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Northern Clay Center
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Manufactured in the United States
First edition, 2024
International Standard Book Number 978-1-932706-68-2
Unless otherwise noted, all dimensions in inches: height precedes width precedes depth.
Founded on the belief that Minnesota thrives when its artists and culture bearers thrive, the McKnight Foundation’s arts and culture program is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country. Support for individual working Minnesota artists and culture bearers has been a cornerstone of the program since it began in 1982. The McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program provides annual, unrestricted cash awards to outstanding mid-career Minnesota artists in 15 different creative disciplines. Northern Clay Center is honored to partner with the McKnight Foundation to administer the McKnight Fellowships for Ceramic Artists.
Three individuals comprised the selection panel in 2023: Mary Barringer, Sana Musasama, and Prof. Bobby Scroggins. Mary Barringer (Shelburne Falls, MA) has worked in clay for more than forty years, making both pottery and sculpture. She received a BA in art from Bennington College (VT) and worked as an assistant to Michael Frimkess. Her work has been exhibited widely, in contexts ranging from museums and commercial galleries to craft fairs and pottery tours. In addition to her studio practice, she has served as a guest ceramics instructor at craft schools, community colleges, and universities including The Ohio State University (Columbus) and Ohio University (Athens), and has lectured on the history of ceramics. From 2004 to 2014, she was editor at Studio Potter. She lives and works in western Massachusetts. Sana Musasama (New York) received her BA from City College of New York and her MFA from Alfred University (NY). Musasama began traveling as a way to recover identity and cultural place. Clay was a geographical catalyst that brought her first to West Africa. She studied Mende pottery in Sierra Leone (1974-75) and ventured later to Japan, China, South America, and Cambodia. She has continued her quest, expanding her interests to tribal adornment practices in various Indigenous cultures. She is challenged by the concerns surrounding the safety of women, specifically the rituals involving rites of passage, female chastity, and the “purification” of the female body. Musasama’s travels have transformed her and her approach to clay. Realizing that clay is universal, she believes that there
is no dichotomy between her life and her work. Her trekking has taught her valuable lessons in observation; her mission speaks of a global citizen who walks through the artwork heart first. Musasama’s work is informed by history, women’s studies, culture, and her travel journal. Prof. Bobby Scroggins (Lexington, KY) was born and raised in Kansas City (MO) where he began his artistic career. At a very young age, he developed a strong interest in the visual arts and began to develop skills as a sculptor and painter. Scroggins studied sculpture and ceramics at the Kansas City Art Institute (MO) where he received a BFA in 1976. While a student there, he was commissioned to create the Leon Jordan Memorial Statue in Kansas City (MO). This was the first public monument to be erected to an African American leader and commissioned to an African American artist in the state of Missouri. He later received an MFA in the field of sculpture from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 1980 where he was a University and Ford Foundation Fellow. In 1990, he joined the art department at the University of Kentucky (Lexington) and currently serves as professor of ceramics. With his inventive development of sculptural technique “mediaramics,” his art takes a magnificent leap into the future. Scroggins’ ceramic vessels and mixed media sculptures have been featured in exhibitions throughout the United States, books, and publications. Each of these esteemed and respected artists traveled to Northern Clay Center to form the 2023 panel and provide contextual discourse and thoughtful selections.
The 2024 exhibition catalog offering features work by two 2023 McKnight Ceramic Artist Fellows: Chotsani Elain Dean and Anna Metcalfe. The fellowship artists used the grants to defray studio, travel, and research expenses; experiment with new materials and techniques; and build upon ideas within their current and past work.
The McKnight Ceramic Artist Fellowships and the exhibition featuring their works are made possible by generous financial support from the McKnight Foundation, Minneapolis (MN).
