Six McKnight Artists 2016 by Northern Clay Center

Gallery M: Tom Bartel Jessica Brandl Amy Santoferraro Andy Shaw Emily Galusha Gallery: Ursula Hargens Mika Negishi Laidlaw

July 8 – August 28, 2016 Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota Essays by Janet Koplos Edited by Elizabeth Coleman

Six McKnight Artists

Foreword Sarah Millfelt, Executive Director

ÂŠ 2016 Northern Clay Center. All rights reserved. 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. http://www.northernclaycenter.org Manufactured in the United States First edition, 2016 International Standard Book Number 978-1-932706-39-9 Unless otherwise noted, all dimensions: height precedes width precedes depth.

The McKnight Artist Fellowships and Residencies for Ceramic Artists programs are designed to strengthen and enhance Minnesotaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s artistic community, as well as significantly advance the work of Minnesota 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.

Three individuals comprised the 2015 selection panel: Sam Harvey, an artist and founder of Harvey/Meadows Gallery in Aspen, CO; Jennifer Komar Olivarez, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; and Linda Sormin, who at that time was the Head of Ceramics and a Professor at Sheridan College, Ontario.

The programs provide 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 2016 exhibition features work by two 2015 McKnight Fellowship recipients, three 2014 McKnight Residency Artists, and one 2013 McKnight Residency Artist. 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.

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

Northern Clay Center

Ursula Hargens

Blossoming The most striking thing about Ursula Hargens’ large square tiles is the softly radiant color — almost an inner light — of her floral drawing. This light and the almost-transparent color refer both to flowers encountered in nature and to historical botanical illustration (often watercolor). Her glaze painting shows layering up close, yet, since the flowers are generally isolated and not overlapped, they read as a plane from a distance, particularly on tiles. That brings to mind architectural decoration and, maybe surprisingly, the reductive linear flower drawings that Ellsworth Kelly made early in his career. Thus her work is both charmingly decorative and filled with subtle associations and meanings. Hargens comes from a creative family: her great-grandfather, Charles Hargens, was a painter and illustrator of Western scenes whose studio was installed at the South Dakota Discovery Museum after his death. Her father is an architect. A good student, she attended Columbia University in New York to study Russian language and literature. She returned to Columbia to obtain a master’s in art and art education, at the same time building on earlier exposure to ceramics. “I knew I liked ceramics a lot,” she says, and she recalls thinking, “If I ever do something for myself, this is it.” She changed course, going to a summer program at Alfred University and then to Nova Scotia College of Art and Design for a “post-bac” year. She describes her teacher Walter Ostrom as a key person in her development. He aided her understanding of history, was a good model as a teacher, emphasized thinking about material culture, and was “a bulldog”— demanding and tenacious. With that training (and a period at

the Mendocino Art Center in California), she was admitted to Alfred’s graduate program. She settled on low-fired earthenware, discovering some of the ideas that she’s still working with today. Decoration emerged as she utilized thick and thin slip, “form and surface coming together.” Low-fire work, she says, is concerned with layering, with the viscosity of the material, with subtle variations that affect what happens later on. It’s about richness and depth. Back in the Twin Cities (“I’m lucky to be from here,” she says), she has taught at Northern Clay Center, the University of Minnesota, and other institutions, as well as leading workshops across the country, including noted programs such as Haystack, in Maine. In 2014 she co-founded, in cooperation with NCC, the Minnesota New Institute for Ceramic Education (MN NICE), a one-year certificate program for nontraditional students looking to deepen knowledge, skills, and conversation about their work. It includes seminars, critiques, studio visits with established artists, ceramic history, and practical information from business planning to glaze calculation. Guiding the program has been a creative experience for her. Simultaneously, she has been digging deeper into decorative and floral precedents for her work. Three recent solo shows close to home show her focus in their titles: “Wallflower (Invasive Species),” “Flora,” and “A Gathering of Flowers: Botanicals in the Age of Climate Change.” The last of these, at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, drew on her study of the historical collections of botanicals at the University of Minnesota and the Arboretum. Time is embedded in her imagery, both by her inspiration in old

books and through visual devices, such as pairing endangered wildflowers with their invasive replacements. Another powerful source for her is Iznik tiles, and her most recent show, in conjunction with the NCECA ceramic conference in Kansas City this year, was a two-person show with Sanam Emami (a 2013 McKnight Artist Resident), which included four large photo reproductions of Islamic pottery, and new objects and tiles inspired by those works. One of the most elegant and reductive of the NCECA shows, it included shaped tiles from a shared mold. Their approach to the floral decoration was clearly different, however: Emami’s is opaque, darker, and fluidly repetitive, while Hargens’ creamand-gray backgrounds are warmer and seem to dissolve, while her foliage and blossoms glow. Her thin, sometimes dotted, outlines recall ink and wash drawings. Hargens’ square tiles are striking because of their large size and familiar two-dimensionality. But more interesting for the challenge they present are decorations on vessels. For the McKnight show, she is applying her floral composition to large vases, about 25 inches tall. The profiles are simple, yet do not have any clear ceramic precedent. The McKnight Fellowship, she says, freed her, allowed her not to worry about income and to just think about projects and take time for research, “a total luxury!”

Vase (Leedy’s Roseroot), 2016, earthenware, 23” x 12” x 12”.

