Panhandler 2010
Poetry - Fiction - NonďŹ ction - Drama - Criticism - Interviews - Art
Contemporary Ceramic Artists Issue GUEST EDITOR: ADAM SHIVERDECKER FEATURING: Daniel Bare Kenneth Baskin Jason Briggs Chad Curtis Seth Green Brian Harper Trey Hill Rebecca Hutchinson Roxanne Jackson Marc Leuthold Tyler Lotz Melissa Mencini Peter Morgan Anne Drew Potter Adam Shiverdecker John Williams Valerie Zimany
University of West Florida
from Jonathan Fink: The editors of Panhandler are thrilled to present the first “dispatch” issue of the magazine. To support Panhandler’s goal of publishing many of the aesthetic forms that the majority of contemporary magazines do not have the space or the desire to publish, the editors of Panhandler invite guest editors for special “dispatch” supplemental issues. The guest editor is invited to define a region, genre or intellectual investigation about which he or she feels strongly and that he or she feels compelled to introduce. Adam Shiverdecker has done a wonderful job of editing the first “dispatch,” and I am also excited to feature his own fine work in the issue.
from Adam Shiverdecker: Prior to the early 20th century, North American ceramics was understood primarily as a craft: several Native Americans made pinch pots by digging local clay, producing functional forms for storage and food service; Rookwood Pottery in Cincinnati began as a means to produce tablewares and market the hobby of the founder. Regardless of the beauty involved in pre-20th century ceramics, the medium did not excel beyond kitchen practice of the times. The Arts and Crafts Movement in the late 19th century ushered in anti-industrial ideals in Europe and North America within arts practice, thus allowing for well-crafted objects while still retaining the human touch. Since the advent of the Arts and Crafts Movement, ceramics has had an ambiguous relationship to fine art. Traditional functional forms championed by Bernard Leach and Michael Cardew (both British) were transformed into sculptural forms seen in the mid-20th century work by American artists like Peter Voulkos and Rudy Autio. The legacy of utilitarian objects still continues to inform many artists while others reject “function” to create sculpture, installation and performative ceramic-based works. The artists included in this issue continue to engage in this medium without the confines of craft dogma espoused by art critics and academics of the late 20th century. The artists address a wide breadth of concerns: popular culture, politics, identity, time, and nature while relying on architecture, industry, and deformation as a visual means of exploration. While there are a profusion of inquiries displayed on the following pages, there is still evidence of material honesty in the work. Just as the Arts and Crafts movement advocated truth to materials, the following artists rely on the material and its many capabilities — to be fragile, tough, sensuous, and rough. Front Cover Image: Lyuba by Roxanne Jackson Back Cover Image: Slowly from Left to Right by Trey Hill
Panhandler poetry - fiction - nonfiction - drama - criticism - interviews - art CONTEMPORARY CERAMIC ARTISTS ISSUE GUEST EDITOR: ADAM SHIVERDECKER
DANIEL BARE KENNETH BASKIN JASON BRIGGS CHAD CURTIS SETH GREEN BRIAN HARPER TREY HILL REBECCA HUTCHINSON ROXANNE JACKSON MARC LEUTHOLD TYLER LOTZ MELISSA MENCINI PETER MORGAN ANNE DREW POTTER ADAM SHIVERDECKER JOHN WILLIAMS VALERIE ZIMANY Panhandler (ISSN 0738-8705) is published by the University of West Florida’s Department of English and Foreign Languages. For submission guidelines, please visit: www.uwf.edu/panhandler. Editor: Jonathan Fink Art Editor: Valerie George Managing Editors: Ashley Clark, Brooke Hardy
Daniel Bare Daniel Bare is a ceramic artist and educator. Daniel exhibits his work extensively nationally and internationally, with recent solo and two person exhibitions at Mott College, Wayne State University in Detroit, MI and at the Lancaster Museum of Art. Curatorial exhibitions include The Margins: A Non-traditional Approach at the Icehouse during NCECA 2009 Phoenix. His work was featured in conjunction with the World Expo Shanghai in 2010 and was featured in Ceramic Monthly as a 2010 Emerging Artist. Additionally, his works are published in Ceramics Art and Perception and the 500 Ceramic Sculptures by Lark Books. Daniel has participated in several artist residency programs including the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, MT, the Pottery Workshop Shanghai, Shanghai University, and The Yueji Kiln International Contemporary Ceramic Art Center, Dehua, China. Additionally, he has presented artist lectures and workshops about his works to many art centers, high schools and university programs. He served on the Visual Arts Committee at the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art (UICA) in Grand Rapids, where he juried and curated multiple exhibitions in their galleries. Daniel holds his MFA in Ceramics from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, NY and his BFA in Crafts/Ceramics from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA.
Artist’s Statement In my work, I examine the impact of overproduction, consumption, and disposal of resources to show how these actions affect ecological balance. I feel an over-powering sense of gluttony and greed when I see the plethora of disregarded products that are briefly used and disposed of casually. This cycle is indicative of a cultural view of resources and the world as an endless and miraculously self-renewing material. Curiously, one (continued)
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Cascade, 2010 18x16x15� Post-Consumer Found Objects, Porcelain, Glazes
Artist’s Statement (cont.) could see a beauty and power in the vastness of multiples and the sheer numbers of objects that are crafted everyday without notice. Mass-produced ceramic objects are powerful symbols of human industriousness and represent the will to transform raw material into value and structure. Conversely, through my travels I witnessed the massive amounts of ceramic waste that was discharged by factories. Upon my return I became hyper aware of both the full circle of creation to consumption, and disregarded objects. In my work I interrupt this process before the final disposal to inject new meaning and to breathe life into these objects and to help them speak again. - Daniel Bare
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Cup Platter (Toxic Green), 2009 15x15x4” Post-Consumer Found Objects, Porcelain, Glazes, Sleep/Submerged, 2008 8x7x6” Post-Consumer Found Objects, Porcelain, Glazes Re/Claim, 2009 15x15x7” Post-consumer found objects, Porcelain, Glazes
Kenneth Baskin Kenneth Baskin received his BFA from College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan and earned his MFA from University of South Carolina. Presently he holds the position of Assistant Professor of Art/Ceramics at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. In 2007 Baskin was honored as one of the recipients of one of the National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) Emerging Artist Awards. Recently he was honored by being selected for a solo exhibition of his ceramic sculptures at the Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taipei, Taiwan; in conjunction with this exhibition he was also invited as a visiting artist, workshop instructor and lecturer at: Tainan National University of the Arts in Tainan, Taiwan and National Taiwan University of the Arts in Taipei. His work has also been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions both nationally and internationally.