Chotsani Elaine Dean
Chotsani Elaine Dean is an artist who pays careful attention to lineages. One of those is botanical. She traces her artistic engagement with plants back to childhood family visits— every summer—to Washington, D.C., where she and her parents would spend time on the Mall, “especially the botanical garden.” Acts of recognition and recovery are often present in her pieces, “My work is a way of trying to get back to those first experiences.” For Dean, that garden was an animate place of vivid organic intelligence and abundance, “You were completely blown away by being in a space where you could feel like you were moving all around different parts of the world. You were learning all kinds of things just through plants.”
More recently, in the summer of 2020, Dean was “very fortunate to be able to spend that summer home with my parents [in Connecticut]. I had to leave a garden in South Carolina that I had for four years that became a part of my work, so when I was near my parents’ home and found this particular patch of plants, I decided to call it a garden. I would go there several times a week.” Dean discovered that her serendipitous garden was home to certain plants that are not native to America: “They are from the continent of Asia and came in via Europe. I was there finding out about their history, and I had also been thinking about being in a place where your origins are not. Yet the little patch was thriving with birds and bees, pollination. Even though the plants were categorized as weeds, I decided they were going to be flowers in my garden.”
When one encounters Dean’s work with incorporated preserved flowers and plant materials, there is an ephemerality that comes with understanding that the plants lived and were harvested in a specific place at a specific time, never to live again. There is simultaneously a sense of fixedness and permanence because of the fired clay. The finished works are in a beguiling conversation within themselves that observers can approach but perhaps never fully penetrate. This opacity born from assembly is a gift to us in this age of acceleration, mass production, consumption, and disposability.
Time seems to be as much of a medium for Dean as the plants and clay she is able to touch with her hands. She says that her work using clay to embed and preserve flowers is a way to “try to hold memories differently. Everybody’s always trying to make sense of time. Layers of time make layers of clay. In my practices, I’m starting to feel like an archivist and an unofficial documentary maker.” Dean’s work invites us to listen to the nature of time itself as held within the pieces.
Clay is universal, speaking across civilizations across space and time, with individual pieces holding the ability to outlast its maker by thousands of years, because unlike human beings which are made of mostly water, clay is in the very ground that holds us and supports us. Clay’s foundational role in notions of beauty cannot be denied. Dean expresses her respect for clay’s essential role in human aesthetics: “I do think pots are the center of design. I do believe that clay does this beautiful harmony of art and design and craft. It’s a trifecta that holds those sorts of categories we usually make distinct. There’s always an ampersand between them. Clay is the ampersand.”
Chotsani Elaine Dean continued
In the hands of a skilled practitioner, as the “ampersand,” clay can bring disparate materials and lineages together. It’s also a very challenging artistic medium because of the extensive and rigorous process required to bring it safely to completion. Patience, flexibility, and receptivity are required of the artist; the artist gives and receives. Dean says she’s “captivated by the material” because people can’t come to the clay with a set of ideas and expect the clay to simply obey. She says that her students learn quickly that they can’t depend on a linear trajectory and that anyone working with clay faces the choice “whether you want to abide by those relationship rules. Because the material is tactile, and if you position yourself correctly, you respond. You can call out to the clay, the clay calls out to you. And there’s a lot of negotiating, which is an opportunity. It’s almost like a cat and mouse game; the clay is inviting you to investigate it, to be a detective, to make close examinations.”
Dean says she’s not afraid to fail because the clay doesn’t need to punish and abandon you. It is resilient, patient, and potent as an artistic medium, which makes a kind of poetic sense since it takes thousands of years of transformation for particular rocks under particular conditions to form clay. If approached with this attitude of call and response, rather than giving up, clay offers new possibilities “and gives you permission to find opportunity in failure. I know that’s a phrase that goes around these days, but the payoff from clay out of failure can be so rewarding. I do think that’s what allows the work to become distinct to each person because it shows how each of us problem solves a dance.”
This fellowship has given Dean the opportunity to acknowledge that she’s reached a certain place in her career. She says that it’s an “opportunity to see for yourself that you have made this body of work. The other really nice thing is the fact that the show travels around the state. And being in Minnesota, which has a strong legacy of clay, and identity, it feels good to be recognized now as part of that lineage.”
