Welcome to our 49th Annual Pottery Show & Sale! We are thrilled to feature 26 renowned ceramicists from across the United States. If this is your first time participating, we are so glad you are here! If you are returning, welcome back! Individuals like you have made Demarest a favorite destination for the ceramics community. Last year more than 900 people attended our threeday event, also known as the “Old Church Pottery Show”. On behalf of The Art School at Old Church, I want to thank our curators, Bruce Dehnert, Chris Gustin, and Aysha Peltz, for putting together a show that highlights the diverse perspectives, processes, and forms that keep ceramics at the forefront of contemporary art. I also want to thank our sponsors, staff members, Board of Directors, and many volunteers for collaborating on this unique opportunity to experience and collect pottery. As Mikhail Zakin and Karen Karnes envisioned nearly half a century ago, the connections we make to art and artists this weekend will resonate for years to come. Make sure to talk with the ceramicists. Share stories. Ask questions. We know you will find pieces to collect, use, and cherish. Thank you for celebrating ceramic artistry with us. Thank you for supporting The Art School at Old Church. Your participation enables us to make extraordinary arts and cultural experiences accessible to everyone.
Dr. Jerry M. James Executive Director
About the 49th Annual Pottery Show and Sale Our Annual Pottery Show & Sale (also known as the Old Church Pottery Show) turns 49 this year. The three-day gathering in Demarest, New Jersey, began as a fundraiser for The Art School at Old Church in 1974 when ceramicist Karen Karnes and our founding Director, Mikhail Zakin, combined efforts to connect a growing community of potters with our local area. The show quickly evolved to include as many as 3,000 works by up to 30 renowned ceramicists annually, inspiring similar events across the country. As envisioned, the three-day event continues to be a unique opportunity for individuals to engage with artists, collect one-of-a-kind works of art, and support our programs, events, and financial assistance initiatives.
About The Art School at Old Church The Art School at Old Church (TASOC) was established in 1974 when a group of visionary artists transformed a 19th-century church into a nonprofit, non-sectarian, center for arts and culture. Our mission is to provide art instruction and cultural experiences that enrich the lives of individuals in Bergen County and beyond. Every year, more than 3,000 people participate in classes, workshops, exhibitions, outreach programs, and community events. We welcome individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities to engage in lifelong learning in the arts.
WELCOME! This year we are gathering in-person for our 49th year of the Old Church Pottery Show. Two of those 49 years were online because of the pandemic. Karen Karnes who co-founded this show with Mikhail Zakin, knew the significance of this gathering -- to foster community, to educate and of course, to fundraise for The Art School at Old Church. The difference between viewing a pot on a screen and seeing it in person became even more profound when we reconvened in Demarest last year. Feeling the texture of a glaze, the balance of a bowl, the weight of a mug, the arc of a handle are just some experiences that provide us with a deeper connection to the pot and to the maker of the piece. Each year we meet to consider recommendations from The Art School community and previous participants and to assess the work of hundreds of high-level artists from across North America. Much of this research is online, and image based. This 49th year, we have selected a group of potters who represent a cross section of makers exploring the ceramic process in a myriad of ways, all of whom are making personal and exceptional pottery. The lineup includes some familiar faces and new influential artists.
This weekend, much like the visitors to the show, we are also seeing these pots and potters in the same room for the first time. The three of us will also walk from room to room as we look at the hundreds of pots that have been packed, shipped, and brought here to 561 Piermont Road. As you walk around these three rooms, we encourage you to fully experience the pieces in person. Pick them up, feel their balance, explore the underside, touch the inside and the outside, to understand the architecture of the wall of each. Talk to the artists. This year, more than ever, we recognize what a gift this time together is. Enjoy! A heartfelt thank you to Jerry James, all the staff and volunteers at The Art School at Old Church. This show couldn’t happen without you!
Bruce, Chris and Aysha
For more than 40 years, Karen Karnes curated the Old Church Pottery Show. On July 12, 2016, Karen died peacefully in her home in Vermont at the age of 90. Karen was an innovator, progressive thinker, mentor, and a dear friend. The Pottery Show lives on in her memory in honor of everything we loved about her —her forthright manner, indelible wit, her devotion to ceramics, and her legacy. Karen Karnes, Curator (1925-2016) Mikhail Zakin, Curator (1920-2012)
MARGARET BOHLS Lincoln, NE
“Bohls' hand built pottery and vessels are inspired and informed by a variety of historical objects including European ceramics and metalwork of the Modernist era, and ancient Italian ceramics of the Etruscan, Greek and Apulian civilizations.”
BRUCE DEHNERT
Maplecrest, NY
"Increasingly I'm interested in making work that inhabits a space between experimental and resolved. I am drawn to that realizing ‘yeah, there's something there’ and subsequently building on it. I think it's classic problem solving."
ANDREA DENNISTON
Floyd, VA
“I work to make useful and beautiful objects that will add a bit of pomp to daily life. Inlayed lines travel over lips, under feet and around handles on my pots, referencing quilt, Art Deco and floral patterns.“
SUSAN DEWSNAP Auburn, ME
“My work is about making and reacting to ceramic pottery forms with a surface of lines and shapes that evoke or refer to images we might know or be acquainted with but become something unto themselves.”
