Northern Clay Center: Seven McKnight Artists 2012

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MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS Northern Clay Center // 2012 MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS MCKNIGHT ARTISTS 2011 McKnight Fellowship recipients: and Mika Negishi Laidlaw

Gerard Justin Ferrari

2010 McKnight Residency recipients: and Kevin Snipes

William Cravis, Rina Hongo, Naoto Nakada,

2011 McKnight Residency recipient:

David Allyn

Northern Clay Center

Northern Clay Center’s mission is the advancement of the ceramic arts. Its goals are to promote excellence in the work of clay artists, to provide educational opportunities for artists and the community, and to encourage the public’s appreciation and understanding of the ceramic arts.

Staff Sarah Millfelt, Director Theresa Downing, Exhibitions Director and Curator Michael Arnold, Exhibitions Assistant Board of Directors Ellen Watters, Chair Teresa Matsui Sanders, Vice Chair Rick Scott, Treasurer/Secretary Lynne Alpert Robert Briscoe Philip Burke Sheldon Chester Linda Coffey Debra Cohen Nancy Hanily-Dolan

Bonita Hill, M.D. Sally Wheaton Hushcha Christopher Jozwiak Mark Lellman Bruce Lilly Alan Naylor Mark Pharis Jim Ridenour T Cody Turnquist Robert Walsh

Honorary Members Andy Boss Kay Erickson

Warren MacKenzie Joan Mondale

McKnight Artists Fellowships and Residencies for Ceramic Artists and this exhibition are made possible by generous financial support from The McKnight Foundation, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For information, write to: Northern Clay Center 2424 Franklin Avenue East Minneapolis, MN 55406 © 2012 Northern Clay Center All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States First edition, 2012 ISBN: 978-1-932706-25-3

Northern Clay Center // 2012

2011 McKnight Fellowship recipients: and Mika Negishi Laidlaw

Gerard Justin Ferrari

2010 McKnight Residency recipients: and Kevin Snipes

William Cravis, Rina Hongo, Naoto Nakada,

2011 McKnight Residency recipient:

David Allyn

SEVEN MCKNIGHT ARTISTS Essays by Robert Silberman

Director Emerita Emily Galusha

Photography of artists and ceramic works by Peter Lee (except for portrait of Kevin Snipes) Design by Joseph D.R. OLeary at www.vetodesign.com

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

About The McKnight Artist Fellowships for Ceramic Artists

The McKnight Artist Fellowships for Ceramic Artists Program is designed to strengthen and enhance Minnesota’s artistic community by providing recognition and financial support for individual ceramic artists. The awards are intended to significantly advance the work of ceramic artists whose work is of exceptional artistic merit, who have already proven their abilities, and are at a career stage that is beyond emerging.

The program provides two forms of direct financial support to ceramic artists: two fellowships are awarded annually to outstanding mid-career Minnesota ceramic artists; four residency awards are granted each year to artists from outside Minnesota, for a three-month stay at Northern Clay Center.

The 2011 selection panel consisted of three individuals: Jason Busch, the Curatorial Chair for Collections as well as the

Past McKnight Recipients

Alan G. and Jane A. Lehman Curator of Decorative Arts at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; William Cravis, a sculptor from Berkeley, California and a 2010 McKnight Ceramic Artist Residency recipient; and Suze Lindsay, a studio potter from North Carolina and participating artist in the 2011 Minnesota Potters of the upper St. Croix River Studio Tour and Sale.

The 2012 exhibition featured work by the two 2011 McKnight Fellowship recipients; the four 2010 McKnight Residency Artists; as well as one 2011 McKnight Residency Artist who was at the Clay Center between January and March 2012. The fellowship artists used the grants to defray studio and living expenses, experiment with new materials and techniques, and build upon ideas within their current and past work.

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

1997 Fellowships Linda Christianson Matthew Metz Residencies Marina Kuchinski George Pearlman

2001 Fellowships Margaret Bohls Robert Briscoe Residencies Vineet Kacker Davie Reneau Patrick Taddy Janet Williams

2005 Fellowships Maren Kloppmann Tetsuya Yamada Residencies Edith Garcia Audrius Janusˇonis Yonghee Joo Hide Sadohara

2009 Fellowships Ursula Hargens Maren Kloppmann Residencies Jonas Arcˇikauskas Cary Esser Alexandra Hibbitt Ryan Mitchell

1998 Fellowships Judith Meyers Altobell Jeffrey Oestreich Residencies Andrea Leila Denecke Eiko Kishi Deborah Sigel

2002 Fellowships Maren Kloppmann Keisuke Mizuno Residencies William Brouillard Kirk Mangus Tom Towater Sandra Westley

2006 Fellowships Robert Briscoe Mika Negishi Laidlaw Residencies Lisa Marie Barber Junko Nomura Nick Renshaw John Utgaard

2010 Fellowships Linda Christianson Heather Nameth Bren Residencies William Cravis Rina Hongo Naoto Nakada Kevin Snipes

1999 Fellowships Gary Erickson Will Swanson Residencies Joe Batt Kelly Connole

2003 Fellowships Chuck Aydlett Mary Roettger Residencies Miriam Bloom David S. East Ting-Ju Shao Kurt Webb

2007 Fellowships Mike Norman Joseph Kress Residencies Greg Crowe John Lambert Lee Love Alyssa Wood

2011 Fellowships Gerard Justin Ferrari Mika Negishi Laidlaw Residencies David Allyn Edith Garcia Peter Masters Janet Williams

2000 Fellowships Sarah Heimann Joseph Kress Residencies Arina Ailincai Mika Negishi Mary Selvig Megan Sweeney

2004 Fellowships Andrea Leila Denecke Matthew Metz Residencies Eileen Cohen Satoru Hoshino Paul McMullan Anita Powell

2008 Fellowships Andrea Leila Denecke Marko Fields Residencies Ilena Finocchi Margaret O’Rorke Yoko Sekino-Bové Elizabeth Smith