Six McKnight Artists

Northern Clay Center

Mika Negishi Laidlaw

Home Mika Negishi Laidlaw has followed a long route from her birthplace — Kobe, Japan — to her current home in Mankato, Minnesota, where she teaches at Minnesota State University. Laidlaw’s first encounter with America was a year in Tampa as a high school exchange student. She started college in Casper, Wyoming, but earned her BA in studio art from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. She then returned to Japan as an apprentice at Akishino Pottery and in the traditional pottery of Masaya Imanishi. This started, typically, with sweeping, making tea, and preparing the tools for the master, but eventually taught her all the tasks of running a pottery, including wheel work, anagama firing, sales, and even making clay. In US colleges, she observes, everything is given to you, but this experience helped her to understand the connection to nature, that clay comes from the earth. Her job was to copy the master’s work in production volume. She felt the apprenticeship was necessary because she couldn’t ignore being Japanese: this was her heritage. Yet her future lay in the US because she did not have enough connections in the Japanese pottery world and was not from a pottery village. It is a secretive culture compared to the US. She was adamant about becoming a professional, and she wanted to be equally at home in pottery and sculpture. But she spent her free day each week making sculptural ceramics based on the human figure, and her mature work has turned out to be entirely sculptural. When she was ready to leave, her master contacted his old friend Yoshiro Ikeda, so she earned her MFA in Ikeda’s three-year program at Kansas State University; he became her life-long

mentor and treated her like a daughter. You don’t get to choose your peers, Laidlaw notes, but in the small community at KState, she had a circle of friends in a non-competitive environment. Ikeda said she was not the best student but the hardest working. She thinks that may have been the product of being a little older than the typical grad student. The apprenticeship in Japan probably helped: she is small and not strong compared to a Caucasian male, but she knew she could persevere. After grad school she applied for 30 to 40 teaching jobs, she guesses, and ended up at Garden City (Kansas) Community College with a bruising schedule of teaching five classes for poor pay. In the summer of 2001, she was the recipient of a McKnight Residency for Ceramic Artists at Northern Clay Center, which was just what she needed since teaching allowed no time for her own work. In 2002, she had a summer residency at the Archie Bray Foundation, where she was influenced by the studio practice of Akio Takamori and began to draw every day. After three years at Garden City, she was hired at Minnesota State–Mankato. She has since been honored as an Emerging Artist at the NCECA annual ceramics conference and was a demonstrator another year, plus she has received two McKnight Fellowships prior to this year. From early on, much of her work has involved irregular curving forms suggestive of the body. At the Bray, she began slipcasting, a big shift from her usual coil building, and she began a long-lasting “Pillow” series. They are Japanese-style square pillows, some with tassels, and they are stacked three- to fifteen-high to support a lumpy

object — an abstract body. She associates these with the protective comfort of her grandmother and describes the series as “unconditional love.” Later, disorderly insecure piles appeared as a response to her grandmother’s dementia, and still later, individual pillows functioned as nests for varied eggs. Other works cradle small curving bundles, suggesting an infant in a fabric sling, a basket, or a particularly organic car seat. Curving abstract sensuous forms are given titles such as “Endurance” and “Breathless” to suggest physical and emotional sensations. Some linked lumps, which she refers to as cells, take a metaphoric slant with the title “Generations.” In 2011, she first used these as a screen for video projections. At the March 2016 NCECA, her work was included in “Unconventional Clay” at the NelsonAtkins Museum in Kansas City; it consisted of hands — in positions drawn from Buddhist antiquities — as a base for projections of eyes that responded to the presence of viewers (via motion sensors). Laidlaw’s remarkable bi-cultural ceramic career thus ranges from ancient traditions to the newest technology. Her forms imply human relationships and comfort — “home” in the largest sense.

Winter’s Hope, 2016, slipcast porcelain, 27” x 16” x 13”.

Six McKnight Artists

Northern Clay Center

Tom Bartel

Body Implications Figurative art often tells a story, but the figures Tom Bartel has constructed throughout his career have been powerful, yet expressively complex and hesitant to reveal their messages. They have combined such cheerful motifs as dots and hearts with sullen or leaden faces. More than telling a tale, they have created moods or established tense and ambivalent auras. Perhaps a clue to interpretation is the importance Bartel ascribes to having grown up in Cleveland, a city of mixed messages. Once a great center of commerce and culture, it became a study in Rust Belt decline. He remembers trips from their suburban home to the Cleveland Museum of Art with his artist mother; memories of museum wonders blend with the “heavy edginess” of the city. A great high school art teacher (who was a ceramist) encouraged him, got him to college; he say that may be why he became a teacher. She told him about Kirk Mangus, so he studied with Mangus at Kent State University, where he earned his BFA. He followed that with an MFA in the three-year program at Indiana University. Another three years, a job as a ceramic technician at Alleghany College in Pennsylvania, came with a studio and materials, giving him time to further develop, to find exhibition opportunities, and to get a toehold in teaching. Next up was two years of teaching at Viterbo University in Wisconsin, and then eight years at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green. Although that program was undergraduate only and he was the sole ceramics teacher, he had some amazing students. He is now at Ohio University in Athens, a larger program. He teaches classes from the foundation courses to

the graduate level. His specialties are handbuilding and the figure. Bartel’s preference for the figure seems to be innate. Even in childhood, he says, he drew people in striped shirts, and he sees figures and faces everywhere he looks, from clouds to electrical outlets. Graduate school courses in sub-Saharan African art and ceramic history have been important to his work, along with pop culture. The African art often focused on rites of passage, costumes, and masquerade/ transformation, which were eye opening to him since, in our culture, costume is often frivolous. He recognized universal passage experiences in these memorable objects. His BFA show consisted of life-size nude cadaver-like figures, hung on the wall (the verticality in tension with the morbid quality of the bodies). In grad school he started to make ceramic babies, and he also began to work more fully in the round, devising his first freestanding works. His second year of grad school, making life-size freestanding figures for a critique, he worked too fast and they fell over and broke. That led him to take different parts from different pieces and put them together, which became a signature approach. Disjunction in scale interested him. He feels that work that is difficult to face is more effective in making his audience think of the human condition, life, and death. The heads he made were never purely portraits. They might relate to masks, with larger psychological implications. Recently he has been using molds. During his NCC residency, he worked in a new scale that probably evokes dolls, which he sees as evocative objects. He employs slips and terra sigillatas along with commercial

underglazes. He still looks for a skin-like quality, but seldom uses true flesh tones. His abstracted figures may be missing limbs. Among the figures that may be in the McKnight show is a seeming hermaphrodite with no hands, a female whose arms seem to end in penises, and a smaller being whose arms terminate in nipples. With stronger colors than previous work, they are blue, red, yellow, or green, and so extensively embellished that the “skin” evokes clothing, craquelure, or wallpaper. The figures might seem to wear onesies or long johns, except that sexual features show. Bartel thinks of rag dolls, mummies, other helpless beings. Some of the figures have the thick and simple body proportions of toddlers. An experiment during his residency at NCC was clown-like red bulbs added to the noses — sometimes phallic in implication, sometimes breast-like, sometimes with a sad-clown implication. A new piece consisted of a rock-like head with pink hearts all over it and another was a sleeping face implying dormancy. More changes are likely. Bartel and his partner, Rachel, have welcomed their first child, which gives an artist examining cycles of life an entirely new perspective.