Artist’s Statement An artifact is defined as an object that is created through human ingenuity. And that object, as artifact, is inherent within a cultural or historical context. The investigative properties of the 20th Century Artifact series are focused upon the mechanical objects or artifacts derived from the advent of the industrial revolution. Through our capacity for invention the anatomy of the machine, laying bare its individual yet integrated mechanical components, became the means of mass production and an accelerant in the performance of human tasks. This interdependence of humans and machines altered cultural conceptions and the two became intimately conjoined. Within this current body of work, I am exploring the integration of actual and abstracted machine parts into homologous interrelationships. Metaphorically, my sculptures reflect aspects of these interrelations through: balance and instability, domination and submission, tension and ease, opposition and compromise. It is through this dynamic of push and pull, give and take, that the spontaneity and structuring of these interactions takes place. -Kenneth Baskin
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Anatomy of the Machine Articulation, 2008 18x130x36� Ceramic-Reduction Fired Stoneware and Steel
IMAGES clockwise, from top left 20th Century Artifact Series Opposites Attract, 2008 15x24x10” Ceramic-Soda Fired Stoneware 20th Century Artifact Series Crucible #12, 2010 31x24x8” Soda Fired Stoneware 20th Century Artifact Series Cradled, 2009 16x28x16” Cone 10 Soda & Cone 6 Oxidation 20th Century Artifact Series Thrust, 2010 31x24x8” Soda Fired Stoneware
Jason Briggs Jason Briggs received his BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 1995 and his MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1999. After a summer at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT, he spent 3 years serving as Artist in Residence at the Appalachian Center for Crafts in Smithville, TN. In 2008 Jason delivered an Emerging Artist lecture at the NCECA conference, and was soon invited as a visiting artist to The Taiwan National University of Art in Taipei, as well as several universities stateside. He received a Virginia Groot Foundation Fellowship in 2007 and a Tennessee Arts Commission Grant in 2006. This year Jason was featured in Ceramics Art & Perception (issue #79--“Not So Private Parts”). His work has recently been included in “Corporeal Manifestations” at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, “The Hermaphrodites” at the Wexler Gallery, and “Transcending The Figure” in Athens, OH. Briggs maintains a private studio in Watertown, TN, where he dodges loud trucks and bad teeth.
Artist’s Statement Though these objects contain strong visual references, I am more interested in the implied tactile ones; the things that stir in me a compulsion to touch. Beyond other external inspiration lies this basic, primal impulse. I recognize – and act upon – a profound desire to push, poke, squeeze, stroke, caress, and pinch. I intend for my pieces to invoke a similar sort of temptation. Obvious sexual references, along with an extravagant, fetishlike attention to surface, can arouse a yearning to touch as powerful as the act itself. In this way a parallel can be drawn with pornography — my first encounter with Playboy, for example. My emotional response, pure and utter fascination, depended upon a compelling desire to experience flesh. When one views such imagery, I would argue that one is, at the very least, thinking about touching — about how it would feel. I want my (continued)
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Cherry, 2009 10x7x8� Porcelain, Hair, Steel, Velvet Base
Blonde, 2010 12x8x8� Porcelain, Hair, Steel, Velvet Base
Artist’s Statement (cont.) work to elicit a similar response: “What if I touch it?” I am searching for a fresh perspective. I strive to create an object I’ve never quite seen before - one whose inherent mystery and intrigue quietly insists upon viewer interaction. An object begging to be explored and examined in much the same way a child investigates the world: with wonder, curiosity, and also trepidation. It’s very important that the work be challenging. A sense of unease is critical because it encourages the viewer to consider carefully what they are seeing – at what is compelling them. I would like my work to exist not as the ubiquitous “art object,” but as something more enigmatic - foreign yet familiar, handmade yet somehow organic. Rather than suggest nature, in my own way I am seeking to create it. -Jason Briggs
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Peach, 2010 9x8x8� Porcelain, Hair, Steel, Velvet Base Peach (detail) Cherry (detail)
Chad Curtis Chad Curtis is an artist and technologist living and working in Philadelphia. Curtis holds a MFA from Alfred University and has exhibited internationally including: Digital in Nature, Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI (2010), Exporting Pop: A Western Fantasy Fantasy, Kuwait Art Foundation, Kuwait City & Dubai (2009); Kristine Tillge Lund Invites..., PULS Contemporary Ceramics, Brussels (2009); Margins: A Nontraditional Approach to Clay Clay, The Icehouse, Phoenix, AZ (2009); Archaeology of Wonder Wonder, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT (2008); Primary, Primary Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University, Grand Rapids, MI (2008); CIRCA Puerto Ric Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico (2007); One Part Clay: Ceramic Avant-garde & Mixed Media, Garth Clark Gallery, Long Island City, NY (2006); Scope Miami, Miami Beach, FL (2006). Additionally, his work has been Miami included in such publications as: Ceramics Art and Perception, Neue Keramik, Seramik Turkiye, and the recent books Breaking the Mould: New Approaches to Ceramics and Tangible: High Touch Visuals. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia. Additional information can be found at www.chaddcurtis.com.
Artist’s Statement My work often deals with simulation and refinement, utilizing highly processed materials that are removed from the context of their origin in order to create a synthetic experience. At an increasing rate, the primary means by which the world is experienced is through mediation. Simulation has become the surrogate for primary experience, whether via the computer, suburbia, or NutraSweet®. In many ways, this work is synonymous with Disney World or Las Vegas, both highly refined and artificial environments. I find myself simultaneously seduced by the refinement and purity of the materials while being disgusted by the implications of their production and refinement (continued)
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Red Buck Deer, 2008 22x19x52” (foreground) Glazed Ceramic, Acrylic, Latex Paint, Wood, Buck deer with mountains, 2008 22x14” (background) Marker on Painted Panel
, Milled Foam, Mixed Media
chaddcurtis.com
Cows, 2008 15x13x46� Glazed Ceramic, Clay Slip, Acrylic, Milled Foam, Epoxy, Wood, Mixed Media
randomSeed (orange conifers), 2008 28x16x68� Glazed Ceramic, Acrylic, Microcontroller, Water, Fan, LEDs, Wood
Artist’s Statement (cont.) – mined clay and minerals, flawless acrylic, and manufactured plywood. Campers, American symbols of freedom and escape, move through complex highway systems in an attempt to reconnect with an experience known as nature. In a broader context, this work explores the line between the biological and mechanical, using popular, iconographic references. The distinction between the biological and the industrial, or the human and the digital – and the blurring of that distinction – is explored both as subject matter in the work and also in the making. The foam landscapes are digitally modeled and are fabricated by a homemade computer controlled mill comprised of a hodgepodge of hardware store components. While the aesthetic of the work is that of mass production and the absence of the hand, the work itself is clearly a synthesis of ideas and processes resulting in a displaced hybrid. In the space between being seduced and repulsed by the slickness of contemporary technologies, and of distinguishing the biological from the digital, there exists an environment for dialogue. In this environment, the dialogue is not either/or, but a complex system of nuanced relationships that are full of both potential and hope, and significant moral and ethical questions. - Chad Curtis
IMAGES left to right Popup camper with tree, 2008 32x18x45” Glazed Ceramic, Clay Slip, Acrylic, Milled Foam, Epoxy, Wood, Mixed Media Lookout Rabbit, 2008 28x18x47” Glazed Earthenware, Milled Foam, Acrylic, Spaghum Moss, Latex Paint, Wood
Seth Green Seth Green’s exhibition record continues to grow rapidly and is receiving nation recognition for his ceramic vessels. This year he was featured as one the Emerging Artists for the Ceramics Monthly magazine and his work will be printed in the upcoming Lark Books publication of 500 Vases. One of his Ewers will be included in the Strictly Functional Pottery National at Kevin Lehman’s Pottery in Lancaster, PA starting in October. In November, Red Star Studios, in Kansas City, MO, has invited Seth to take part in the four-person exhibition titled Ornamental. He has been a Demonstrator and Visiting Artist at the Michigan Mud Conference, Utah Valley University, Vincennes University and the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. He received his MFA in Ceramics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has worked at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, CO and has been an artist-in-residence a the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT. Seth has been a Visiting Instructor of Art at Western Michigan and is currently a full-time Instructor of Ceramics at Morehead State University in Morehead, KY.