Born 1972 // Madison, WI

David Allyn

EDUCATION 2003 MFA, ceramics, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI // 1996 BFA, fine arts, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, WI SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2010 David Allyn, Gallery Sintra, Gothenburg, Sweden // 2009 Spot Light, Eli-Phant Gallery, Portland, ME // 2000 Sculptural Clay, Bergstrom Mahler Museum, Neenah, WI SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2012 The Border Line, Mikhail Zakin Gallery, The Art School at The Old Church, Demarest, NJ // 2011 New Mythologies, Candita Clayton Studio, Pawtucket, RI // 2009 Providence Perspectives, Monohasset Mill, Providence, RI // 2008 Political Craft, Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, MA // Using It Up, Rabbit Hole Gallery, Brooklyn, NY // RISCA Fellowship Show, Machines With Magnets, Pawtucket, RI // Aipotu, Firehouse 13 Gallery, Providence, RI // 2006 All Over the Map, Art Interactive, Boston, MA // 2005 On Site, RISD Woods Gerry Gallery, Providence, RI // 2003 Kingston Sculpture Biennial, Kingston, NY // Psy-Geo-Conflux, ABC No Rio with Glowlab, New York, NY // Exit Art Biennial, Exit Art, New York, NY // Campsite, Beacon Outdoor Sculpture Festival, Beacon, NY // MFA Exhibition, RISD Design Museum, Providence, RI // Survey of Providence Artists, Gallery Agniel, Providence, RI // Ceramics Graduate Exhibition, Sol-Koffler Gallery Providence, RI // 2002 Ceramic Department Triennial, Woods Gerry Gallery, Providence, RI // New Talent, Peck Gallery, Providence, RI // Graduate Ceramics, Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence, RI // 1999 Faculty Alumni Show, University Gallery, Oshkosh, WI

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

SELECTED AWARDS 2012 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center // 2011 City of Providence, I Buy Art, Award Recipient, Providence, RI // 2008 Best of Ceramics, Uptown Art Fair, Minneapolis, MN // 2007 Artist Fellowship, Rhode Island State Council of the Arts, Providence, RI // 2001 – 03 Graduate Artist Fellowship, RISD, Providence, RI // 2002 John Chironna Memorial Scholarship, RISD, Providence, RI GALLERY REPRESENTATION Thirsty Gallery #104, Providence, RI // Candita Clayton Studio, Pawtucket, RI // Queen of Hearts, Providence, RI // Eli-Phant, Portland, ME SELECTED COLLECTIONS Clay Rockefeller, Providence, RI // Dr. Chazzan, Providence, RI // Buddy Cianci, Providence, RI // Tom West, Providence, RI PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2011 Visiting Artist Workshop, University of Connecticut, Groton, CT // 2011 Visiting Artist Workshop, University of Rhode Island, Providence, RI // 2010 Visiting Artist Workshop, School of Design, Gothenburg, Sweden // 2003 Founder, Ceramics Department, The Steel Yard, Providence, RI // 2002 Co-Founder, Providence Initiative for Psychogeographic Studies, Providence, RI

2011 McKnight Residency recipient:

David Allyn

SEVEN MCKNIGHT ARTISTS

Ruins, 2012, white stoneware with silkscreen print, decals, stencils, and overglaze and Bailout, 2012, white stoneware with silkscreen print, decals, stencils, and overglaze

2011 McKnight Residency recipient:

David Allyn

“Fun” is a word that keeps popping up when David Allyn speaks.

In case you might be wondering: he is for it. And he seems to be doing a good job of making sure that he continues to have fun in all his activities.

As an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh, Allyn was headed toward business school, until a requirement led him to art in general and ceramics in particular. He went to graduate school at the Rhode Island School of Design, followed by five years as a member of a small group devoted to urban games: bike rides; pop-up galleries in parks and under bridges; flash mobs, before the term was invented; annual Happy Birthday parties for Art, complete with noisemakers and hats; and an annual psycho-geography conference. More recently, Allyn has complemented his work as an artist with regular gigs as a DJ in Providence, Rhode Island, where he has helped establish the ceramic program at The Steelyard, an art center. He also on occasion appears as his performance avatar, Unkle Thirsty, complete with pompadour, pencil mustache, bad sunglasses, and a big medallion. This character, as if reincarnated from an old Bill Murray or Dan Ackroyd Saturday Night Live skit, sometimes shows up at art openings and other events with a wagon towed behind his bike that serves as a bar for the distribution of free drinks, often in cups made by … guess who?

For all the fun and games, Allyn remains a ceramist, and a good one. He is probably the only McKnight Resident artist ever to win an award at the Uptown Art Fair. That was back when he was concentrating on cups, illustrated with the visual equivalent of oneline jokes. President George W. Bush appeared as Humpty Dumpty, as a cowboy with Indians, and, with VP Cheney, as part of the War Criminal collector series. Allyn continues to make cups (which double as test firings for his other work), with a variety of pointed comments on the religious right and the fundamental issues of existence including sex, violence, and whether monkeys are thinking deep philosophical thoughts. “Cups got me here, which is pretty crazy to say,” Allyn says. “But it worked out. I love how utilitarian they are.”

In recent years, decals have enjoyed a renewed popularity in ceramics, in part because of the technical ease and access brought on by Photoshop, laser printers, and eBay; and in part because of aesthetic shifts involving surface decoration, irony, and kitsch. For Allyn, cups and decals provide a vehicle for his lively comments, but as the work he developed while in residence in Minneapolis demonstrates, he has moved beyond the visual one-liners to more ambitious creations.

The new work takes two forms: wall plaques, like small paintings or large tiles, and vessels, elegant cylinders tapered at top and bottom. The imagery builds upon work he completed in Providence, inspired by the Steelyard and other industrial remnants.

In Minneapolis, on his bicycle rides along the river, including the daily commute between the Clay Center and his (temporary) residence on Nicollet Island, Allyn was able to photograph historic sites such as the Gold Medal Flour mill, the Grain Belt brewery, and the University of Minnesota power plant. These images became the basis for works that combine a variety of techniques — silkscreen, monoprint-like gestural painting — with Allyn’s interest in the environment. A wind turbine appears in one; tiny bicycles float across the surface in another; a Victorian floral bouquet, substituting for smoke, appears atop a smokestack in yet another. The environmental concerns are matched by an interest in consumerism, as represented by an ATM machine, a shopping cart icon, and a classic Detroit car for sale. The car is an example of what Allyn calls “tired Americana”— classic American artifacts and images, now slightly the worse for wear.

Allyn called his time at NCC “the best working atmosphere I’ve experienced so far.” For the first time he considered presenting works as groupings (for the vessels), or series or grids (for the panel images). He developed his industrial and consumerist imagery even as he initiated the new focus on Americana, which he believes will be a major emphasis going forward. So far, so good. And for all its artistic and political seriousness, the new work obviously far exceeds the minimum daily requirement of fun.