Hamburgula, 2016, ceramic, vitreous slip, underglaze, oxides, glaze, birch, 38” x 16” x 8”.

Six McKnight Artists

Northern Clay Center

Jessica Brandl

Drawings and Printing Ceramics, Jessica Brandl says, is all about loss; everyone has experienced it. Collapse in making, failure in firing, or other fatal faults — that sort of risk is one of the things that has made the medium meaningful, and suitable, for her. Her works — which, on her website, she refers to as artifacts — have, over the past several years, featured somewhat plaintive drawings of abandoned houses, old-fashioned travel trailers, choppeddown trees. The drawings are skillfully executed since it was in drawing and painting that she first came to art-making. The implication seems to be that life goes on with its flows (settlement of the West) and ebbs (abandonment of the countryside). The artifacts of lives remain behind. Brandl recalls accompanying her father and uncle on hunting trips in the rolling landscape of northeastern Nebraska and visually mapping the landscape with its derelict structures. Yet as her elders told stories of the farms and houses, she saw those places as inhabited through their memories. Ceramics also suits her as a resistant material that demands more of her than sculpture, which she tried for a time as an undergraduate at the Kansas City Art Institute. Her ceramics teacher, George Timock, was insistent on careful analysis of all parts of the pot, and then getting back to work to master the craft. She liked the fact that people were in the studio all the time; she now sees that it was a kind of a family, the beginning of a sense of ceramic community. She also learned the history of KCAI’s ceramics program and felt a connection to the many graduates who have gone on to prominence in the field. Brandl says that when she was a student, much of the work being made

was about things. Every object tells a story about something. “Whether it’s a container or not, it holds meaning,” she says. Her graduate school exhibition included ordinary objects such as whirligig lawn ornaments and lawn chairs, which she created in clay in slightly wrong scales and displayed on two-foot-tall platforms. People would think they were seeing things they recognized and knew well, but they were surprised when the whirligigs all began spinning. She became aware that people didn’t realize she’d made the objects because they didn’t recognize craft. That realization contributed to a shift in her work. While she still hand-makes vessels and embellishes them with drawn landscapes, houses, and artifacts — work that she values for its immediacy in artistic problem-solving — she has also stretched herself in very different directions with new technology. Many schools, determined to be up-to-theminute in technological options, have purchased expensive 3-d printers. Brandl asked herself: when she was no longer in school, would she spend $80,000 for that piece of equipment on her own? So, having recognized through various travails of her life that her response to a problem was always fight, not flight, she decided to build her own 3-d printer from a kit, using open-source software. Completion of this project was the major goal of her residency at Northern Clay Center. She likes the idea of creating an alternative to school-provided manufacturing systems, and she sees this as something she can share with the community. During the summer, on another residency, she “borrowed” objects from

museums by scanning and 3-d printing them in clay. That made it possible for her to “possess” those historic artifacts through facsimiles, to handle things like archeological skull fragments, or a clay pot, through re-creation. She notes that she might put teabags or daisies in her skull simulacra. She thinks it’s important to be humorous about such objects because after all, we are all born to die, as she recognized early in life. One of the small number of women pursuing this technological alternative, Brandl also stakes her own path by resisting the polygons that are an easy outcome of the printing programs, just as cylinders are the easy outcome of throwing on the potter’s wheel. She can also alter a printed form by hand-modeling or combine printed and thrown segments in one object. She notes that the printing process is essentially a very fine means of coil building, and she likes the idea of printing in clay because it is the original plastic material, in the first meaning of that term. She says she thinks of the printer as a studio assistant; she can do a hundred other things while it’s working. She can’t bear to keep her hands still, and why should the robot have all the fun?

From left to right: Cylinder Vase, 2016, earthenware, slip, engobes, underglaze, glaze, 4” x 6” x 6”; Vase with Narrow Top, 2016, earthenware, slip, engobes, underglaze, glaze, 8” x 6” x 4”; Cylinder Vase, 2016, earthenware, slip, engobes, underglaze, glaze, 4” x 6” x 6”.

Six McKnight Artists

Northern Clay Center

Amy Santoferraro

Skeuomorphic The eminent English potter Bernard Leach once said, in the gendered language of his era, “The pot’s the man.” He meant that a person’s character is reflected in the art he — or she! — makes. Even if we would use a more inclusive noun today, the observation seems true. It comes to mind when meeting Amy Santoferraro, a good-natured, outgoing person who likes to laugh, including at herself. Her art is likewise lively, cheerful, bright, energetic, experimental, intense, engaging. And not predictable. Santoferraro is a native of Akron, Ohio, who runs the ceramic department at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. She is the progeny of parents with everyday creativity: her mother did retail store displays and her dad was in construction. A grandfather was a shoemaker and another was a gardener. A childhood love of playing with buttons and other odds and ends led her to home ec sewing classes in her Catholic school — where she would sneak away from recess to participate in a quilting guild. Other than that, she says, she was a jock, playing soccer, basketball, and softball. Her college goal at Ohio State was optometry, but she was thwarted by math and took a ceramics class for stress relief. And what luck! Ohio State is a leading ceramics school. She switched to art and stayed an extra year to get a BFA along with her art education degree. In the process she “fell in love with slipcasting.” She felt she wasn’t a good thrower and wasn’t looking for the fluid forms that the wheel offers anyway. Molds could shape things that the wheel couldn’t, and it was part of the great ceramics industry in her home state. Of Ohio’s art pottery she says, “It was still