Dean values that “the fellowship makes it clear that it’s for people working in clay, both within the traditional capacity, but also contemporary. It feels good to be in company and in conversation with recipients because what clay does provide is such a diverse spectrum. I do move between making what we would call utilitarian pots and works that challenge [notions of functionality] and operate outside the mode of studio pottery, and I’m not a studio potter. I don’t land in one specific area of working. If there’s clay leftover, I’ll use it and figure it out.”
Musing on the generosity, sociality, and intimacy of clay, Dean says, “people can bring themselves to the clay. It’s almost as if clay is democratic, but then it also treats you like you’re the only person working with it.”
ChotsaniElaine Dean, Needlepoint
Sampler Quilt: No 2 , clay & soil, time & memory, recipe&ingredient,seed&labor, 2023, slipcastporcelain, resin, dried flowe
Anna Metcalfe
Anna Metcalfe currently lives in Minneapolis as a city dweller, but identifies strongly with her rural roots: “I grew up in a really rural place in Virginia—there’s not a stoplight in the whole county. I love the city, but I heard somebody use the term ‘rural diaspora,’ the people who have left the country and moved to the city. That struck really close because I have a lot of longing to be in wide open spaces. Quieter spaces. I grew up on a 20-acre mini farm. My dad was an airline pilot, and we lived on this little hilltop in the middle of the mountains. At the bottom of our property was a little creek and a little mountain, and that’s where my sister and I would spend our time.”
Metcalfe reflects on the art education available at her small rural high school. She was one of 73 students in her graduating class; her school had “one art teacher and one art class that you could take as many times as you wanted to.” When she was about to start her senior year, her guidance counselor encouraged her to take a class at a community college, “which was a 45-minute drive from where I lived. There was an evening class that fit into my schedule and I could either choose between photography and ceramics, and I said, ‘Ceramics? Sounds good.’ Then I remember the first night coming home and saying, ‘Well, I’m gonna do that for the rest of my life. I totally love it.’”
Since that first encounter, Metcalfe’s ceramics practice has become a way of knowing: “I think a lot about the ways of knowing land and water. In contemporary life, through colonization and other ways of taking us away from the land, we’ve lost lots of ways of knowing. I have started to think about how to rekindle my knowledge of the places I call home. I’ve always been drawn to water, so my way of knowing Minnesota was to connect with the Mississippi River. It’s a part of us molecularly as we are somewhere between 71% and 73% water. That means that all of us are 73% Mississippi River. To me, that means that our bodies are connected to each other and the river through the water we drink. And yet, at the same time, I don’t necessarily feel like I know that part of myself as well as my ancestors did.”
Metcalfe’s work is based on exploring and understanding connection: “I really think about the land that I come from as really molecular. There are a lot of people who have in their bodies the sense of being connected to land and to mud and grass and sky and all of the things that are readily at hand in a rural environment, and that you have to seek out in urban environments. That term “rural diaspora” resonated with me because I felt, Oh, that’s my soul right there. I can sense the longing for a connection to land and soil. It’s not that I want to move back to Virginia. There are so many things I love about Minnesota and the cities, but that connection is truly a part of the way that I approach making work, and the way that I think about forming clay as a substance. I think a lot about my connection to other ages and animals and other humans. It’s a remarkable thing to pick up a hunk of clay and to ask yourself, ‘Where has this been? What was this, and how am I connected to this place?’”