Artist’s Statement Spiritually symbolic characteristics used in the creation of religious architecture primarily influence my ceramic vessels. Specific forms of inspiration are the temples, palaces and mosques of the Islamic world, the Czech Republic and the like that are topped with domes, spires and finials that pierce the sky and reach heavenward. Spires and finials of this nature symbolize mankind’s journey from mortality into the eternal realms. Striking silhouettes, symmetry and architectural line captivate my focus. Luxury or ceremonial wares that were originally made to reside in holy or other culturally significant edifices are also an influence. Such examples include Islamic metalwork and (continued)
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Bottle, 20 17x5x5 Reduction-Fired Stoneware, Microcrystall Glaze, Copper Lus
010 54’’ line ster
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Ceremonial Jar, 2010 19x8x8” Reduction-Fired Stoneware, Microcrystalline Glaze
Ritual Bottle, 2010 14x6x6’’ Reduction-fired Stoneware, Microcrystalline Glaze, Gold Luster
Artist’s Statement (cont.) Chinese ritual bronze vessels that were made for and owned by royalty, religious leaders and other prominent persons. These historic ceramic and metal vessels that were used in a palace to celebrate an important occasion or in a temple to enhance the sacredness of a ceremony are referred to in my work. Rather than the specifics of rituals or ceremonies, I am intrigued with the sense of spirituality that my ewers, chalices, ceremonial jars, ritual bottles and vases embody. I take advantage of clay’s ability to retain carefully defined and metal-like details while using luxurious metallic finishes that are only possible through the ceramic process. Glaze applied to these ceramic forms softens their details and smoothes their silhouettes. The use of crystal forming glazes and precious metal luster communicate the same degree of beauty and luxury as the referenced historical objects and emphasize the spiritual aspects of the work. - Seth Green
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Ewer, 2010 8x8x6’’ Reduction-Fired Stoneware, Microcrystalline Glaze, Gold Luster Ritual Vase, 2009 14x5x5’’ Reduction-Fired Stoneware, Microcrystalline Glaze Ritual Jar, 2009 14x6x6’’ Reduction-Fired Porcelain, Microcrystalline Glaze Ceremonial Cup, 2010 6x5x4’’ Reduction-Fired Porcelain, Microcrystalline Glaze, White Gold Luster
Brian Harper Brian Harper is currently an Assistant Professor of Fine Art and Ceramics Area Coordinator at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany, Indiana. He holds a B.F.A from Northern Arizona University and an M.A. and M.F.A from the University of Iowa. His artwork investigates our inherent human wonderment of the unknown and the methods, mythological or otherwise, of how we give structure to unknown elements of our observed, unobserved, and unobservable world. His work has been exhibited in over 50 national and international exhibitions, including 7 solo exhibitions. In addition to his studio practice, he is the founder and author of Artaxis.org. Indiana University recently awarded him with the IU Trustees Teaching Award as well as a Summer Faculty Fellowship to pursue his creative research. More information about his work and studio practice can be found at his website, www.brianharperclay.com or his Faceboook studio page at www.facebook.com/brianharperstudio.
Artist’s Statement My work opens the opportunity for the private study of a new personal contemporary archeology where predefined facts are irrelevant and imagination is imperative. With a sense of awe and wonder, the reaction to the work asks questions of what, where, when, and who; these questions being the necessary steps toward the development of a story – a narrative unique to each viewer. Personal stories, remembrances, and ideas coalesce to create a new private mythology, thereby giving order and comprehension to imagined scenarios and things not understood. Striving to reside in myth, this work gives the viewer clues as to where to begin their story and purposely eliminates the boundaries of where to finish it. Through the avenues of curious thought the viewer looks inward; participation and collaboration with the work ultimately yields the development of a finished narrative for the work. Of critical importance (continued)
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Strings in the Aether, 2010 Ronald L. Barr Gallery 124’ drawing Wood, Sheet Metal, Iron Oxide
Artist’s Statement (cont.) is the viewer’s process of participation in the final outcome of the work. Right or wrong stories do not exist, therefore validation of the personal narrative lives within a meaningful and honest interaction with the work. Universal to the human condition, wonderment of the unknown has no cultural imports, no territorial boundaries, no language barriers; it is inherent in all of us. - Brian Harper
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Untitled (Uncertainty Principle), 2010 Collaboration with Tiffany Carbonneau 33x33x6’’ Carved Concrete, Black Powder, Video Strings in the Aether (detail), 2010 Mythomatics Series: Belt, 2009 14x4x3’’ Carved Porcelain, Rubber Belting New Myth Series: Boundary, 2008 26’x22’x21’ Carved Earthenware, Porcelain
Trey Hill Trey Hill is an Assistant Professor of Ceramics at the University of Montana. In addition to teaching, Trey has traveled and worked at many different residencies, including two years at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, MT and the LH Project in Joseph, OR. His international experienced includes time spent in Latvia building a public commission and also China, where he build work at the Fu Le International Ceramic Art Museum in Fuping.
