissonnette is interested in creating surfaces that are rich in texture but also subtly beautiful in their simplicity. He works with limited colors, choosing to emphasize form through carving. He believes juxtaposing simple, yet elegant, forms with complex patterns creates a dynamic that is approachable yet still maintains an aura of mystery. His goal is to draw the viewer into the piece with its classical elegance and continue to engage them with the intricacy of the surface.

Sarah Chenoweth-Davis

Sarah Chenoweth-Davis earned an MFA in applied craft and design from the Oregon College of Art and Craft (Portland) and the Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland), and a BA in biology from the College of Wooster (OH). She established her first studio in 2002, outside Hood River, Oregon, where she built her first kiln. Since then, her practice has brought her from forest, to farm, to urban jungle. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US and in Japan and has been featured in various publications including Ceramics Monthly, The Journal of Australian Ceramics, and the interactive e-book American i-Pottery

Gruchalla Rosetti Pottery

Richard Gruchalla and Carrin Rosetti are a husband-and-wife collaborative team making wheel-thrown and handbuilt Raku fired pottery. Gruchalla is an accomplished clay worker with over 50 years of experience as a professional potter. Rosetti is a trained fiber artist. Over 30 years ago, she brought her vision as a colorist and her exceptional skill in the presentation of fine detail to the clay studio. Gruchalla is responsible for the wet-working of the pottery; wheel throwing, slab construction, burnishing, or the addition of extra texture and carving. He also does the actual firing of the pieces in the Raku kiln. Rosetti takes care of the detailed glazing of the carved surfaces and collaborates with Gruchalla on forms, glazes, studio output and marketing. Their pieces are intended to be decorative objects, but may be used with the understanding that they are softer than stoneware, thus more fragile. They are food-safe, but not necessarily watertight.