made,” even if it was the product of industry. She esteems the entire ceramics field, from hobbyists to artist potters. Several ceramic centers and residencies helped shape her thinking. She went to Arrowmont in Tennessee while she was still in school (taking courses for credit), and after she completed her BFA, she worked at Watershed in Maine and was inspired by the atmosphere (“It felt like a sanctuary”) and by how intensely engaged the makers were. She focused on her work during a post-baccalaureate year at Louisiana State University. There she abandoned function and began incorporating other objects and materials. She returned to Arrowmont as an artistin-residence, and amid Gatlinburg’s kitsch, she was delighted by the falseness of materials “that don’t fool anyone.” She also learned from the many studio visitors commenting on her work there. She cast several hundred whiteglazed poodles and had them in the studio for sale cheap, but had no takers. Then she made a path of poodles leading to her studio and people wanted to buy them from that context. She also made small, inexpensive decaldecorated pieces to appeal to children. She followed that experience with four years as artist-in-residence at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia and then earned an MFA from Alfred University’s prestigious ceramics program. There her work changed, in scale especially. Her MFA show featured large works loosely based on the American yard. One was a corner of a drop-rail fence with wheels/tires leaning up against it; another was a tree (with bean bags standing in for foliage). She began a series of “BaskeTREES,” “personal

landscapes” combining clay with resin, plastic, aluminum, and featuring things she’d been collecting. She says she’s not an archivist: she puts her collections back out into the world. At Kansas State, it was difficult to find time for her own work, especially during her second year, when she was the entire ceramics faculty. That made the McKnight residency valuable: it gave her “head space to develop ideas.” She began new bodies of work, pushing herself in directions that intrigued her, but were not characteristic of her oeuvre, such as slab and slip work. She cast a small number of parts and made arrangements like department-store product ensemble displays. In keeping with her fondness for fakes, she made cylinders by casting PVC pipe, and she made loop handles that look like coils but are actually cast. She calls this “skeuomorphism” — “one thing mimicking another due to nostalgia or sentiment” (like the page-turning effect in e-books). During the residency, she took risks and believes that the results will remain constants in her work. It gave her the time, as well as the confidence, to try anything in her practice. And then this high-energy maker was off to another residency.

texTILES: Heaps and Mounds, 2015, ceramic, 18” x 48” x 2”.

Six McKnight Artists

Northern Clay Center

Andy Shaw

Learning Andy Shaw should have had a stipend from the Minnesota tourism office. During his three-month summer residency at Northern Clay Center, besides taking steps toward “reinvent[ing] my creative practice,” he explored the greater and lesser offerings of the Twin Cities, and tourist routes to the north and south, which he posted as a travelogue on Facebook. The pictures and his enthusiastic commentary might make you want to move here, even if you already live here. That’s not entirely a surprise, for Shaw has, throughout his life, shown an interest in learning and experience. A tenured professor at Louisiana State University, he also treated the residency as a teaching opportunity with Facebook posts describing this process of developing new forms. He began with the idea of squares with rounded corners and worked through multiple steps: outlines on graph paper, Masonite and aluminum templates, and drape molds being just a few of them. He also ran glaze tests, but the glazes didn’t melt well. That did not particularly worry him, however, because he regarded every aspect as a step on the way to something. He says his goal for the residency was not finishing anything, but opening up possibilities, something that under ordinary conditions is made difficult by his teaching schedule, in which he might play with a new idea but then be unable to get back to it for months. He has been making porcelain dinnerware for 13 years, but here he intentionally worked with a clay and a firing temperature that were unfamiliar and revisited his graduate-school attraction to a dark-colored clay. Shaw grew up in central Pennsylvania, the son of a funeral director

who became a minister. His parents were active in the community. He was interested in history from his pre-teen years, and for his freshman year of college he went to St. Andrews University in Scotland — a huge step into the unknown. He finished his undergraduate schooling at Kenyon College in Ohio — where he became fascinated with Icelandic sagas (he has since been to Iceland five times) — and intended to go on to graduate school in medieval history. But by then, he had stumbled upon ceramics and decided to take time out for an apprenticeship. He found one at Basin Creek Pottery in Montana, which coincidentally was not far from the Archie Bray Foundation, with its range of ceramic activities that he knew nothing about. After much dogged work at Basin and at a two-week workshop on Vancouver Island (Canada), he had an epiphany and realized that ceramics was his life course. So he did a “post-bac” year at Penn State and then was admitted to graduate school in Alfred University’s eminent ceramics program. He gradually moved into teaching without ever having taken the conventional basic classes in wheel throwing, etc. Teaching has satisfied his innate curiosity about things, because he can create a course out of something he wants to explore, and he is clearly good at it, having twice received teaching awards from LSU, which has been rated among the top ten US ceramic programs. Shaw was successful with his previous dinnerware, in which he concentrated on practicalities like how plates stack as well as on developing engagingly tactile surfaces. He does not seek eccentric form or color, so the palpable patterns are what make

his work gratifying to look at and to handle. But he adamantly does not want to “tell the same stories.” He wants to move the work forward. The squares with rounded corners already felt old to him as he neared the end of his time at NCC. He had another idea too late in the residency to carry it out. He was wondering what time-and-motion studies of dining would show about the best shapes for plates: maybe triangular or lobed forms would be more suitable than the conventional circles. He thought about where your hands fall when you sit at the table: a plate might be wider close to you and narrower farther away. His plates in the McKnight show — irregularly lobed and framed by raised edges — have evolved from that. Minneapolis, he says, is a great backdrop for being in the studio. When he got stuck, he had an adventure. He went to sporting events, to the major museums, to the Stone Arch Bridge, to bookstores, to a junk store on University Avenue in St. Paul. “There’s so much to do here!” he says. And in the process he found ways to move forward. It’s the Shaw method: joyful exploring.

From left to right: Dinner Plate, 2016, mid-range stoneware, stain, 10” x 11” x 1”; Small Plate, 2016, mid-range stoneware, stain, 7” x 9” x 1”.