Artist’s Statement My new body of work springs from the lure of attraction, seduction, sensuality, beauty, and grace. I am fascinated not only by the sensuality and grace of the human form, but also the exploration of the prosaic. I pull forth emotions that are at once, beautiful and raucous, yet elemental and essential, all the while exploring our human hesitancies. The work employs anatomical fragments along with other recognizable images to create pieces that reflect these complex inquiries. By employing segments of the universality of human experience, my work alludes to the hauntingly delicate beauty of the exterior that masks the emotion and strength of structure that lies beneath the surface. Using various forms as building blocks to create larger works, I am able to able to deeply explore my curiosities and maintain a technically challenging studio environment. I aim to seduce the senses while exploring the fragile boundaries that weave human sexuality, strength, power, emotion, and vulnerability into one cohesive identity. -Trey Hill
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One in Front of the Other (detail) 30x23x12’’ Ceramic, Rope, Concrete
IMAGES from left to right One in Front of the Other, 2010 30x23x12” Ceramic, Rope, Concrete Slowly from Left to Right, 2010 35x32x26” Ceramic, Mixed Media
Rebecca Hutchinson Rebecca Hutchinson is currently Associate Professor of Art at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth where she teaches Undergraduate and Graduate Ceramics. Previously she taught as Visiting Professor at the University of Washington-Seattle, Art Institute of San Francisco and Virginia Commonwealth University. She has been making installation work for the past fifteen years. Her work engages concerns for both the observation of place and the myriad of possibilities in building site specific work embracing qualities of developmental theory and observation of both animal and human architecture. With this personal and equal interest in both human and animal behavior, she has recently built responsive pieces using fiber, handmade paper and clay, at the Holter Museum of Art, Helena, Montana, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton Massachusetts, Manchester Crafts Guild, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Her exhibitions have been in both museums around the country as well as, numerous commissions of outdoor site works. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, curated and juried exhibitions and participated in residencies at the Greenwich House Pottery, Banff Centre for Fine Art, Watershed Ceramics Center, The Archie Bray Foundation and Vermont Studio Center. In addition to her university position and her active exhibition schedule, she has lectured and taught workshops throughout the country.
Artist’s Statement In nature there are diverse states of existence that I continue to study: the structure of nature, the result of the state of nature by interaction with other forces of nature, the resilience of nature, and the complexity and awe in the engineering of nature. All these states of nature are rooted and formed in the motivation for the need to survive, and provide endless possibilities of art construction influence and conceptual framework for art making. And, more specifically, endless possibilities for metaphor use; speaking for the depth and complexity of living with the hopes of revealing the human condition in visual, sculptural (continued)
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Holter Museum of Art. Site Installation, 2009 18x25’ Porcelain Cone 6-Fired and Unfired, Handmade Paper, Organic Material
Artist’s Statement (cont.) form, utilizing traditional and non-traditional ceramic materials and processes. Within the study of ecology and ethology these states of existence are articulated. As a point of reference for sculptural installation building, I have been utilizing specific structural engineering qualities found in functional growth relationships as well as deformities within specific plant formations. Similarly, and as powerful as organic growth, I have also looked at species structures and capitalized on both an understanding of their ecosystem function and engineering. My main interest has been looking at the quality of existence and structural functionality found in nature and the beauty of manipulation, which in nature observes a balance of the fragility of its surroundings while maintaining the essence of need and individuality. My work focuses on the respect for craft and the endless influences found in nature. Formally and structurally my interest is in the details: quality of craft, quality of connections, quality of structure and conceptually an understanding of all physical parts to the whole. I build site-specific clay and fibrous sculptural works. I use porcelain paper clay — dipping, hand modeling, slip trailing, coating handmade paper forms and pouring paper clay slip between papers, cutting and then constructing. The forms are built with both fired and non-fired clay elements. - Rebecca Hutchinson
IMAGES from left to right Fuller Craft Museum, 2009 8x10’ Porcelain Cone 6-Fired and Unfired, Handmade Paper, Organic Material University of Tulsa. Site Installation, 2010 65x20’ Porcelain Cone 6-Fired and Unfired, Handmade Paper, Organic Material, Hand Painted Bloom Imagery
Roxanne Jackson Roxanne Jackson has had solo exhibitions at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Minneapolis, Minnesota), galleryHomeland, the Portland Art Center and Sugar Gallery (Portland, Oregon) and Dubhe Carreno Gallery (Chicago, Illinois). Her recent show, “Blindsight,” was reviewed in the Chicago Tribune. Roxanne has an upcoming solo show at the Canadian gallery Artcite in Windsor, Ontario. She will also show at BONGOUT gallery in Berlin, Germany. Recently, Roxanne has been featured in Ceramics Monthly magazine, Beautiful/Decay Beautiful/Decay, The AV Section of The Onion, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine, the Star Tribune newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Quodlibetica and in the book 500 Animals in Clay Clay. Her work was included in the Museum of Aveiro’s “International Ceramic Art Biennial” in Portugal and, it is now part of the collection. This year at NCECA, she had work in the invitational exhibition “Earth Matters” and “Corporeal Manifestations” at the Mutter Museum of Philadelphia. She is currently an Artist in Residence at the Ceramic Center of Berlin, Germany and, she’s been a Resident Artist at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, the Oregon College of Art and Craft and Watershed. She has been the recipient of grants from the Jerome Foundation, Kansas City Artist Coalition, Oregon Arts Commission, the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Roxanne is an Assistant Professor of Ceramics at SUNY-Oswego in New York.