Recently, Metcalfe discovered the raw material of her artistic practice right where she grew up. “On my last visit to Virginia, my niece and nephews and I were exploring the creek bed where I played as a kid. Naturally, because clay almost always exists where water has moved, we found an entire bank of clay. Similarly, I have been using clay dug from the grounds of the Glensheen Mansion in Duluth by the gardener there. The clay
Anna Metcalfe, Ecosystem Eng i neer , 2024, earthenware, glacial clay,drift wood,birchbark,
beaver-felledbranch, basalt, 11. 5 x 9 x 6
Anna Metcalfe
continued
inhibits the growth of new trees, so when she plants a tree, she has to replace the clay with soil that is good for growing. She saves the clay for me and I’ve been using that clay in my studio. When fired, it’s a beautiful earthenware. I’m accustomed to using clay from a manufacturer who combines different clays from around the world to make a recipe that is predictable. But that system of mass extraction is damaging to the areas of the earth where the materials are mined and is complicated by thousands of miles of travel before it gets to my studio.
That said, digging my own clay is no less complicated. I do believe that there is an honorable way to take clay from the land and create art with it. I have to admit that I am still learning how to do this in a way that respects the earth and the traditions of our ancestors. Ultimately, I think that this process of harvesting my own clay offers me an opportunity to know land and water more deeply. This way of working must be slow, deliberate, and respectful. By working in this way, I hope to work on healing my own body and spirit by connecting with the land and learning to heal the land through reciprocity. I must interrogate all of the elements of my studio practice and consider the possibility that even though my work might have good intentions, my current practices could be causing harm. I believe there is a way to work with clay respectfully, though, and discovering those ways is the future of my work as a ceramic artist.”
One of Metcalfe’s current projects is a hands-on social experience for 48 people at a time. Pop-up Picnic is described as including “handmade porcelain plates (city map), bowls (hives) and cups (bee-pollinated vegetables) to form a map of the local food system in Minneapolis. They are packaged carefully into portable crates and transported on a tricycle to gardens and parks in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul metro area. The set is a giant puzzle, and participants can engage with each other to create the map.”
Participants can also eat a meal together using all the pieces, and the Pop-up Picnic can be a zero-waste potluck or catered affair. Metcalfe’s goal is to give people in the community the chance to ask, “‘Where do we intersect with ecosystems?’ by bringing clear evidence to the table that our daily lives are affected by pollinators. Cups have the flowers of things like coffee and almonds; a million plants that are pollinated by honeybees and other pollinators and we depend on them. They are a keystone species.”
Metcalfe’s vision is one of reciprocity similar to that of Robin Wall Kimmerer, writer of Braiding Sweetgrass,
...until we can grieve for our planet, we cannot love it—grieving is a sign of spiritual health. But it is not enough to weep for our lost landscapes; we have to put our hands in the earth to make ourselves whole again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.
Metcalfe’s sentiment is the same, “I hope to heal and be healed through my artistic practice. I want to know the world well enough to leave it better than I found it.”
An n a Metcalfe, Keystone
Species: SnowshoeHare, 2024,earthenware, glacial clay, 15. 5 x 9 x 8
Chotsani Elaine Dean
BORN: 1976 (HARTFORD, CT)
EDUCATION
2001 MFA, Ceramics, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis, MO
1998 BFA, Ceramics, Cum Laude, Hartford Art School, University of Hartford, CT
SOLO EXHIBITONS
2020 Trading Post: Huys De Hope, Sumter County Gallery of Art, SC • Trading Post: Huys De Hope, McMaster Gallery, University of South Carolina, Columbia 2019 Trading Post: Routes, Roots, and Goods, Moon Gallery, Berry College, Mount Berry, GA 2018 Chotsani Elaine Dean, Ceramics, The Studio Art Gallery at North Greenville University, Tigerville, SC