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

Born 1964 // Orange, NJ

William Cravis

EDUCATION 2006 MFA, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania // 2002 BFA, ceramics, California College of the Arts (CCA), Oakland, CA SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2010 LEAF A MESSAGE, Boston Center for the Arts, MA // 2009 OVERLOOK, Kiehle Gallery, Saint Cloud, MN // 2008 Project Green, Worthington Arts Council, Worthington, OH // 2006 Printing to the Sky, Pittsburgh, PA // 2005 plenty scarce, Bowman Gallery, Allegheny College, Meadville, PA // 2004 Nostalgia, Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh, PA // 2001 Experimentelle Karton Kunst, Rapperswil, Switzerland SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2012 State of Clay Biennial, Lexington Arts and Crafts Society, Lexington, MA // 3rd Biennial Central Time Ceramics, Bradley University Galleries, Peoria, IL // Texas Teapot Tournament, 18 Hands Gallery, Houston, TX // 2008 Site Specifics ’08, Islip Art Museum, Long Island, NY // Ohio University School of Art Faculty Exhibition, Kennedy Museum, Athens, OH // 2007 Wit on Wry, Islip Art Museum, Long Island, NY // Joan Mitchell MFA Grant Recipients Exhibition, CUE Foundation, New York, NY // 2006 New Art Examined, Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA // CCA Ceramics Invitational, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA // 2005 Three Rivers Arts Festival Annual, Pittsburgh, PA // Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors Faculty and Student Sculpture Exhibition, PPG Winter Garden, Pittsburgh, PA // 2004 Art of the State: Pennsylvania 2004, The State Museum of

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA // The War Room, Artists Image Resource, Pittsburgh, PA // LOOM3-Labeler, Chatham Mills, Pittsboro, NC // 2003 Visions in Clay, Reynolds Gallery, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA SELECTED AWARDS 2012 Artist Initiative Grant, Minnesota State Arts Board, St. Paul, MN // 2011 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center // 2008 The John Michael Kohler Art Center Industry Residency, Sheboygan, WI // 2006 Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant, New York, NY // 2004 Fellowship, Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting, Skowhegan, ME SELECTED COLLECTIONS The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg // Kohler Company & The John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI // Patricia and Vince Bellan-Gillen, Florence, PA // Arianne and Christian Frommelt, Rapperswil, Switzerland PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2011 Public Lecture, Alfred University, Alfred, NY // 2010 Leaf a Message, public workshop, Boston Center for the Arts, MA // 2009 –10 Visiting Assistant Professor, Ceramics/Sculpture, St. Cloud State University, MN // 2007– 09 Visiting Assistant Professor, Sculpture/Foundations, Ohio University, Athens // 2006 – 07 Lecturer, Ceramics, Department of Art, University of Wisconsin – Madison

2010 McKnight Residency recipient:

William Cravis

SEVEN MCKNIGHT ARTISTS

Quintuplets, 2012, red earthenware, digital video, and mixed media

2010 McKnight Residency recipient:

William Cravis

“I’m not strictly a ceramic artist,” William Cravis said at the beginning of his McKnight presentation at Northern Clay Center.

He added, “My work is primarily ceramic, but I’ve got a lot of other interests.” He certainly does. Like so many artists these days, he seems willing to try anything. He has used video, fabric, cardboard, glass, and old television sets, not to mention the Styrofoam that served as imitation rice in an installation featuring toy cars and trucks as toppings for mock sushi. He was, he says, “distracted away from being a potter”— but he always comes back to ceramics.

Once upon a time, Cravis went to Japan on that most romantic of all ceramic quests, to serve as an apprentice to a traditional potter.

The romance, he said, “quickly evaporated.” He now wonders when exactly he lost the patience to be a potter, although he does still makes some functional ceramics. Printing to the Sky took the form of a stack of Office Depot paper boxes, 65’ high, in an homage to Brancusi’s Endless Column, Walking to the Sky by Jonathan Borofsky, and Samuel Yates’ Untitled (Minuet in MG), a column made of file cabinets with a shredded MG inside. A series of installations during the George W. Bush years offered up political commentary using slip-cast commercial forms. In one, Cravis made detergent bottles emblazoned with phrases such as “Endless media spin cycle” and “Loads and loads of lies.” Another, in a storefront window, at first glance created an image of a happy family, but on closer inspection this nostalgic view was revealed to be an illusion, a composite made up of motor oil containers. On the mall at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Cravis scattered autumn leaves stamped with the phrase, “New Season War on Terror”; he set up a blog “To report a fallen leaf.” He also made a video showing the fate of a 2,000-pound dollar sign made of clay, pulled down with ropes to the accompaniment of Thus Spake Zarathustra. So much for consumerism and the almighty dollar.

Cravis proposed doing large press-molded pieces during his residency at Northern Clay Center. When he arrived, however, reflecting on the amount of functional pottery being made, he

decided he would make large teapot-like works. This idea then took a characteristic, playfully perverse turn, as Cravis chose to turn the teapots inside out, with allusions to inner organs. Cravis had openheart surgery during his childhood, which gave him an interest in the body. Ceramic seams, he notes, resemble human scars. But Cravis is wary of being too autobiographical. The inside-out teapot may have a spout that resembles a severed aorta, but that is a reference to medical drawings, not Cravis’s interior. Always interested in “the fleshy qualities, the skin, and what you can do with clay in that direction”— as opposed to hard-edged, geometrical forms — he created molds that would be suggestive of many kinds of things, “voluptuous and sensuous” but “not a gross out.” He then added video, to “penetrate the architecture” and to move away from using only clay. The works “reflect on the forces of attraction and repulsion we can feel, simultaneously, about our bodily orifices.”

Even as Cravis worked on larger sculptural variations on utilitarian forms, he was still making small-scale functional works with a clear inside and outside. Following Allan McCollum, Cravis is more interested in the vessel’s meaning and formal relationship to tradition than in its actual function. The works, nevertheless, remain handsome, a lively product of ingenuity and experimentation. Cravis is unusually self-aware about process, saying that he likes to use molds rather than coil building his forms because, “I like resistance.

I like to push against something. I’m talking about a very tactile experience. We each have a very particular way of how we like to work with clay.”

Cravis admits to “a little bit of ambivalence” concerning the relationship of clay to other materials. But he adds that when his clay work is going well, he thinks, “This is what I need to do: devote myself to this material.” On the evidence, things did go well during his residency. Yet that did not stop Cravis from adding video to his ceramic forms — a perfect example of the current interplay between craft and media, and of the artist’s tendency to start from ceramics, then incorporate those “other interests.”