Artist’s Statement A gentle and reasonable being can be transformed into a maniac or a savage beast. One is always inclined to lay the blame on external circumstances, but nothing could explode in us if it had not been there. - Carl Yung
I am concerned with confronting the shadows of the unconscious, having a dialogue with the grotesque and, therein, discovering beauty. The tenor of my work is macabre and (continued)
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“Lyuba Twins” Courtesy of Dubhe Carreno Gallery Photo Credit: Amanda Hankerson, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
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Lyuba Twins, 2009 Ceramic, Glaze, Flock Fibers 9x108x45� Installation from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota Photo Credit: Amanda Hankerson
Lyuba, 2009 9x51x45� Ceramic, Glaze, Flock Fibers
Artist’s Statement (cont.) emotional as I deal with extreme axioms to dramatize the dualities of our nature; these polar aspects reside within us and include vulnerability and strength, the light and the dark, the human and the inhuman. My intuitive process of working is rooted in archetypal forms; these salient images are often hybrids of humans and animals. Captivated by the hierarchies of the animal world, I contemplate the roles of both predator and prey. Contemporary society has its own hierarchy made up of class, gender and race; the less privileged remain on the bottom rung of the ladder. An investigation of the unconscious mind and our inextricable link to the animal world may reveal certain truths about the human condition. Evolutionary theories and horror films also inform my work; the former teaches us survival-oriented traits, while the latter allows us to express our fears. Rooted in traditions of pantheism and superstition, the horror movie depicts a dark side of human nature. Mutated creatures, such as the ravenous werewolf, are created in the murky depths of our collective subconscious. These images provoke a psychological simile between animal and human, instinct and reason, the conscious and the subconscious. As Simon Critchley noted, “There is something charming about an animal becoming human [but] when the human becomes animal, then the effect is disgusting.” This investigation reveals the honesty of humanity. Embracing all aspects of ourselves, taking a closer look at the “shadow side” of the human condition is my attempt to discover truth. This truth stems from acknowledging our imperfections and recognizing humanness (and dignity). Comprised of evocative, poignant layers of meaning, my work invites the viewer to contemplate what it means to be human, to connect with a deeper side of oneself. -Roxanne Jackson (photo) hair costume with sharkbone created by Liseli Polivka
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Eat Your Heart Out, 2009 180x36x13” (variable dimensions) Ceramic, Glaze, Paint, Flock Fibers Woolen, 2010 11x15x9” Ceramic, Wool, Glaze, Silver Luster Hoof Heels, 2010 14x12x13” (both heels) Ceramic, Glaze, Flock Fibers, Platinum Gold Luster, Fur Cadaver Study with Grill, 2010 11x19x13” Ceramic, Slip, Glaze, Platinum Gold Luster Eat Your Heart Out (detail), 2009 9x8x13” Ceramic, Glaze, Flock Fibers
“Hoof Heels” Courtesy of Dubhe Carreno Gallery
Marc Leuthold Marc Leuthold, born in 1962 in Mount Kisco, is an artist who works in a variety of media including bronze, clay, glass, and ink on paper. The work is non-objective yet multi-referential. He has created large installations that create dialogue between cultures, history, and the senses. The most recent installation was commissioned by the Daum Museum in Sedalia, Missouri. Leuthold graduated from the College of William and Mary with an A.B. degree in Fine Arts. In 1988 he earned an MFA in Sculpture from the University of North Carolina. Marc Leuthold has served as Artist-in Residence at the La Napoule Foundation in France, the Banff Centre in Canada, the Bemis Center in Nebraska, and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Arts/Industry) in Wisconsin. Leuthold has also been invited to create art at symposia in China, Hungary, Czech Republic, Turkey, Japan and Korea. He also has served as Artist-in-Residence for the cities of Seto and Tajimi in Japan in 2003, ’05, and ’10. His work has been exhibited at and collected by the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, PS1-MoMA Museum in Queens, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington DC, and the Museum of Art and Design, (formerly the American Craft Museum in NYC). In 1999, Marc Leuthold was elected for lifetime membership to the International Academy of Ceramics, Geneva, Switzerland, one of only 40 Americans. Leuthold has taught art at Princeton University, Parsons School of Design and currently serves as an Associate Professor of Art at the State University of New York.
Artist’s Statement I make sculptures from clay, discrete objects that I exhibit sometimes singularly, sometimes in dialogue with one another in installation environments. In these environments I often incorporate other media such as wood, glass, paper, (continued)
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Keskemet Pagoda (interior), 2010 8� (height) Porcelain
Eclipse (detail), 2008 22� (diameter) Porcelain
Artist’s Statement (cont.) bronze and texts from literature. The sculptures refuse to plainly identify themselves. While their identities may be unnameable, they are distinct, composite forms suggesting transition: temporal, cultural, male and female, nature and artifice. Through the medium and processes of clay, there is a play between the soft and hard, fluid and crystalline. An element of surprise occurs in the studio, sometimes yielding unexpected forms, surfaces, and colors. This leads to re-invention, experimentation and openness. Through this practice, I explore new directions. Even when repeated, forms are never the same. -Marc Leuthold
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Field, installation at American Ceramic Museum, Fuping China, 2007 7x30’ Mixed Media Offering, installation at Daum Museum, 2009-10 40x80’ Mixed Media Eclipse (detail), 2008 22” (diameter) Porcelain Bechyne Pagoda, 2010 7” (width) Porcelain
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Winter landscape with fountain, 2010 12” (width) 25” (depth) Porcelain Japanese Garden, with temple, trees, bridge and koi, 2010 12” (width) 20” (depth) Porcelain Keskemet Pagoda, 2010 8” (height) Porcelain Landscape with mountains and temples, 2010 22” (width) 20” (depth) Stoneware
Tyler Lotz Tyler Lotz’s sculptures and vessels have been shown in solo and group exhibitions at venues including the Dubhe Carreño Gallery - Chicago IL, Cervini Haas Gallery/Gallery Materia - Scottsdale, AZ, Harvey/Meadows Gallery - Aspen, Co, Franklin Parrasch Gallery - NYC, Santa Fe Clay – NM, The Clay Studio – Philadelphia, PA, and SOFA Chicago. His work has been presented abroad at The First World Ceramic Biennale Korea and 2010 Vallauris Biennale Internationale in Vallauris, France. Tyler’s work has been acquired by collections including the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, in Missouri, and the Icheon World Ceramic Center in Korea. Publications including Ceramics Monthly, American Craft, and the Clay In Art International Yearbook have featured his work. He has been an artist in residence at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana and at the Watershed Center for Ceramics in Newcastle, Maine. Having received his BFA from Penn State and his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Tyler is currently an Associate Professor, teaching at Illinois State University.
Artist’s Statement Historically, man’s relationship with nature has been one of intervention, marked by the human drive to tame its wildness, use its resources and shape it in its own image. Its present and future will be fraught with attempts to rebuild or repair these changes. My sculpture is a speculative response to the many ways in which we remake nature to suit our own purposes. It questions the assumption that “the artificial” could be an acceptable stand-in for “the real” in regards to human interaction with our natural world. This is examined through a multi-faceted lens that includes ideas like a longing for wilderness and my concern for the developing global environmental emergency. I am intrigued by the human inclination to imitate,
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Cultured Clearing, 2008 18.5x26x19� Clay and Acrylic
Patch #4 14x28x15� Ceramic, Acrylic, Concrete Board, Hardware, Polyurethane
Artist’s Statement (cont.) interpret and manipulate aspects of the physical universe. Designers create beautifully abstract silhouettes of a berry or leaf pattern on a piece of textile or in magazine layout. Then there are bizarre hybrids of the natural and artificial, like the apples injected with artificial grape flavoring, or the faux-fresh, dyed red fillets of farm raised salmon. Now in Dubai, an oil-rich country with blistering average temperatures, architects have built an indoor ski mountain, as if a ski mountain isn’t already an infringement on nature. New works, including the Patch series, consider the absurd, but often necessary, concept of changing our environment to suit our own needs and desires. On one level, this work is influenced by the sense of longing I have to be among the wild mountains and streams of my childhood, while I continue to live in the flat, extremely mediated landscape of agricultural central Illinois. The work also looks at man’s attempts to change our worsening environmental emergency through geo-engineering rather than reducing the activities that have caused it. I intend for my sculptures to have the sensibility of synthetic, fabricated and built objects and environments. Their materiality is at once natural and artificial, organic and manufactured. What is artificial would not simply be a binary for nature, but rather a man-made rendition of something that already exists or a simulation. Jean Baudrillard poses that the “real” no longer exists and that everything is now a simulation. So if nature is “real,” and if the “real” no longer exists, then must nature now be redefined? -Tyler Lotz
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Patch #4 (detail) Patch #1 10x10x10” Ceramic, Acrylic, Concrete Board, Hardware, EVA Foam, Polyurethane Anchor, 2007 23x23x21” Clay & Acrylic Microclimate, 2008 20x25x25” Clay and Acrylic
Melissa Mencini Melissa Mencini received her BFA from Bowling Green State University in 2000 and her MFA from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 2003. As of August 2010, she started teaching ceramics at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Previous to her move to Anchorage, she had been working as a ceramic artist in Helena Montana since the summer of 2005. She briefly moved to Washington State (2007-2008 school year) for a teaching position at Eastern Washington University and then to Seattle when she was then offered a job at the University of Washington to teach summer quarter. Previous to her move to Washington, she was a resident at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, MT for two years, one of which she received the Lincoln Fellowship. Melissa became interested in art at an early age and enrolled in classes at a local art center in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. She started her ceramics career making functional pottery, and during graduate school she began making large sculptures that explored mechanical imagery. Her current body of work focuses on antique medical devises and physical anomalies. Melissa has exhibited her work nationally and internationally.