Six McKnight Artists

Northern Clay Center

Ursula Hargens Minneapolis, MN Born: 1971, Minneapolis, MN

Education: 2003: MFA, Ceramics, New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, NY • 1999–2000: Postbaccalaureate Study, Ceramics, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada • 1999: MA, Art & Art Education, Columbia University, Teachers College, New York, NY • 1994: BA, Russian Language, & Literature, Columbia University, Columbia College, New York, NY Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2016: Vestiges, The Ceramic Center, Cedar Rapids, IA • 2015: A Gathering of Flowers: Botanicals in the Age of Climate Change, Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Andersen Library, Chaska, MN • 2013: Flora, The Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI • 2012: Wallflower (Invasive Species), Christiansen Center Art Gallery, Minneapolis, MN • 2004: Decorative Form, Lohin Geduld Gallery, New York, NY Selected Group Exhibitions: 2016: Filter: Sanam Emami & Ursula Hargens, Gallery@1708, Kansas City, MO • 100 Cups, The Clay Studio @ NCECA, Kansas City, MO • Painterly, Schaller Gallery, St. Joseph, MI • 2015: Ahead of the Curve: Creative Thinkers/Unconventional Makers, Dow Studio, Deer Isle, ME • Greenscapes, Clay Art Center, Port Chester, NY • 2014: A Sustainable Table, The Jewish Museum, Milwaukee, WI • Clay National IX: Aisthesis, Carbondale Clay Center, Carbondale, CO • Red River Reciprocity: Contemporary Ceramics in MN & ND, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND • 2013: Bloom, Koelsch Gallery, Houston, TX • Four McKnight Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • 2012: Healing Arts, Hudson Hospital Specialty Clinic Gallery, Hudson, WI • Pots at Rest, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA • 2011: Lady’s Cup, Visq LOFT, Osaka, Japan • Table Manners, Lark and Key Gallery, Asheville, NC • 2010: American Pottery Festival, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • Pictures on Pots, Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, Loveladies, NJ • Six McKnight Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • 2009: Master Artists Exhibition, Armory Art Center, Palm Beach, FL • Northern Exposure, Promega Corporation, Madison, WI • 2008: Functional Variations, Freehand Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Six McKnight Artists

Mika Negishi Laidlaw Mankato, MN Born: 1971, Kobe, Japan

Selected Awards: 2015: McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • 2014: Artist Initiative Grant, Minnesota State Arts Board, St. Paul, MN • 2012: McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • 2009: McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • 2006: Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grant, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN Gallery Representation: Schaller Gallery, St. Joseph, MI Selected Collections: Mayo Clinic, Permanent Collection, Rochester, MN • The Ohio State University, The Baggs Collection, Columbus, OH • San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, TX • Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art, Gloryhole Collection, Alfred, NY Selected Professional Experience: 2014–Present: Co-founder and Program Head, Minnesota New Institute for Ceramic Education (MN NICE), Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • 2014: Summer Faculty, Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY • Workshop Instructor, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Deer Isle, ME • 2005–2013: Lecturer, Adjunct Faculty, Ceramics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN • 2003–2013: Teaching Artist, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN

Education: 2000: MFA, Ceramics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS • 1994 – 1997: Ceramic Apprenticeship at Akishino-Pottery with Masaya Imanishi, Nara-City, Japan • 1994: BA in Studio Art, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL • 1992: AA in Applied Art, Casper College, Casper, WY Selected Recent Solo/Group Exhibitions: 2016: Uneasy Syzygies, MAEP Gallery, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN • The 2016 International Orton Cone Box Show, Hilliard Gallery, Kansas City, MO • Unconventional Clay: Engaged in Change, NCECA Invitational, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO • Flourishing, the work of Yoshi Ikeda and Kansas State University Alumni, Hilliard Gallery, Kansas City, MO • Yoshi and Friends: Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Yoshiro Ikeda, Thornhill Gallery, Kansas City, MO • Kansas Clay Connections 2, Bracker’s Gallery, Lawrence, KS • MichiDistinctive Paths, Shared Affinity: A Travelling Exhibition of Japanese American Ceramic Artists, at Baltimore Clayworks, Baltimore, MD; University of Central Missouri Gallery of Art and Design, Warrensburg, MO; Bowling Green State University, Fine Arts Center, Bowling Green, OH; and Carlton College, Perlman Teaching Museum, Northfield, MN • 2015: Maximall Gallery: New Dimension of Art, Online Exhibition, Poland • Empty Bowls, Wichita Falls Museum of Art, Wichita Falls, TX • Best In Show, Ideas_14 Exhibition, International Digital Media Arts Association, Orem, UT • Reclaimed: Installation, Performance, & Site-Specific Works, One Wall Gallery, Online Exhibition • 2014: CURRENTS 2014: The Santa Fe International New Media Festival, Santa Fe, NM • Peripheries, 410 Project, Mankato, MN • Red River Reciprocity: Contemporary Ceramics in Minnesota and North Dakota, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND • 2012: Seven McKnight Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • Push Play, Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA • PLRAC/McKnight Fellowship Grant Recipient Exhibition, St. Peter Art Center, St. Peter, MN • 2011: Memory of Cells (solo), Conkling Gallery, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN • Clay Dwelling, Macalester Art Gallery, St. Paul, MN • Minnesota Nice, Lillstreet Art Center, Chicago, IL • 19th Annual Prairie Lakes Regional Juried Art Exhibition, Carnegie Art Center, Mankato, MN • Immigrant Impact, Duncan McClellan Gallery, St. Petersburg, FL • 2010: The 2010 International Orton Cone Box Show, Holt-Russell Gallery, Baldwin City, KS • 8 Fluid Ounces, Glassell Gallery, Louisiana State University, LA • Let There Be White, Birey Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Selected Awards: 2014: Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN • 2011: McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • 2006: McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • Conference Demonstrator, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, Portland, OR • 2004: Emerging Artist, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, Indianapolis, IN Gallery Representation: A.L. Swanson Gallery, Helena, MT • Armstrong Gallery, Pomona, CA • Art Spirit Gallery, Coeur d’Alene, ID • Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, KS Selected Collections: Eastern Washington University Gallery of Art, Cheney, WA • Gallery Kunugi, private collection, Nara-City, Japan • Minenotera Temple, private collection, Nara-City, Japan • Tweed Museum Art, University of Minnesota–Duluth, Duluth, MN Selected Professional Experience: 2013 – Present: Professor of Art, Ceramics, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN • 2012: Instructor, Clay As a Medium for Sculpture, workshop at California State University, Monterey Bay, CA • 2007: Instructor, Contemporary Castings Regional Conference, workshop at University of Richmond, Richmond, VA • 2004: Instructor, Circles and Curves: Mika Negishi Laidlaw & Les Laidlaw Ceramic Summer Workshop, Sierra Nevada College, Incline Village, NV • 2002: Artist-in-Residence, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT