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

Born 1969 // Gallipolis, OH

Gerard Justin Ferrari

EDUCATION 1999 MFA, studio art, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA // 1995 BA, studio art, Berea College, Berea, KY SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2007 Gerard Justin Ferrari: Transitions, Department of Art and Design, St. Mary’s University of Minnesota, Winona, MN // 2003 Gizmology, Pump House Regional Art Center, La Crosse, WI // 2001 Ceramic Gizmos and Gadgetry, Charlie Cummings Clay Studio, Fort Wayne, IN

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2012 46th Annual National Drawing & Small Sculpture Show, Joseph A. Cain Memorial Gallery, Del Mar College, Corpus Christi, TX // 2011 Crafts USA 11’, Silvermine Arts Center, New Canaan, CT // Visions In Clay 2011, LH Horton Jr. Gallery, San Joaquin Delta College, Stockton, CA // 2010 18 th San Angelo National Ceramic Competition, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, TX // Strange Brew: The Gerry & Daphna Teapot Collection, Arizona State University Art Museum Ceramic Research Center, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Tempe, AZ // 2009 Form Follows Function or Does It, ULAR Galleries, Little Rock, AR // 20 th Annual Teapot Show, A. Houberbocken Inc., Chicago Chiaroscuro Gallery, Chicago, IL // 2008 Contemporary Craft Exhibition, John P. Weatherhead Gallery, University of Saint Francis, Fort Wayne, IN // 2007 SOFA Chicago, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL // 100 Teapots III, Baltimore Clayworks, Baltimore, MD // 2006 Crafts National, Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster, PA // Balm Beach3: IFAE and SOFA, Ann Nathan Gallery, Palm Beach County Convention Center, Palm Beach, FL // 2005 Contemporary Functional Ceramics: Transcending Utilitarian Concerns, Fort Wayne Museum Of Art, Fort Wayne, IN // It’s Only Clay, Bemidji Community Arts Council, Bemidji, MN // 2004 Industrial Strength Ceramics, Charlie Cummings Clay Studio, Fort Wayne, IN // 2003 ANA 32, Holter Museum of Art, Helena, MT // 2002 Pushing Clay, University of Southern Main Art Galleries, Gorham, ME SELECTED AWARDS 2012 Niche Awards Finalist // 2011 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center // Third Place, Feats of Clay XXIV, Lincoln Arts,

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

Lincoln, CA // 2010 Merit Award, 18 th San Angelo National Ceramic Competition, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, TX // 2009 Howard Kottler Testamentary Trust Juried Kiln God Residency Award, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME GALLERY REPRESENTATION Charlie Cummings Gallery, Gainesville, FL // Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL SELECTED COLLECTIONS Arizona State University Art Museum Ceramic Research Center, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Tempe, AZ // Berea College, Art Department, Berea, KY // The University of St. Francis, School of Fine Arts, Fort Wayne, IN

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2002 – 09 Associate Professor, Viterbo University, La Crosse, WI // 2002 Visiting Assistant Profesor of Art, Wells College, Aurora, NY // 2000 – 01 Visiting Assistant Professor of Art, North Central College, Naperville, IL // 2009 Art and the Environment, The Good Earth: Understanding our relationship with nature. Humanities Symposium, Viterbo University, La Crosse, WI // 2006 Visiting Artist, Minnesota State University Mankato: Department of Art, Enrichment Program SELECTED WRITING/ PUBLICATIONS 2011 Lark Studio Series: Ceramic Sculpture, senior editor Linda Kopp. Published by Lark Crafts // 2008 Confrontational Clay, by Judith Schwartz. Published by the University of Pennsylvania Press // 2006 Ceramics Art & Perception, “Gerard Justin Ferrari’s Political Clay,” by Galadriel Chilton, Issue 64

2011 McKnight Fellowship recipient:

Gerard Justin Ferrari

SEVEN MCKNIGHT ARTISTS

Growth # 11 with Je Group (Lomane) Face Mask: Poisoned Cocoon, 2012 terra cotta with underglaze

2011 McKnight Fellowship recipient:

Gerard Justin Ferrari

Gerard Justin Ferrari won his McKnight Fellowship on his seventh try, a testimony to his perseverance and to the encouragement of Sarah Millfelt, then Northern Clay Center’s grants administrator.

There is no saying why it took so long. It does seem fair to say that Ferrari’s approach to ceramics is not the one usually identified with Minnesota, the country pottery aesthetic. Other artists engage in what might be called “Xtreme ceramics”: Marko Fields, a previous McKnight award recipient, comes to mind. But there probably have not been many other titles close to Ferrari’s Bubble Gum Bazooka: Gizmology. If that does not sound like the name of a nice wood-fired teapot, that’s because it isn’t.

Ferrari brings intensity to his work, along with an interest in subjects such as gene manipulation and robotics. He is a thoughtful individual, yet his art does not necessarily suggest William Wordsworth’s “emotion recollected in tranquility.” As Ferrari puts it, “I have a dark side that I don’t let out, and it comes out in the work.”

In his current Poisoned Cocoon series, he incorporates “the really visceral feeling of protection that came out of me as the result of having a son.” He began by representing cocoons and the young life nestled within. But as he fashioned the heads that poke out of the cocoons, they became geometric and mask-like. So he studied masks, and fell in love with the African ones because of their geometry and zoomorphic qualities. The result was what Ferrari calls “super objects,” with metallic surface effects and elaborate designs.

Once Ferrari started thinking about cocoons, he began to be influenced by nature: Monarch butterflies, seedpods, beetles.

The spikey, violent protrusions on the outside of the cocoons are a reference both to natural defense mechanisms in animals and plants, such as porcupine quills and cactus spines, and to mutations wrought by human contamination of the environment. Ferrari was already under the spell of industry: early patent drawings; deco and streamline design; hot rods and old cars; farm equipment such as tractors and threshers and their deterioration; tin toys. That mechanical-industrial fascination led to the Gizmology series, during

the presidency of George W. Bush. There was also Depressed Decoy, a result of Ferrari’s unusual perspective: “It must be pretty depressing to be a decoy. You have no control over your life. Your only purpose is to bring other creatures that resemble you to get murdered.”

Ferrari concedes that he has “kind of a weird sense of humor.”

It can lead to assemblages combining a wheelchair and a toilet, or an antique fan and a mannequin. The impetus may be straightforward (anger at an academic administrator), or more complex (a concern with his own male-female duality and with the LGBT community, including students), but the outcome is always unpredictable and challenging.

The first ceramic artwork Ferrari ever saw was Robert Arneson’s General Nuke, and Arneson, with his politics, humor, and boldness, remains a favorite, along with Richard Notkin, Rube Goldberg, George Grosz, and Ernest Trova. Ferrari is a painstaking artist who always starts with preparatory drawings. He says he would like to be a “clay wizard,” master of all techniques from developing new formulas for materials to slip-casting and screenprinting. But that is “daunting,” so he returns to “keep-it-simple” techniques. During the McKnight year, he did learn how to work with decals, adding one more method of embellishing surfaces to his artistic repertoire.