• Coded Memory: ‘circa 19th century, planted memory, prized seeds’, Iowa Ceramics Center and Glass Studio, Cedar Rapids
• Faculty Spotlight; Chotsani Elaine Dean, Vandiver Gallery, Anderson University, SC 2009 Clay Quilts: Post-Emancipation, Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, NJ 2007 Remembered Memories, Communal Ancestry, Mikhail Zakin Gallery, The Art School at Old Church, Demarest, NJ 2004 Coded Memory, Charter Oak Cultural Center, Hartford, CT
TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2013 Extract/Abundance: Works on Paper, Kriti Gallery, Varanasi, India 2012 PRESENT: Works by Chotsani E. Dean and Howard el-Yasin, Hans Weiss Newspace Gallery, Manchester Community College, CT 2009 Angels, Demons and Holy Ghosts, Gallery on the Green, Canton, CT
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Interrelationships: Peers, Mentors and Friends, Guest Curator and exhibiting artist, ASPN Mentor 2024, Red Lodge Clay Center, MT • EscapeRoom, Curated by Kim Bobier and Marisa A. Williamson, Ruffin Gallery, University of Virginia, Charlottesville 2023 Clay Holds Water, Water Holds Memory, Curated by Adero Willard, NCECA Concurrent Conference, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH • Sethe: River and
Refuge, Curated by Lydia Thompson, NCECA Concurrent Conference, Duke Energy Convention Center, Cincinnati, OH
• Small Changes, Red Lodge Clay Center Loft Gallery, MT 2022 Ebb/Flow, Curated by Diane Mullin, Weisman Art Museum, Hodroff Gallery, Minneapolis, MN • A Gathering: Works from ‘Contemporary Black American Ceramic Artists’ co-curator and participating artist with donald a clark. Originating venue: Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN. Next venue: Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA. Final venue: Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, MA • Women Working With Clay, The Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, Hollins University, Roanoke, VA • Gather, Curated by Dennis Ritter, NCECA’s 56th Annual Conference, Fertile Ground, Elk Grove Fine Arts Center, Sacramento, CA
• Small and Mighty, Red Lodge Clay Center, MT 2019 South Carolina Biennial, 701cca, Columbia (juried) • Trading Post: Exchange and Sojourn, Organizer and Participating Artist, 2018 NCECA Claytopia, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN • The Form Will Find Its Way: Contemporary Ceramic Sculptural Abstraction, Curated by Elizabeth Carpenter, NCECA Claytopia, National Exhibition, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 2018 SC Clay > Higher Ed, Kassab Art Gallery, Francis Marion University, Florence, SC 2016 Traversing Traditions, Curated by Kathryn Myers, Charter Oak Cultural Center, Hartford, CT,
FELLOWSHIPS
2023 McKnight Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, McKnight Foundation, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN 2021 Arts/Industry Residency Pottery, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI 2014 MJ DO GOOD Short-Term Resident, Red Lodge Clay Center, MT 2012-13 Fulbright-Nehru Scholar Research and Teaching Grant Grant—United StatesIndia Educational Foundation, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India
Anna Metcalfe
BORN:1978 (APPLE VALLEY, CA)
EDUCATION
2009 MFA, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
2003 Post Baccalaureate, NSCAD University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
2001 BA, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021 Upstream, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO
2019 Upstream, Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona 2018 Upstream, Mississippi Watershed Management Organization Headquarters, Minneapolis, MN 2015 Emergence, The Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI • A Living River, Concordia Gallery, Concordia College, St. Paul, MN