Northern Clay Center

Tom Bartel Athens, OH Born: 1969, Cleveland, OH

Education: 1996: MFA, Ceramics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN • 1993: BFA, Ceramics, Kent State University, Kent, OH Selected Solo and 2–3 Person Exhibitions: 2016: Solo Exhibition, Roscoe Gallery, Oakland, CA • 2-person Exhibition, South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, IN • 2015: 2-person Exhibition, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN • 3-person Exhibition, Sherrie Gallerie, Columbus, OH • 2013: Memento, Solo Exhibition, Ohio University–Ironton, Ironton, OH • 2012: Solo Exhibition/Featured Artist, Crimson Laurel Gallery, Bakersville, NC • Solo Exhibition, Sherrie Gallerie, Columbus, OH • Solo Exhibition, Red Lodge Clay Center, Red Lodge, MT Selected Group Exhibitions: 2016: NCECA EXPO, Featured Artist, Red Lodge Clay Center, Kansas City, MO • 2015: Taboo: Sexuality and Sexual Identity in Ceramics, Signature Gallery, Atlanta, GA • 2014: Contemporary Figurative Ceramics, Artisan Gallery, Belleville, WI • Transformations 9: Contemporary Works in Ceramics, the Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize, Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, PA • 2013: The Figure/ Sculpture in Ceramics, Nassauische Sparkasse Talent Award, Keramikmuseum Westerwald, Germany • NCECA 2013 Biennial, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX • 2012: Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan • Aqua Art Miami (in conjunction with Art Basel), J Fergeson Gallery, Miami, FL • Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, Kaohsiung Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan • 2011: Fresh Figurines: A New Look At A Historic Art Form, The Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA • Obsessive Allegories, Gallery One Eleven, Wiscasset, ME • Reinterpreting the Figure, The Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton NJ • Figurines: A National Invitational Exhibition, Santa Fe Clay, Santa Fe, NM • 2009: Contemporary Monsters: Surrealism in the Ceramic Arts, Northern Clay Center Minneapolis, MN

Six McKnight Artists

Jessica Brandl Cedar Falls, IA Born: 1983, Austin, TX

Selected Awards: 2015: Baker Award, College of Fine Arts, Ohio University, Athens, OH • McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • 2014: Finalist, Transformation 9: Contemporary Works in Ceramics, The Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize, Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, PA • 2011: Fellowship (Individual Excellence Award), The Ohio Art Council, Columbus, OH • 2004: Individual Artist Fellowship, The Kentucky Arts Council, Frankfort, KY Gallery Representation: Artisan Gallery, Paoli, WI • Red Lodge Clay Center, Red Lodge, MT • Sherrie Gallerie, Columbus, OH • Signature Gallery, Atlanta, GA Selected Collections: International Museum of Ceramics, Bechyne, Czech Republic • Jingdezhen Ceramic Art Museum, Jingdezhen, China • The Mutter Museum, Philadelphia, PA • New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan Selected Professional Experience: 2012–present: Ceramics Area Chairperson, Associate Professor, Ohio University, Athens, OH • 2012: Instructor, Constructing the Figure, Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC • 2011: Director, Study Abroad Program, Ohio University in Hungary, The International Ceramics Studio, Kecskemét, Hungary • 2010: Instructor, Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN • 2006: Artist-in-Residence, The 21st International Symposium of Ceramics, Bechyne, Czech Republic

Education: 2009: MFA, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH • 2006: BFA, Ceramics and Art History, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2017: Jessica Brandl, Featured Artist Exhibition, Belger Crane Yard Studios, Kansas City, MO • 2015: Excavations, Collaboration with Bryan Czibesz, c.r.e.t.a. Rome Residency, RISD extension Gallery, Rome, Italy • Wishful Thinking, Artist-In-Residence Exhibition, Gallery 224, Office for the Arts at Harvard, Harvard University, Allston, MA • Jessica Brandl, Featured Artist Exhibition, Charlie Cummings Gallery, Gainesville, FL • 2014: Jessica Brandl, Featured Artist Exhibition, Lillstreet Art Center, Chicago, IL • Salad Days, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME • Jessica Brandl, Bonovitz Space & online, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA Selected Group Exhibitions: 2016: Yunomi Invitational, AKAR, Iowa City, IA • Ceram-A-Rama, Arizona State University Art Museum Ceramics Research Center, Tempe/Phoenix, AZ • Unconventional Clay: Engaged in Change, NCECA Invitational, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO • Dino-Might, Box Gallery, NCECA, Kansas City, MO • Alumni Gathering: Red Star Studios Past and Current Artist-in-Residence, Belger Crane Yard Studios, NCECA, Kansas City, MO • Red-Hot Shop, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, NCECA, Kansas City, MO • From There to Here, Box Marietta Chair Building, NCECA, Kansas City, MO • Lillstreet Gallery, Bartle Hall–Hall D, NCECA Booth, Kansas City, MO • Pop-UP, Cerbera Gallery, Kansas City, MO • Pixels, Voxels, Lux Center for the Arts, Lincoln, NE • Every Semester: Collecting KCAI Ceramics 1995-2015, Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, MO • 2015: Salad Days Alumni Exhibit, NCECA, New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA • Cup: The Intimate Object XI, Charlie Cummings Gallery, Gainesville, FL • 2014: Big Names, Small Works, Red Star Studios, Kansas City, MO • Dinosaur, Practice Gallery, Philadelphia, PA • Ceramics Biennial Exhibition, New Hampshire Institute of Art, Manchester, NH • Home Team, Gallery 224, Office of the Arts at Harvard, Harvard University, Allston, MA