Ferrari has said, “I’m not using the Occam’s Razor philosophy of ‘less is more.’” He admits to pushing his inclination toward “more is more.” The results suggest the truth in William Blake’s axiom that “The Road of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom.” As Ferrari contemplates the future of the Poisoned Cocoon series, he is thinking about cave paintings, graffiti artists such as Banksy, and logos and signs from “Danger Poison” to “Danger Wombats.” Watching True Blood and Walking Dead on television, he says, makes him think about the way zombies can serve as a backdrop for philosophical concerns. That probably will not lead to the kind of work that offers a pleasant decorative touch in a living room, but it should produce additional demonstrations of Ferrari’s eye-catching, original, and intensely personal approach to art.

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

Born 1983 // Kumamoto, Japan

Rina Hongo

EDUCATION 2007 BFA, ceramics, Kyoto University of Art and Design, Kyoto, Japan SOLO EXHIBITION 2007 Ceramic Reflections, INAX Galleria Ceramica, Tokyo, Japan SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2011 Two Person Exhibition: Yukiko Saito + Rina Hongo, Petit Luxe, Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan // New Millennium Japanese Ceramics: Rejecting Labels and Embracing Clay, Northern Clay Center // 2009 The 8 th International Ceramics Competition, Mino, Japan, Ceramics Park, Mino, Japan // 2006 Futari no Shiru Tokoro, Terall Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

2010 McKnight Residency recipient:

Rina Hongo

SELECTED AWARDS 2011 McKnight Artist Residency For Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center // 2009 Honorable Mention, The 8th International Ceramics Competition Mino, Japan, Ceramics Park, Mino, Japan SELECTED COLLECTIONS Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2011 Residency, Tajimi City Pottery Design and Technical Center, Tajimi, Japan

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

SEVEN MCKNIGHT ARTISTS

ZOU Flower, 2009, porcelain with silkscreen transfers

2010 McKnight Residency recipient:

Rina Hongo

When Rina Hongo was preparing to do her graduate project in art school, she had a special request for her teacher, Akira Yagi. She asked if she might use the abandoned kiln once used for blackware by his late father, Kazuo Yagi, one of the most important of all twentieth-century Japanese ceramic artists, known in particular for sculptural creations that are classics of mid-century modernism.

Permission was granted, although Hongo had to do some significant work before she could proceed. The kiln site was moldy, overgrown with bamboo roots, and cluttered with all kinds of stuff including a junked bicycle. Yet Hongo was delighted to find the ash remains of newspapers, filled with pine boughs, that the master had tossed in during his last firings. Once she had cleaned-up the site and repaired the damaged kiln entrance, she proceeded with her project. It was an ambitious sculptural work inspired by the form of torii gates, the red structures that mark the entrances to Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, or, in Hongo’s phrase, “God’s field”— the sacred realm as opposed to the everyday world. Hongo says Kazuo Yagi was the first potter whose work she fell in love with, and her final student project proved an admirable act of homage.

It was also a sign of things to come. As a mature artist, but still a young woman — she is not yet thirty years old — Hongo offers a perfect demonstration of how an artist can be both a traditionalist and an innovator, have a strong commitment to the basic materiality of ceramics and achieve a metaphysical complexity. She originally intended to become a designer, then turned to sculpture, but — that old, familiar story — fell in love with the feel of clay. She went on to attend Kyoto University of Art and Design, where she concentrated in pottery.

Hongo makes elegant functional ware, including a sake set she calls “eggs and chicken” because of the playful relationship between the cups and the bottle. Some of the utilitarian work has experimental aspects, but she reserves her most daring efforts for sculptural pieces that extract and heighten the texture of clay.

The mature style began with a happy accident, in a work Hongo almost discarded, but reconsidered when she saw the possibilities it suggested. Using newspaper covered in slurry (aided at times by a judicious use of a hammer), she cultivates a layered, heavily cracked surface. Along with the Yagis, father and son, she cites Machiko Ogawa as another artist she admires, and that is understandable.

Ogawa makes vessels that can seem encrusted with minerals, or have raw edges as if chipped. Her art, therefore, can appear as if just excavated at an archaeological site. Hongo’s work has a similar sense of duration; the artist says she likes to create a “falling apart feeling,” as if the work is crumbling from the ravages of time.

In Hongo’s mind, her functional and sculptural works are not only different kinds of objects, but also represent activities involving different values. The one serves to remind her of the actual people who will use her creations and of the need to be a responsible maker.

The other gives her freedom to explore other issues, including a concern with the forces of nature and with cells as the fundamental building blocks of life.

In 2010, Hongo moved beyond making individual sculptures when she took a group of her semi-spherical forms and placed them in a circle, with the individual elements arranged in an installation approximately three meters in diameter. Sometimes, she uses silkscreened cloth, printed with patterns that will remain imprinted on the surface of the ceramics after the cloth burns off in the firing.

But the power of the work comes, above all, from the simplicity of the forms, coupled with the forces suggested by the layering and cracking. Shown as an installation, the forms acquire cosmological overtones, with the ensemble suggesting a miniature Stonehenge or other prehistoric mystery that seems to encapsulate the entire universe. When Hongo did her graduation work in Kazuo Yagi’s kiln, she had to do it in sections and make it smaller than she might have wished because of the size of the kiln. Now her aesthetic horizon seems limitless.

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

Born 1971 // Kobe, Japan

Mika Negishi Laidlaw

EDUCATION 2000 MFA, ceramics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS // 1994 – 97 Ceramic Apprenticeship at Akishino-Pottery, under Masaya Imanishi, Nara-City, Japan // 1994 BA, studio art, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, IL SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2011 Memory of Cells, Conkling Gallery, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN // 2002 Ceramics and Drawing Solo Exhibition, Concordia Art Department Gallery, Concordia University, St. Paul, MN // 1997 23-5, Gallery Kunugi, Nara-City, Japan