Artist’s Statement This work is a commentary on the way people with disorders are too often treated. I feel that we suffer from a lack of compassion for people that are different to the point of starring when we see someone that does not closely resemble us. We also have a tendency to want to “fix” people, and if they are untreatable we hide them by putting them into institutions so that they become other people’s problems. These pieces celebrate people for who they are, for all of their differences. By mimicking the style of Greek and Roman busts, I give the people with disorders and anomalies a sense of beauty and importance in our culture and our lives and hopefully increase our own sense of (continued)
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Hypertelorism, 2009 23x12x10� Painted Stoneware
Hypertelorism (detail)
Artist’s Statement (cont.) awareness of the society we live in. I also make ceramic sculpture derived from historic medical tools and devises. The work concentrates on the interaction of objects, color, movement, and mass. I carefully choose antique objects to recreate distorting the scale to remove them from their original context. Constructing my work is a complicated task where I coil-build, throw and alter many parts before entire pieces take their final shape. I then glaze them using rust-like textured glazes, contrasting very shiny glazes and sometimes use decals further removing them from their original shiny metal environment. Both styles of sculpture that I make appear to be very different, however they are very closely related and are continually informing each other. I often think of my work in terms of disorders and remedies; the figures are depicting the disorders and then there are the tools for treatment. I intend for my work to force the viewer into a challenging and sometimes uncomfortable relationship with the object and elicit a physical reaction, whether it is cringing, questioning or smiling; this allows the viewer to experience the piece. -Melissa Mencini
IMAGES from left to right Trephine for Parasitic Twins, 2006 30.5x 7.5x4.25� Stoneware Conjoined in Blue, 2006 36x9.5x7.5� Stoneware
IMAGES from left to right Soft Tissue Hypertrophy, 2007 37.5x16.5x17.5” Stoneware Kasabach-Merritt Syndrome, 2007 32.5x16x14” Painted Stoneware
Peter Morgan Peter Morgan received a BA in Fine Art from Roanoke College, in Salem Virginia, a BFA in Ceramics from the California College or Arts and Crafts and a MFA in Ceramics from the New York State College or Ceramics at Alfred University. Peter has taught at California State University; Long Beach, and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Gettysburg College. He has exhibited across the United States and Europe, and is in the permanent collections of the Shine Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art, the California College of the Arts, The Archie Bray Foundation, and many private collections. Peter has given lectures on his work at a numerous institutions including Louisiana State University, Penn State University, the Kansas City Art Institute, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State San Bernardino, and the Central Academy of Fine Art, Bejing. He has recently completed a residency at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT and the Belden Brick Factory in Sugar Creek, OH.
Artist’s Statement My work is an exploration of issues of perception and representation and how these concerns mold our understanding of the world. I am interested in both actual representations and cultural perceptions of the way things are and what makes each significant. The work examines how much of what we know of the world is through illustrations and representation rather than from personal experience and the difference between “real” versus simulated experiences. The work is an investigation and celebration of cultural mythologies. I think of my sculptures as being platonic ideals in physical form. They focus on our ideal understandings and desires of these objects in our minds, yet they often bear very little in common with the actuality of these concerns. (continued)
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“Tarrific� Tar Pits, 2007 Dimensions Variable Low-Fire Ceramic, Mixed Media
Artist’s Statement (cont.) I think of my work as being a conspiracy where everyone knows that they are not dealing with an authentic object, but something quite far from that. Yet the viewer is willing to suspend disbelief and understand the arrangement as a common experience. I am interested in how far I can push various modes of representation and for it all to be believable. Much in the same manner as a model train set, which has props that come from many different sources in different scales yet they are all understood as part of a believable scene. (continued)
IMAGES clockwise, from top left “Tarrific” Tar Pits (Detail) Klondike Bear, 2008 11x12.5x12.5” Low-Fire Ceramic Water Buffalo or Land Shark? 2009 15.5x20x7.5” Low-fire Ceramic Tuna Can, 2009 19x22x22” Low-Fire Ceramic, Glaze, Plastic Model of a Tuna Clipper Sky Mall® Exclusives, 2007 Dimensions Variable Low-Fire Ceramic and Mixed Media The Icecream-Burrrg Slurptastic Titanic Disaster of 2008, 2005-2008 45x22x20” Low-Fire Ceramic, Glaze, Plastic Model of the HMS Titanic, Wood, Epoxy
Artist’s Statement (cont.) Recently I have been incorporating a variety of scale shifts in each series of work in order to create both actual and falsely perceived spatial experience. I intend for the viewer to experience the work and the space simultaneously, oscillating back and forth between the singular object and the expanse of space the viewer submerges into an absurd reality. Through the process of creating a sense of place I am examining ideas of a false sense of authenticity. In my investigations I am attempting to come to a greater understanding of a culturally understood place and time thereby taking some sort of ownership over it through creating an absurd and bogus personal mythology. - Peter Morgan
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Puffin’ Puffin, 2010 18x17x11.5” Low-Fire Ceramic The Nacho-Mess Monster, 2010 18.5x27x21” Low-Fire Ceramics Photo Credit: Brent Blair
The Hypothetical Prehistoric Giant Wolverine Battling a Polar Bear over a Dead Beluga Whale, on Top of a Glazed Huckleberry Jelly Doughnut, 2009 11x20x20” Low-Fire Ceramic, Glaze The Nacho-Mess Monster (Detail)
Anne Drew Potter Anne Drew Potter writes, “I was born and grew up in Berkeley, California. My childhood and education were permeated with an activist social awareness - from packing up school supplies to send to Guatemala in grade school, to petitioning against nuclear weapons in Junior High, to volunteer tutoring in Oaxaca, Mexico during my senior year. I felt both motivated and burdened by my concern for humanity. In college, my explorations in history and the social sciences, dance, gender, and sexuality began to inform my understanding of the artwork I was driven to produce. I increasingly contextualized my experiences and observations in terms of larger historical-social-political narratives, and sought a way to express these ideas in sculpture, particularly relating to the role of the body. My first master’s course, at the New York Academy of Art, provided me with a rigorous education in anatomy and life-study of the human form. I pursued a second masters at Indiana University as a means of developing a personal language of form that was suited to my conceptual concerns. I have subsequently worked within the community of artists’ residencies, beginning as the Matsutani Fellow at the Archie Bray Foundation in 2007. I have continued to travel as much as possible as I am most interested in understanding what life is like for other people on the planet. I am searching both for commonalities and idiosyncrasies, in an attempt to build a model of the human animal.”