Selected Awards: 2015: NCECA International Residency Award, c.r.e.t.a. Rome; Rome, Italy • McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • 2014: Rudy Autio Grant, Funded research trip to Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, Paris, France, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT • Windgate Scholar, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT • 2009: Community Arts Partnership Award, Greater Columbus Arts Council, Columbus, OH Gallery Representation: Belger Crane Yard, Kansas City, MO • Charlie Cummings Gallery, Gainesville, FL • The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA • Lillstreet, Chicago, IL • LUX, Lincoln, NE Selected Collections: Belger Collection, Kansas City, MO • Kamm Teapot Foundation, Philadelphia, PA • Nelson-Atkins Museum of Fine Art, Kansas City, MO • New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA • Rosenfield Art Foundation of Texas, Dallas, TX Selected Professional Experience: 2016: Adjunct Professor, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA • 2014–2015: Artist-inResidence and Instructor, Office for the Arts at Harvard, Harvard University, Allston, MA • 2014: Windgate Scholar, Artist-inResidence, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT • 2013–2014: Artist-in-Residence and Instructor, Armory Art Center, West Palm Beach, FL • 2013: Visiting Artist, State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY

Northern Clay Center

Amy Santoferraro Manhattan, KS Born: 1980, Akron, OH

Education : 2012: MFA, Ceramics, New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, NY • 2004–2005: Postbaccalaureate Student, Ceramics, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA • 2004: BFA, Ceramics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH • 2003: BAE, Art Education, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2015: Playgrown, Greg Hardwick Gallery, Columbia College, Columbia, MO • Add to Basket, MudFire, Decatur, GA • 2013: Gifts for the Victors, c.r.e.t.a. Rome, Rome, Italy • 2012: Please Stand By: MFA Thesis Exhibition, Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, NYSCC at Alfred University, Alfred, NY • 2009: Just Visit, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA • Shame On Our Beards, Lantana Grange Arts Center, Cwmbram, Wales • 2007: Right Outside, SpaceLAB, Spaces Gallery, Cleveland, OH • 2006: Left Outside, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN Selected Group Exhibitions: 2016: Accessibility by Design, in conjunction with NCECA 2016 Conference, Vulpes Bastiles, Kansas City, MO • Women’s Work: An Insight into Nature, Beauty and the Domestic Object, University of Northern Iowa, Gallery of Art, Cedar Falls, IA • 2015: Scratching the Surface, Red Lodge Clay Center, Red Lodge, MT • Midwest Life Vest, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Kearney, NE • Beyond the Brickyard, Bray North Gallery, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT • Drawn-In, Cavin-Morris Gallery, Chelsea, NY • 2014: Paper Plate, Lawrence Art Center, Lawrence, KS • Triumph of Detritus, 1310 Gallery, Broward College, Ft. Lauderdale, FL • Common Thread, Iowa Hall Gallery, Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, IA • Dinosaur! Practice Gallery, Philadelphia, PA • Steinzeugkrug: Present Day Interpretations, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC • Taming Nature, in conjunction with NCECA 2014 Conference, The Pritzlaff, Milwaukee, WI • 2013: Craftastic, Pelham Art Center, Pelham, NY • Clay Prints, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN • Show Clay, Hess Gallery, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA • Three Courses: Getting a Snack, Dinnerware Museum, Ann Arbor, MI • At Your Service, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME • Wrappable, Lux Center for the Arts, Lincoln, NE

Six McKnight Artists

Andy Shaw Baton Rouge, LA Born: 1969, Lewisburg, PA

Selected Awards: 2015: College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Enhancement Grant, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS • Emmanuel College Artist’s Residency Grant, Emmanuel College, Boston, MA • 2014: McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • 2012: University Small Research Grant, awarded by the Office of Research, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS • Professional Development Grant, New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, NY Selected Collections: Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN • Dinnerware Museum, Ann Arbor, MI • Jingdezhen Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute, Shanghai, China • Magnelli Museum, Vallauris, France • Robert L. Pfannebecker Private Collection, Lancaster, PA • Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramics, Alfred, NY Selected Professional Experience: 2012–present: Assistant Professor of Art, Kansas State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Art, Manhattan, KS • 2013–present: Ceramics Area Coordinator, Kansas State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Art, Manhattan, KS • 2010– present: Advisory Board Member, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME • 2016: Lecture/Workshop, Illinois State University, Normal, IL • 2015: Lecture, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA • Exhibitions Committee Member, National Council for the Education of Ceramic Arts, Erie, CO • Programs Committee Chair, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME