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2012 Push Play, Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA // PLRAC/McKnight Fellowship Grant Recipient Exhibition, St. Peter Art Center, St. Peter, MN // Clay Dwelling, Macalester Art Gallery, St. Paul, MN // 2011 Immigrant Impact, Duncan McClellan Gallery, St. Petersburg, FL // 2010 The 2010 International Orton Cone Box Show, Holt-Russel Gallery, Baldwin City, KS // 8 Fluid Ounces, Glassell Gallery, Louisiana State University, LA // Minnesota Ceramic Educators, Great River Gallery, Anoka Ramsey Community College, Coon Rapids, MN // Minnesota Ceramic Artists, Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, KS // Let There Be White, meltemBIREY Gallery, Philadelphia, PA // 2009 Seven-Year Itch, Carnegie Center for Art, Mankato, MN // 9 th International Biennial of Ceramics, Museu de Ceramica de Manises, Manises, Spain // Art of Fine Craft, Lux Center for the Arts, Lincoln, NE // 2009 National Juried Exhibition, Buchanan Center for the Arts, Monmouth, IL // 2009 MNWCA Juried Exhibition, Northrup King Building, Minneapolis, MN // College Bowl II, Northern Clay Center // Agenda: ContentDriven, University of Arizona Medical Campus, Phoenix, AZ // 2008 Japanese Threads, Morgan Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA // 2007 Clay: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, Xiem Gallery, Xiem Clay Center, Pasadena, CA // Six McKnight Artists, Northern Clay Center // Joint Couples in Clay, Armstrong’s Gallery, Pomona, CA // 2006 The 2006 International Orton Cone Box Show, Holt-Russell Gallery, Baldwin City, KS // Viewpoint: Ceramics 2006, Hyde Art Gallery, El Cajon, CA

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

SELECTED AWARDS 2011 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center // McKnight Fellowship Grant, Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council, Waseca, MN // 2009 2009 Cups of Merit Award, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, Phoenix, AZ // 2006 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center // 2004 Emerging Artist, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts annual conference, Indianapolis, IN GALLERY REPRESENTATION Art Spirit Gallery, Coeur d’Alene, ID // Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, KS // Armstrong Gallery, Pomona, CA SELECTED COLLECTIONS Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota, Duluth // Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT // Wright State University Art Galleries, Dayton, OH // Minenotera Temple, NaraCity, Japan PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2009 – Present Associate Professor of Art, Ceramics, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN // 2003 – 09 Assistant Professor of Art, Ceramics, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN // 2006 Explorations; Navigations: The Resonance of Place, 40th Annual Conference of National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts Demonstration, Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR // 2000 – 03 Art Instructor, Garden City Community College, Garden City, KS // 2002 Artist-in-Residence, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT

2011 McKnight Fellowship recipient:

Mika Negishi Laidlaw

SEVEN MCKNIGHT ARTISTS

Correlation, 2011, slipcast porcelain with thread

2011 McKnight Fellowship recipient:

Mike Negishi Laidlaw

Mika Negisha Laidlaw was still “Mika Negisha” and living in Kansas when she came to Northern Clay Center for a McKnight Residency in 2001. By 2007, when she was a McKnight Fellowship artist, she was married, a mother, and living in Minnesota as a faculty member at Mankato State University. Her third McKnight grant has proven a charm — though not in the usual sense, since the first two were also happy experiences, marked by significant achievements.

Laidlaw loved her original residency because, as a break from her teaching schedule in Kansas — five courses each term — it gave her three months of uninterrupted studio time, sixteen hours of work per day. And it was during that period she met her husband. No wonder she says of Northern Clay Center, “This place saved my life.” By the end of her second award period, she had established a personal style that included stacked ceramic pillows as a metaphorical treatment of “the unconditional love from one generation to the next.” Since then she has continued to experiment with new variations on this form, yet with the same basic foundation: “Every pillow work talks about the dynamic of the family.”

What began as a reference to her feeling of wellbeing during her own childhood, based on memories of her grandmother, changed when taking into account worries and anxieties about her grandmother’s failing situation. As a form, the pillow stack provides a complex measure of the fragility of familial balance; it suggests the precariousness of all efforts to preserve a sense of harmony.

The pillow stack took on a less stable configuration as Laidlaw tried to represent her grandmother’s problems with balance and dementia, and also expressed the new sense of unease by displaying a less harmonious color scheme.

As Laidlaw observed changes in her grandparents and in her relationship to them, she also noted changes in her relationship to her own children. The titles of recent works reflect this shift: Breathless (based on the experience of holding children); Generations; and Correlation (where her own symbolic place has shifted from the child’s, on top of the pillow, to the parent’s, being the

pillow). Laidlaw has also experimented, especially with photographs, as in a work that employs digital projections of children.

The artist recently has been thinking about the death of her grandfather. New sculptures incorporate Chinese characters, a reference to a Buddhist prayer she memorized “almost like a song” during a childhood experience at camp. Laidlaw says that she is not a religious person, but she uses the prayer to connect to her grandfather, as an expression of gratitude for life and protection: “It’s about generations and ancestors.” In Circle of Life, Laidlaw joins five forms made from the same mold used in an earlier sculpture, Jomon, but stacks them in a different way. In this new configuration, they resemble bones, a symbol of death. “I’m not a dark person,” the artist remarks, “but it must be somewhere in me.”

As Laidlaw, with her strong awareness of family bonds, has been reflecting upon her ancestors, she has also been thinking back to her apprenticeship in Japan — three years of working six days a week for no pay, “living clay from morning to night.” The tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, deeply affected her. She found it hard to concentrate because of her awareness of the suffering in her homeland. Yet she says it made her realize anew that the studio is something she can depend on, especially when life seems hard. Going to the studio, working with clay, she was able to focus, and became more aware than ever of how much of who she is, her identity, is connected to clay.

Laidlaw’s use of the prayer and of Buddhist motifs, such as the hands of Buddha and lotus blossoms, almost seems to have caught her by surprise. Yet it provides a sense of comfort at being back in familiar territory. She feels her renewed interest in Buddhist art, especially the Southeast Asian and Indian versions with their different colors and forms, represents “a new thing” for her that increasingly will come into her work. For this artist, whose development has been so steady and whose achievement is so impressive, arrival at a new stage aided by a McKnight award may not be a surprise, but it is once again a pleasure to observe.

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

Born 1973 // Aichi, Japan

Naoto Nakada

EDUCATION 2000 MFA, Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan // 1998 BFA, design, Nagoya University of Arts, Nagoya, Japan SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2009 Twins, San-ai Gallery Contemporary, Tokyo, Japan // 2006 Perfectly Natural (Too Real), Gallery Okabe, Tokyo, Japan // 2005 Maho Tsukai (A Magician), Galerie Tokyo Humanité Lab, Tokyo, Japan // 2003 Nothing Out of the Ordinary, Mejiro Open Gallery, Tokyo, Japan // 2001 Futaba Gallery, Tokyo, Japan // 2000 Overflowing, Futaba Gallery, Tokyo, Japan GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2011 New Millennium Japanese Ceramics: Rejecting Labels and Embracing Clay, Northern Clay Center // 2010 Dandans at No Mans Land, French Embassy, Tokyo, Japan // 2009 Midsummer Dream, Chinzanso, Tokyo, Japan // New Town Picnic: Adventure of Ruin and Art, Yokohama History Museum, Tsuzuki Minkaen, Yokohama, Japan // 2008 0×100, Galeria de Muerte, Tokyo, Japan // The House, Nippon Homes Showroom, Tokyo, Japan // Convivium with Stone, Stone Plaza, Stone Museum, Tochigi, Japan // Nakamura Kimpei’s Clay/Ceramic Theater 4 HOPE, Funabashi Andersen Park Children’s Museum, Chiba, Japan // The Yard Art: Conception Replay, Roof Gallery, Tamagawa Takashimaya S.C, Tokyo, Japan // Small Works Exhibition 2008, Galerie Tokyo