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 Food Justice: Growing a Healthier Community Through Art, The Gallery at Penn College, Williamsport, PA 2022 Food Justice: Growing a Healthier Community Through Art, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA • Food Justice: Growing a Healthier Community Through Art, Ohio Craft Museum, Columbus • Food Justice: Growing a Healthier Community Through Art, Southern Ohio Museum, Portsmouth • Food Justice: Growing a Healthier Community Through Art, Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, PA • Breath of Words, Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI 2019 OIKOSystem, Saint Paul Academy, MN • Object Lessons, University of Minnesota Department of Art, Minneapolis, MN • Women Who Teach, St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN • Saint Paul Heartland Stories, Q.arma Building, Minneapolis, MN 2018 100 Years of Women Alumni, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA • Craft as Social Practice, Florida State University, Tallahassee 2017 Social Objects, c3:initiative, Portland, OR 2016 The River: Memory and Metaphor on the Mississippi, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis 2014 A Sustainable Table, NCECA Featured Exhibition, Milwaukee, WI 2012 Women and Water Rights: Concerning
Water, The Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI • Precipice Earth, NCECA Featured Exhibition, Seattle, WA 2011 Continuance, LUX Center for the Arts, Lincoln, NE • La Mesa, NCECA 2011, Tampa, FL 2010 Water Matters, Cascade Meadow Wetlands and Environmental Science Center, Rochester, MN • Earth Matters 2010 NCECA Invitational, Philadelphia, PA • Women and Water Rights: Rivers of Rejuvenation, Curated by Lucy Lippard, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
SELECTED AWARDS
2023 McKnight Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN 2020 McKnight Mid-Career Professional Development Grant • Forecast Public Art 2018 Open Studio Fellowship, Franconia Sculpture Park 2017 Artist Initiative Grant, Minnesota State Arts Board • The Saint John’s Pottery Jerome@Camargo Environmental Artist Fellowship, Cassis, France
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
University of Minnesota, Duluth Public Art Collection • Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, MN • Flint Institute of Art, MI • Public Art: The Permanent Collection of Landmark Center, St. Paul, MN • Red Wing Collectors Society Foundation, MN
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2018-Present Unlimited Full-Time Faculty, Minneapolis Community and Technical College, MN 2012-2017 Instructor for Artistic Professional Development, Springboard for the Arts, St. Paul, MN 2023 “Building Resilience” Residency at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Edgecomb, ME
2017 Environmental Art Residency, Camargo Foundation, Cassis, France 2014 Artist and Research Residency at The Donkey Mill, Holualoa HI (with funding from the Jerome Foundation Travel Fund and Study Grant)
About The McKnight Foundation
The McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation, advances a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and planet thrive. Established in 1953, the McKnight Foundation is deeply committed to advancing climate solutions in the Midwest; building an equitable and inclusive Minnesota; and supporting the arts and culture in Minnesota, neuroscience, and global food systems.
Program Goal:
As creators, innovators, and leaders, Minnesota’s working artists are the primary drivers of our heralded arts and culture community. Artists nurture our cultural identities, imagine solutions, and catalyze social change.
Founded on the belief that Minnesota thrives when its artists and culture bearers thrive, the McKnight Foundation’s arts and culture program is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country. Support for individual working Minnesota artists and culture bearers has been a cornerstone of the program since it began in 1982. The McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program provides annual, unrestricted cash awards to outstanding mid-career Minnesota artists in 15 different creative disciplines. Program partner organizations administer the fellowships and structure them to respond to the unique challenges of different disciplines. Currently, the foundation contributes about $2.8 million per year to its statewide fellowships. For more information, visit mcknight.org/artistfellowships.