Artist’s Statement Despite a dim awareness of our own subjectivity, the individual reality that belongs to each of us is experienced as concrete and self-evident. I am interested in the moment when the selfevidence of our own experiences is challenged by confrontation with the other, the infinity of realities that exist outside of our own. (continued)
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Le Cirque de L’Armée Rouge (Circus of the Red Army), 2009 Installation View, Dubhe Carreño Gallery 7x10x16’ Earthenware, Acrylic, Terra Cotta, Costumes, Props
Artist’s Statement (cont.) I make performative objects that address the relationships between the physical body, emotion, intellect, and identity. I am particularly interested in the ways that social meaning is projected onto the forms of the body. By manipulating anatomical signifiers of gender, race, age, and other identity characteristics I encourage viewers to confront their feelings about normalcy, difference, and what defines human. In creating a tension between the intellectual reality of the static object and the emotional drama of exaggerated expressions I reiterate the self-consciousness and artifice that are present both in formal theatre/cinema and in our everyday projections of our selves. I am ultimately interested in the complex and contradictory nature of the human experience. The social critique of the objects I make is directed away from righteousness but toward uncomfortable truth; how do we acknowledge and accept the humanity of human evil. My work bridges contemporary conceptual and narrative concerns with elements of sculptural traditions to question both our current constructions of identity as they relate to the body and the manner in which these are connected to a historically informed sense of self. - Anne Drew Potter
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Fecundity: Strength in Numbers, 2008 Installation View, 3rd Rail Studio 7x18x16’ Fiberglass Reinforced Polyester Resin, Paint, Earthenware, Acrylic, Wood, Ribbon Sym and Asym, 2009 16x24x7’’ Stoneware, Reduction Fired Iron Oxide Big Baby, 2009 Installation View, ABF Warehouse Gallery 3x8x4’ Stoneware, Paint, Fabric
IMAGES from left to right Fecundity Jackson, 2009 in the installation Who Are Those Masked Men? Installation View, Pacini Lubel Gallery 5x13x12’ Earthenware, Acrylic, Fabric, Lightboxes White Trash, 2008 Installation View, ABF North Gallery 7x10x9’ White Stoneware, Wood, Plastic, Fabric, Hardware, Paint and Gold Leaf
Adam Shiverdecker Adam Shiverdecker is a Visiting Artist and the Area Head of Ceramics at The University of West Florida. Adam has exhibited nationally and was recently named an Emerging Artist by Ceramics Monthly. Before teaching, he was the ArtMonthly ist In Residence and adjunct faculty at Tyler School of Art and in the summer of 2009 was the Myhre Scholar at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, MT. Adam was also a visiting researcher at Australian National University and an artists’ assistant at FuLe International Ceramic Art Museum in Fuping, China. Adam lives and works in Pensacola, Florida.
Artist’s Statement My work imagines what would happen if the entire military arsenal was simply pushed into the ocean. I’m a committed pacifist, but I am also helplessly drawn to the sleekness, the power, and the hulking materiality of the machines of war. My work attempts to negotiate this ambivalent relationship to the iconography of military might by taking the forms of fighter jets, submarines, and missiles and denaturing their surfaces. By reforming weapons out of wire, I reference both the practice of children’s war games and modeling, as well as the more prosaic forms of construction like fence-building. I then coat these structures in irregular amounts of clay, allowing for a certain amount of arbitrary decay. It is this fantasy of decay — of a culture which could regard weapons of war as follies, as disintegrating monuments to an earlier bellicose era — that my work tries to trigger. -Adam Shiverdecker
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Abaddon, 2008 Aircraft carrier: 97x37x32” Airplanes: 16x16x6” (approximately) Earthenware, Nichrome, Oxides, Glaze, Steel, Filament
Behemoth, 2008 48x33x4� Earthenware, Nichrome, Underglaze, Glaze, Steel, Mixed Media
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Abaddon: Keepers of the Abyss, 2008 Dimensions Variable Earthenware, Nichrome, Underglaze, Oxides, Glaze, Steel, Filament, Mixed Media November Shadows: Tank M2A2, 2009 6x12x9” Earthenware, Nichrome, Oxides, Glaze, Filament Reconstructing the Urn, 2010 (After Ai Weiwei) 14x8x8” Earthenware, Nichrome, Oxides, Glaze Leviathan, 2008 Dimensions Variable Large Submarine: 32x11x14” Earthenware, Nichrome, Oxides, Glaze, Filament
John Williams John Williams is a studio artist and educator living in Philadelphia, PA. He received his BA in Leadership Studies from the University of Richmond, and a MFA from Bowling Green State University. He has been a resident artist at Studio Art Centers International in Florence, The Cub Creek Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Virginia, CitĂŠ des Arts International in Paris, and currently is a resident artist at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia. He has held teaching positions at SUNY New Paltz in New York, Longwood University in Virginia, and Rowan University in New Jersey. In 2009 Williams was awarded an Independence Fellowship to pursue innovative applications of CAD and CAM technologies to the ceramic arts. He was honored with an Emerging Artist Award by NCECA in 2009.