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

Humanité Lab, Tokyo, Japan // New Town Paradise: Between Ruin and Mansion, Yokohama Tsuzuki Minkaen, Kanagawa, Japan // Form of The Handle, Tajimi Prefectural Culture Studio, Gallery Voice, Gifu, Japan // Confession Etiquette: From Person To Person, Tama Art University Gallery, Tokyo, Japan // 2007 Toyota Triennale ’07, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan // Some Form of The Lid, Tajimi Prefectural Culture Studio, Gallery Voice, Gifu, Japan // Le Monde De Coco, Chanel Nexus Hall, Tokyo, Japan // Minkaen De Art Chashitsu, Yokohama Tsuzuki Minkaen, Kanagawa, Japan // 2006 What is white and black?, Gallery Concept 21, Tokyo, Japan // In Memory Of Jumpei Sugie Exhibition, Tokoname Studio Gallery, Nagoya Art University, Aichi, Japan // Clay Connection By Freeter, Spiral Garden, Tokyo, Japan

2010 McKnight Residency recipient:

Naoto Nakada

SELECTED AWARDS 2011 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center SELECTED COLLECTIONS University Of Technology, Mara, Malaysia PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2011– Present Research Associate of Doctoral Program, Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan // 2001– 05 Assistant Professor, ceramics, Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan

SEVEN MCKNIGHT ARTISTS

Title, Year, Medium

2010 McKnight Residency recipient:

Naoto Nakada

The phrase “Japanese ceramics” may conjure up an image of connoisseurs contemplating an antique bowl with murmured expressions of admiration as part of a tea ceremony, while seated inside a teahouse set in a magnificent garden, at a remove from all the hustle-and-bustle of the modern world. In this vision of traditional Japanese aesthetics, the bowl’s simplicity and subtle imperfections are the embodiment of wabi-sabi and the perfect focus for a melancholy appreciation of life’s transience. How Zen — and how removed from the ceramics of Naoto Nakada.

Nakada reminds us that there is more to Japanese ceramics than is dreamed of in the standard Western view of Japan as a foreign and exotic realm. One signature work is a version of the Tokyo Tower, a structure recalling the Eiffel Tower. Nakada’s small-scale replica is made of cell phones, cast in ceramic and painted bright red.

Wabi-sabi ? Maybe not. Provocative, amusing, memorable? Definitely.

Among the artists Nakada likes most are non-Japanese standouts such as Anish Kapoor, Tony Cragg, Jeff Koons, and Rachel Whiteread. He also admires some Japanese known in the West, such as Yoshio Taniguchi, architect of the 2004 Museum of Modern Art expansion, and Rei Kawakubo of Comme de Garçons. Nakada’s favorites remind us of how close architecture, fashion, and art can be these days, and how far removed some artists in the younger generation are from thinking of ceramics and art only in relation to figures such as Shoji Hamada and Tetsuzo Shimaoka.

The main influence on Nakada’s artistic development was Kimpei Nakamura, an important, often outrageous figure in the Japanese visual arts, who connected with American art of the Pop period and established the first contemporary ceramic program in Japan. Though his family history links him to Kutani ware, Nakamura’s art is anything but traditional. His sculptures and enormous installations combine assemblage, garish colors, and wild forms resembling industrial detritus. The result is a head-on collision between the classical Japanese world view and contemporary popular culture, aesthetic refinement and kitsch.

Nakada, like Nakamura, reminds us that some of the most ambitious, outrageous art in the post-World War II world has come

from Japan. Also, some of the strangest. Butoh, for example, with its primitivistic intensity and love of the grotesque. Or Yoko Ono’s aggressive “Cut Piece” performance, with audience members instructed to cut her garments off until she was naked.

Nakada is not that extreme: he is more playful, but still daring.

He used sunscreen to emblazon his skin with the phrase “Kutani Ware,” as if he were the first example of a new art form: human ceramics. He made a short film that showed him doing gymnastics, from a famous exercise video, by the side of the road and at other locations. One sculptural installation consists of ceramic fish tanks, in the form of television sets, with wires allowing the fish to listen to music that is then relayed to humans. “Take that, traditional ceramics,” the work seems to say, though with more affection than antagonism. A Warhol-Koonsian, Nakada likes working with materials such as AstroTurf, and he has a special fondness for brand names and logos, as demonstrated in the Chanel building in Tokyo, where he installed an eye chart made from Chanel letters, logo, and handbag silhouettes as the test elements.

Unpredictability is a Nakada strong suit, even as he has begun to develop sustained personal interests — for example, the play on language and image that appears in his love of coins and license plates.

The ceramic license plates he made at Northern Clay Center are one product of his determination to explore the foreign and exotic realm of Minnesota. For this witty, quasi-anthropological project, Nakada also photographed car owners and questioned them about their cars.

Nakada’s fascination with doubleness made him the perfect visiting artist for the Twin Cities, home not only to the Twins baseball team, but also to the University of Minnesota’s ongoing study of twins. Nakada’s father has a twin brother. But leaving aside any biographical connection, Nakada has a penchant for seeing double, that is, for taking advantage of the artistic possibilities that pop up when elements are paired. Two kinds of cars, Nissan and Renault (i.e., one Japanese and one French), were at the center of an installation at the French Embassy in Tokyo. And Nakada has made figures of twins, connected head-to-head, out of kewpie dolls. For someone so obsessed with duality, Nakada is a singular figure.

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

Born 1960’s // Philadelphia, PA

Kevin Snipes

EDUCATION 2003 MFA, ceramics, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL // 1994 BFA, ceramics, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2011 Childhood Lost: Current Work by Kevin Snipes, The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, MA // 2010 Kevin Snipes Constructed: A Handbuilt Review, MudFire Gallery, Decatur, GA // 2009 Color Blind: Kevin Snipes, Plinth Gallery, Denver, CO // Recent Ceramics: Kevin Snipes, AKAR, Iowa City, IA // 2006 Kevin Snipes: In the Niche, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2010 Illumination, Bard’s College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, MA // 2009 “Whatevaah!” Kevin Snipes, Taunt Fellowship Exhibition, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT // Clay National Biennial, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, Phoenix, AZ // 2008 CERAMELICIOUS, Lillstreet Art Center, Chicago, IL // Teapots!