Education: 2000: MFA, New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University, Alfred, NY • 1996: Post-baccalaureate Student, Ceramics, Penn State University, University Park, PA • 1993 – 1994: Apprentice with Patrick Eckman, Basin Creek Pottery, Basin, MT • 1992: BA, History, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH • 1988 – 1989: University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland, one-year nondegree program Selected Exhibitions: 2016: Pattern, Schaller Gallery, St. Joseph, MI • La Mesa, sponsored by Santa Fe Clay, in conjunction with NCECA, Kansas City, MO • 100 Artists, 1000 Cups, The Clay Studio, in conjunction with NCECA, Kansas City, MO • 2015: Focus on Form, Schaller Gallery, St. Joseph, MI • 2014: Pottery by Design, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA • 2013: Crafted: Ceramics Cups, Mugs, and Tumblers, Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, PA • Simple Cup 2013, KOBO Gallery and Seward Park Clay Studio, Seattle, WA • The Cup Show and the Bowl Show, Worcester Center for Crafts, Worcester, MA • Shifting Paradigms in Contemporary Ceramics: The Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX • 2012: The Guerilla Mug Assault, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA • 2011: Andy Shaw and Mary Louise Carter, Glassell Gallery, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA • Steven Godfrey and Andy Shaw, Santa Fe Clay, Santa Fe, NM • Interpreting the Cup, Crimson Laurel Gallery, Bakersville, NC • 2010: White Ware, Red Star Studios, Kansas City, MO • Tablewares: An International Collection, Rex Irwin Gallery, Woollahra, Australia, in conjunction with the Australian Ceramics Triennale, Sydney • 2009: Affinity, Icheon World Ceramics Center, Icheon-si, Korea Selected Awards: 2016: Sím Residency at the Korpúlfsstaðir studio, Reykjavik, Iceland • 2015: McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • 2014 & 2012: Tiger Athletic Foundation (TAF) Teaching Awards, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA • 2014: Award of Excellence, Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts • 2013: Distinguished Alumni Award, Lewisburg Area High School Alumni Association

Gallery Representation: The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA • Grand Hand Gallery, St. Paul, MN • The Nevica Project, Chicago, IL • Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • Schaller Gallery, St. Joseph, MI Selected Collections: AMOCA, the American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA • The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA • The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Houston, TX • The Schein-Joseph Museum of Ceramic Art, Alfred University, Alfred, NY Selected Professional Experience: 2008 – present: Associate Professor of Art, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA • 2014: Visiting artist, Myndlistaskólinn í Reykjavík (Reykjavik School of Visual Art), Reykjavik, Iceland • 2013: Workshop Instructor, Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC • 2010: Workshop Instructor, Tableware: The Design Objective, Haystack School of Crafts, Deer Isle, ME • Presenter, American Pottery Festival, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • 2008: Presenter, Utilitarian Clay Symposium V, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN

Northern Clay Center

The McKnight Foundation

Six McKnight Artists

Past Recipients

F Fellowship Recipient R Residency Recipient

The McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation, seeks to improve the quality of life for present and future generations. Through grantmaking, collaboration, and strategic policy reform, we use our resources to attend, unite, and empower those we serve.

1997 F Linda Christianson F Matthew Metz R Marina Kuchinski R George Pearlman

Arts Program Goal Minnesota thrives when its artists thrive. The McKnight Foundation supports working artists to create and contribute to vibrant communities.

1998 F Judith Meyers Altobell F Jeffrey Oestreich R Andrea Leila Denecke R Eiko Kishi R Deborah Sigel

Program Strategies We fund organizations that are mission-driven to support working artists, with capacity and systems in place to develop and share their work. We support select programs and projects to fuel exceptional and diverse artistic practice. We leverage local and national collaborations, knowledge, and policies that maximize the value of artists' work in their communities.

1999 F Gary Erickson F Will Swanson R Joe Batt R Kelly Connole 2000 F Sarah Heimann F Joseph Kress R Arina Ailincai R Mika Negishi R Mary Selvig R Megan Sweeney 2001 F Margaret Bohls F Robert Briscoe R Vineet Kacker R Davie Reneau R Patrick Taddy R Janet Williams

2002 F Maren Kloppmann F Keisuke Mizuno R William Brouillard R Kirk Mangus R Tom Towater R Sandra Westley

2007 F Mike Norman F Joseph Kress R Greg Crowe R John Lambert R Lee Love R Alyssa Wood

2012 F Brian Boldon F Ursula Hargens R Pattie Chalmers R Haejung Lee R Ann-Charlotte Ohlsson R Nick Renshaw

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

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

2013 F Keisuke Mizuno F Kimberlee Joy Roth R Claudia Alvarez R Tom Bartel R Sanam Emami R Sarah Heimann

2004 F Andrea Leila Denecke F Matthew Metz R Eileen Cohen R Satoru Hoshino R Paul McMullan R Anita Powell

2009 F Ursula Hargens F Maren Kloppmann R Jonas Arcˇikauskas R Cary Esser R Alexandra Hibbitt R Ryan Mitchell

2014 F Kelly Connole F Kip O’Krongly R Jessica Brandl R Jae Won Lee R Joseph Pintz R Amy Santoferraro R Andy Shaw

2005 F Maren Kloppmann F Tetsuya Yamada R Edith Garcia R Audrius Janušonis R Yonghee Joo R Hide Sadohara

2010 F Linda Christianson F Heather Nameth Bren R William Cravis R Rina Hongo R Naoto Nakada R Kevin Snipes

2006 F Robert Briscoe F Mika Negishi Laidlaw R Lisa Marie Barber R Junko Nomura R Nick Renshaw R John Utgaard

2011 F Gerard Justin Ferrari F Mika Negishi Laidlaw R David Allyn R Edith Garcia R Peter Masters R Janet Williams

2015 F Ursula Hargens F Mika Negishi Laidlaw R Kathryn Finnerty R Lung-Chieh Lin R Helen Otterson

Northern Clay Center

Northern Clay Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;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 publicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s appreciation and understanding of the ceramic arts. Staff Sarah Millfelt, Executive Director Michael Arnold, Exhibitions Manager Elizabeth Coleman, Publications Assistant Dustin Yager, Head of Education and Artist Services Programs

Board of Directors Craig Bishop, Chair Lynne Alpert Bryan Anderson Nan Arundel Mary K. Baumann Robert Briscoe Heather Nameth Bren Lann Briel Phil Burke Linda Coffey Nancy Hanily-Dolan Bonita Hill Sally Wheaton Hushcha Christopher Jozwiak Patrick Kennedy Mark Lellman Brad Meier Alan Naylor T Cody Turnquist Ellen Watters Honorary Directors Kay Erickson Warren MacKenzie Legacy Directors Andy Boss Joan Mondale Director Emerita Emily Galusha

Photographs of ceramic works by Peter Lee. Design and portraits by Joseph D.R. OLeary (vetodesign.com).