PAST RECIPIENTS
1997
F Linda Christianson
F Matthew Metz
R Marina Kuchinski
R George Pearlman
1998
F Judith Meyers Altobell
F Jeffrey Oestreich
R Andrea Leila Denecke
R Eiko Kishi
R Deborah Sigel
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
2003
F Chuck Aydlett
F Mary Roettger
R Miriam Bloom
R David S. East
R Ting-Ju Shao
R Kurt Brian Webb
2004
F Andrea Leila Denecke
F Matthew Metz
R Eileen Cohen
R Satoru Hoshino
R Paul McMullan
R Anita Powell
2005
F Maren Kloppmann
F Tetsuya Yamada
R Edith Garcia
R Audrius Janušonis
R Yonghee Joo
R Hide Sadohara
2006
F Robert Briscoe
F Mika Negishi Laidlaw
R Lisa Marie Barber
R Junko Nomura
R Nick Renshaw
R John Utgaard
= Fellowship Recipient • R = Residency Recipient
2007
F Mike Norman
F Joseph Kress
R Greg Crowe
R John Lambert
R Lee Love
R Alyssa Wood
2008
F Andrea Leila Denecke
F Marko Fields
R Ilena Finocchi
R Margaret O’Rorke
R Yoko Sekino-Bové
R Elizabeth Smith
2009
F Ursula Hargens
F Maren Kloppmann
R Jonas Arcˇikauskas
R Cary Esser
R Alexandra Hibbitt
R Ryan Mitchell
2010
F Linda Christianson
F Heather Nameth Bren
R William Cravis
R Rina Hongo
R Naoto Nakada
R Kevin Snipes
2011
F Gerard Justin Ferrari
F Mika Negishi Laidlaw
R David Allyn
R Edith Garcia
R Peter Masters
R Janet Williams
2012
F Brian Boldon
F Ursula Hargens
R Pattie Chalmers
R Haejung Lee
R Ann-Charlotte Ohlsson
R Nick Renshaw
2013
F Keisuke Mizuno
F Kimberlee Joy Roth
R Claudia Alvarez
R Tom Bartel
R Sanam Emami
R Sarah Heimann
2014
F Kelly Connole
F Kip O’Krongly
R Jessica Brandl
R Jae Won Lee
R Amy Santoferraro
R Andy Shaw
2015
F Ursula Hargens
F Mika Negishi Laidlaw
R Kathryn Finnerty
R Lung-Chieh Lin
R Helen Otterson
R Joseph Pintz
2016
F Nicolas Darcourt
F Sheryl McRoberts
R Eva Kwong
R Forrest Lesch-Middelton
R Anthony Stellaccio
R Kosmas Ballis
2017
F Xilam Balam Ybarra
F Mic Stowell
R Derek Au
R Linda Cordell
R Bryan Czibesz
R Ian Meares
2018
F Brett Freund
F Donovan Palmquist
R Ted Adler
R Alessandro Gallo
R Hidemi Tokutake
R Leandra Urrutia
2019
F Kelly Connole
F Guillermo Guardia
R Pattie Chalmers
R Rebecca Chappell
R Hyang Jin Cho
R Marcelino Puig-Pastrana
2020
F Andrea Leila Denecke
F Brad Menninga
R Ashwini Bhat
R Edith Garcia
R Tom Hubbard
R Roberta Massuch
2021
F Mike Helke
F Juliane Shibata
R Claudia Alvarez
R Eliza Au
R Lynn Hobaica
R Janina Myronova
2022
F Tony Kukich
F Ginny Sims
R Ron Geibel
R Amanda Gentry
R Hide Sadohara
R Valerie Zimany
2023
F Chotsani Elaine Dean
F Anna Metcalfe
About Northern Clay Center
Northern Clay Center’s mission is to advance the ceramic arts for artists, learners, and the community, through education, exhibitions, and artist services. Its goals are to create and promote high-quality, relevant, and participatory ceramic arts educational experiences; cultivate and challenge ceramic arts audiences through extraordinary exhibitions and programming; support ceramic artists in the expansion of their artistic and professional skills; embrace makers from diverse cultures, experiences, and traditions in order to create a more inclusive clay community; and excel as a non-profit arts organization.
Exhibition Supporting Staff for McKnight Ceramic Artist Fellows
Maria Hennen, Galleries Coordinator
Sean Lofton, Artist Services
Tippy Maurant, Deputy Director/ Director of Galleries & Exhibitions
Kyle Rudy-Kohlhepp, Executive Director
Board of Directors
Mary K. Baumann, Chair
Evelyn Weil Browne, Vice Chair
Lisa Agrimonte
Frank Fitzgerald
Patrick Kennedy
Kate Maury
Philip Mische
Helen Otterson
Debbie Schumer
Paul Vahle
Honorary Director
Kay Erickson
Legacy Directors
Andy Boss
Warren MacKenzie
Joan Mondale
Photographs of ceramic works: Peter Lee
Portraits and catalog design: Joseph D.R. OLeary (vetodesign.com)