Steep in Thought, Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA // Symbiosis, Baltimore Clayworks, Baltimore, MD // SOFA Chicago, Santa Fe Clay, Chicago, IL // 2007 Agape, Santa Fe Clay, Santa Fe, NM // Recent Ceramics: Chris Gustin & Kevin Snipes, AKAR, Iowa City, IA // The New Aesthetics of Ceramics, Robert E. Wilson Gallery, Huntington University, Huntington, IL // SOFA Chicago, Santa Fe Clay, Chicago, IL // 2006 Contemporary Ceramics: A Dairy Barn Invitational, The Dairy Barn Arts Center, Athens, OH // SOFA Chicago, Santa Fe Clay, Chicago, IL // 2005 Ceramics Biennial Invitational, Parkland Art Gallery, Champaign, IL // Made at the Clay Studio, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA // The Contemporary Cup, Lillstreet Art Center, Chicago, IL // 2004 The Intimate

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

Cup III, Charlie Cummings Clay Studio, Fort Wayne, IN // Ten Hands: Current Artistsin-Residence Show, Worcester Center for Crafts, Worcester, MA // 2003 Diversity in Unity: Contemporary African American Ceramics, Baltimore Clayworks, Baltimore, MD // Transformation 4: Contemporary Works in Ceramics, Society of Contemporary Crafts, Pittsburgh, PA SELECTED AWARDS 2011 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center // 2008 Taunt Fellowship, Long-Term Artist Residency, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT // 2006 Kiln God Summer Residency, Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME // 2005 Narrative Vessel Show, Best in Show, AKAR, Iowa City, IA // 2003 Marie P. Cowen Fellowship in Ceramics, Worcester Center for Crafts, Worcester, MA SELECTED WRITING/ PUBLICATIONS 2011 American Craft Magazine, “Fill in the B________,” by Julie Hannus, Volume 71, Issue 5 // 2010 Ceramics: Art & Perception, “In a Relationship, A Look at Work by Kevin Snipes,” by Jennifer DePaolo VanHorn, Issue 79 // 2004 500 Figures in Clay, senior editor Veronika Alice Gunter. Published by Lark Crafts // 2002 Ceramics Monthly, “Evolving a Tradition, The University of Florida Ceramics Program,” by Wynne Wilbur, Volume 50, Issue 5 // 2002 Ceramics Monthly, “Functional Ceramics 2000,” by Julie Miracle, Volume 48, Issue 8

2010 McKnight Residency recipient:

Kevin Snipes

SEVEN MCKNIGHT ARTISTS

Double Trouble, 2012, porcelain, glaze, underglaze, oxide wash

2010 McKnight Residency recipient:

Kevin Snipes

“Every child is an artist,” Picasso remarked. “The problem is how to remain one when we grow up.” From Picasso to the present, modern artists have often tried to match the spontaneity and creativity of art made by children.

The ceramics of Kevin Snipes feature drawings in a childlike style that is anything but childish. Snipes uses his adult approach to drawing like a child to achieve some of the simplicity and immediacy of children’s art, while also opening up other expressive possibilities.

Like two figures he admires, Lynda Barry and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Snipes creates art that exploits the tension between youthful forms and adult ideas.

Snipes considers himself primarily a storyteller, more than a potter or ceramist. Yet his stories are not so much complete, self-contained narratives as they are vignettes, dramatic moments expressed partly through words and partly through images, but always with a mystery left unexplained, lingering “beneath the surface” as Snipes likes to say. Since the images can occupy separate panels on flat-sided works, or flow around curved ones, Snipes is able to build complex relationships between different elements in the overall design. He also likes to add enigmatic, nonfunctional sculptural forms — small extensions somewhere between colorful blossoms and disturbing growths. Drawn to a range of imagery, at times from science and math books, he often introduces sharp juxtapositions: one side of a vase may have a figure, another an abstract doodle, another a geometrical diagram. The colors can be bright accents within the drawn outlines, or move toward abstraction as they escape any neat integration with the figural imagery.

Snipes has a particular fascination with duality. Not for him Naoto Nakada’s obsession with twins. Nor is he interested in some grand metaphysical-cosmological yin/yang sort of thing.

His double vision more often involves the exploration of that old boy-girl, masculine-feminine, “Who can explain love?” business.

A pair of cups, or matched drawings on opposite sides of a vase, enable Snipes to depict his concerns by fashioning two portraits, complementary, yet at odds. The modeled forms frequently support the drawn imagery. A male arm will extend along the rim on one

side, a female arm on the other. The top of a head may be cropped by the top edge of a mug, or extend upward so that the hairdo doubles as a kiln chimney. Snipes deploys the figures on the surface of the objects with an acute awareness, often making them appear cramped and contorted. Beyond that physical tension, the images of men and women, sometimes nude, sometimes gangly and awkward, bristle with psychological tension. A female asks, “So?” A male says, “Never mind.” Another female says, “Ain’t no sunshine.” A couple on a bicycle built for two say, “Scram” and “Get lost!” This world does not suggest a sweet sitcom: it is offbeat, edgy, even naughty.

Snipes is frequently asked how he feels about being an AfricanAmerican artist who does not directly address African-American subjects in the usual identity politics fashion. His reply is steadfast: his treatment of duality and his interest in psychological mystery and tension, translated into the formal elements in his work such as secret passages, indicate his larger concern with self-object relationships, otherness, and communication/miscommunication. The spaces in his work serve as metaphorical allusions to the spaces between people, and also as what he calls “spaces of alchemy” that indicate possibility.

Snipes is still fascinated with the spaces in conventional pottery, where the interiors can indicate not just physical interiority, but also psychological inwardness. Now, however, he is moving in the direction of an architectural conception of space. Although Snipes has favored a relatively small scale, he has also started to increase the size of his work, one focus of his efforts during his McKnight residency. “I think I need to work bigger, not big,” he says, adding, “The scale I’ve been working in is really miniature.” Snipes has always regarded scale as a conceptual element in his functional pottery, because it establishes an intimate relationship between his art and its audience. He is not abandoning that idea now, but he does hope to introduce a slightly more assertive, public presence for the images and objects.

Change is afoot, yet one characteristic of the work has not changed. The simplicity of the imagery, like the adoption of a child’s drawing-style, cannot conceal the grown-up seriousness and complexity of Snipes’ art.

Northern Clay Center // Seven McKnight Artists // 2012

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