Artist’s Statement Maps are catalysts. They enable us to forecast ourselves into the future, remember the past, or signify particular cultural traditions. As a representation, maps offer a specific point of view. Often we note the grand traditions in our culture but ignore those that play a role in our daily lives. As a continual tourist, I observe these experiences as fundamental to our collective understanding. Documenting events, spaces, or relationships helps us understand who we are and how we fit in. Commodities are those natural resources and products that we assign relative values. Energy has been a major focus in light of global warming, dwindling resources, and environmental disasters. Combining precious metals and ceramics, this series focuses on issues of land use and consumption. Specific material choices illustrate cultural traditions in America. The endless interpretation and abstraction of natural surroundings and cultural traditions constitutes my interest in art and mapping. - John Williams
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Commodities Series: Nuclear Towers, 2009 12x15x3”” Ceramic, 14K Gold-Plated Silver
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Commodities Series: Oil Well, 2009 12x15x3’’ Ceramic, 14K Gold-Plated Silver Commodities Series: Solar Panel, 2009 12x15x3’’ Ceramic, 14K Gold-Plated Silver Commodities Series: Oil Well, 2009 (detail) Commodities Series: Solar Panel, 2009 (detail)
Valerie Zimany Currently an Assistant Professor of Art, Ceramics, at Clemson University, Valerie completed her Master of Fine Arts at Kanazawa College of Art in Kanazawa, Japan as a Japanese Government Scholar and Fulbright Fellow. Following her degree, she spent three years as a resident artist at the Utatsuyama Craft Workshop, also in Kanazawa, studying traditional porcelain and overglaze techniques. Valerie was named an American Craft Council Searchlight Artist for 2007, a Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist for 2008, was featured in the Lark Book 500 Ceramic Sculptures, and is the subject of “Valerie Zimany: Recasting The Japanese Tradition,” a full feature article in the November 2008 issue of Ceramics Monthly Monthly. This year Valerie was awarded a Fulbright Hays Faculty Research Abroad Grant for her proposal Porcelain Fever: Contemporary Kutani Practitioners and Processes, and will return to Japan as guest researcher at the Institute of Art and Design, Kanazawa College of Art, in Summer and Fall 2011. Recent exhibitions include the 5th World Ceramic Biennale Korea, the Annual Residents Exhibition at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, and the Marraxti Biennale at the Museo del Fang in Majorca, Spain, with solo exhibitions at Cross Mackenzie Ceramic Arts in Washington, DC and the Museum of Wisconsin Art, WI. Upcoming work will be on view in Episodic, Clustered, and Migrating, a collaborative installation, Method: Multiple (as co-curator), and the group project Skin, all of which will be presented as concurrent exhibitions at the 2011 NCECA Conference in Tampa Bay, FL.
Artist’s Statement Reflecting my surroundings, my sculptures, vessels, and installations, search for a sense of place. When exploring new environs, the unfamiliar and the sprouting, surging growth of biological forms often initiates my investigations. Curiosity leads me to make molds and create multiples, (continued)
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Incident (detail), 2009 Outdoor Installation - Dimension Variable Raw Porcelain Slip-Casts, Porcelain Slip
Wall Sketch #1, 2009 Temporary Installation - 36x48x6”” Raw Porcelain Slip-Casts
Wall Sketch #2, 2 Temporary Install Raw Porcelain Sl
2009 lation - 36x48x6”” lip-Casts
Artist’s Statement (cont.) subsequently interpreting and manipulating the patterns I find into new configurations. Casting organic forms suspends their growth - creating an artifact or memory out of something that cannot otherwise be preserved. Through their subtle artifice, maneuvers, and tactics, natural archetypes persevere in built or native environments. By the manipulation of multiples, some recognizable, others ambiguous, I question visual perception and modify inherent associations between the natural and manmade. Historically associated with luxury, I utilize porcelain for its implicit emphasis on fragility, preciousness, luminosity, and ability to retain fine details – qualities prized by the industrial, mass-production community. Soft porcelain yields and responds, documenting each plastic manipulation and recording the tactile circumstance of its construction. The cadence of throwing portions on the wheel creates soft foliated lips and undulating profiles. Cast, wheel-thrown, or hand built elements are manually altered by bending, twisting, and shaping. Through gesture and arrangement, the composition becomes anthropomorphized – lurching, tiptoeing, or tottering. Others sprout from the wall, casting menacing shadows, or form conglomerate clusters in a bubbling, animate horror vacui. Often the agglomerations embody a sexual tension in their positive and negative spaces to titillate and solicit closer inspection. Popping, runny glazes animate and energize some forms, while velvety pastels subdue the aggression or enhance the suggestive nature of others. Sending mixed signals, the works simultaneously seduce and repel. In considering vessels and castings as vehicles for “containment” my research broadens. Avoiding specific classifications, I embrace the language of vessels and their context within ceramic history. Recent explorations twist or negate the associations through multiplying, filling, and distorting castings and their receptacles. All parts in my process are used. Normally discarded by-products, such as the excess slip from the mold’s casting channels, cling tenaciously and migrate onto other forms, like barnacles to a ship hull. Installations of raw casts in a variety of unconventional or outdoor sites perform as fleeting graffiti or rogue ornament, as well as comment on the perceived permanence of ceramic as a material. Through these accumulative processes, I investigate new dialogues between content, materiality, and craft by contradicting, juxtaposing, and intersecting the familiar with the intuitive and uncertain. -Valerie Zimany
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Mori-mori Tenko-mori (detail), 2008 48x60x6” Wheel-Thrown and Slip-Cast Porcelain with Glaze Chigiri-e (Astro Rose - detail), 2009 13x15x15” Slip-Cast and Wheel-Thrown Porcelain, Glazes, Vintage and Original Silkscreen Over-Glaze Decals Chigiri-e (Radio Gold), 2009 13x15x15” Slip-Cast and Wheel-Thrown Porcelain, Glazes, Vintage and Original Silkscreen Over-Glaze Decals Incident (whole view), 2009 Outdoor Installation - Dimension Variable Raw Porcelain Slip-Casts Porcelain Slip
Daniel Bare/ Valerie Zimany Collaboration Artist’s Statement “As collaborative partners, Bare and Zimany’s works investigate the paradox of being both the beginning and the end. Zimany’s emphasis on growth and creation meshes seamlessly with Bare’s enthusiastic collections of cast offs. Production ware at the end of its lifecycle is rescued and recycled. Their collaborative pieces are reminiscent of urban garden spaces, or abandoned city lots being overtaken by nature - growth in spite of, and through, the refuse. Each work becomes the death of the functionality or existence of the original, yet as sculptural objects they balance dichotomies of order versus disorder, deterioration versus regeneration, and extinction versus germination.” - Naomi Falk, review of “Prefab / Refab” exhibition at Macomb College, MI.
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Analogue, 2010 8x8x16’ Raw Porcelain Slip, Post-Consumer Objects, Lumber
IMAGES clockwise, from top left Eidolon, 2010 40x16x3’ Raw Porcelain Slip and Post-Consumer Objects Mergence and Abundance, 2008 10x4x4’ Raw Porcelain Slip and Post-Consumer Objects Eidolon (detail)