JUSTIN DONOFRIO
Fort Collins, CO
“Through the lens of functional pottery, I focus on questions about our relationship with objects. Each vessel is made using clay that I harvest from various landscapes as well as artificially colored porcelain which both reference natural tones.”
CHRIS GUSTIN Dartmouth, MA
“I don't want my pots to conjure up a singular image for the viewer. By inviting the hand to explore the forms as well as the eye, I want to provoke numerous memories, recollection that has the potential to change from moment to moment, provoking connections that go past the intellectual to the innate.”
NICHOLAS JOERLING Bakersville, NC
"It’s nice, this many decades in, to find myself just as eager to get to the studio as when I first began.”
YEONSOO KIM
Exeter, NH
“My work is characterized by consistency, perfection, thoroughness, and handmade work, which emphasizes free will, randomness and casualness. I have been thinking about relationship between ideas, notions, and concepts of tradition and contemporary art.“
BRADLEY KLEM Denver, CO
“My work uses ceramic vessels’ familiarity and historical context combined with contemporary imagery of man’s impact on the environment to ask, can we take action and inspire change?”
SIMON LEVIN
Pawnee, IL
“The work I make is an exploration of a human’s interaction with elemental forces, fire, earth, and wind, all within the tight discipline of functional pottery.”
DAVID MACDONALD Syracuse, NY
“My work centers around the vessel form and the notion of utility. I am inspired by the decorative traditions practiced in Africa and other primal cultures that utilize geometric patterns.”
MATTHEW METZ Alfred Station, NY
“My pots are about labor and time- like a hand stitched quilt. The work offers an intensity of surface and a personal decorative intent, that is revealed in everyday use.”
LINDSAY OESTERRITTER Manassas, VA
“I work in an intentionally straightforward manner, choosing the clay and techniques for the marks that will be left behind. The process of making are recorded on the surface of the object revealing material characteristics and telling a visual story.”
LISA ORR
Northborough, MA
“My fluidly formed artworks for the table have a playful quality inspired by historic vessels sporting embossed narratives. The abundance of color and texture frames the food with the vibrant signals found in a healthy garden.”
BEN OWEN III Seagrove, NC
“A multi-generational potter from Seagrove, North Carolina continuing a family tradition. Influences from nature and studies in Asia have expanded his creative palette of forms and finishes.”
SANG JOON PARK Highland Mills, NY
“My intent is to express my thoughts through my vessels, which are mostly thrown on the potter’s wheel. For some of my pieces, I use traditional Korean techniques — inhwamun stamping/inlay technique to create floral patterns, and gwiyal slip technique to apply expressive color slips.”
AYSHA PELTZ
Whitingham, VT
“My pots have evolved because of an intuitive response to the manipulation of freshly thrown porcelain. In my most recent work, glaze has become an equal motivation for form development. The folding, ripping, and tearing of wet porcelain still influences the contour of my pots but more and more, channeling pools and drips, have encouraged new shapes- particularly those in which line and glaze dynamically interact.”
BRENDA QUINN Ossining, NY
“Brenda delights in pursuing her passion for painting and ceramics, creating patterns on pottery from elements observed in her garden.”
MARK SHAPIRO
Worthington, MA
“Endeavoring to make something useful and even beautiful from formless mud seems a worth a try. It honors our shared humanity and defies meaningless labor.”
TAYLOR SIJAN Hackettstown, NJ
“I craft richly decorated, functional pottery. Each piece is a confluence of things I find beautiful - asymmetrical compositions, evocative colors, botanical imagery, and fine details expressed within the parameter of objects intended for active participation in someone’s life.“
MALCOLM MOBUTU SMITH Bloomington, IN
“My vessels are inspired by the intersections graffiti, jazz and organic abstraction. Generally, these cups or scoop forms rely on altered wheelthrown elements improvising volume with flatness.”
CHAD STEVE
Tequesta, FL
“Each piece is decorated with slip and gathered sands, glazed and fired in an atmospheric soda firing. The forms are simple and effortlessly functional. The surfaces are spontaneous with natural variations transitioning between land and water.”
JACK TROY Huntingdon, PA
“My quest is to receive from the kiln the self-evident best pot of my 61-year career; the one I made all the others to achieve.”
JERILYN VIRDEN
Greensboro, VT
“I use earthenware clay to create utilitarian and sculptural pieces. Hollow construction allows me to exaggerate features, contributing a visual weight that floats above the table, accentuating a form’s sense of generosity and strength.”
MALLORY WETHERELL Kearney, NE
“My pots are canvases – billboards of sorts – for my politics, my humor, my interests. Each piece is handpainted on porcelain, to create one of a kind accessible works of art.“
MINSOO YUH Athens, GA
“My work reflects my journey of self-examination and personal growth, exploring the depth of humanity, nature and life through the intrinsic qualities of clay and the inspiration derived from nature’s elements.”
49th Pottery Show T-shirt design by Mallory Wetherell
THANK YOU to our 49th Annual Pottery Show & Sale Sponsors and Donors! Lakshmi Bhagat Dr. Jerry M. James Susan Bogen & Daniel Shapiro Carrie Ortiz Jane Chang Rutigliano Family Sal & Alice Federico Schaefer Family
Omdex Incorporated Consulting Engineers
Enroll NOW
The Art School at Old Church acknowledges the following for their support:
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Carrie Ortiz, President Judy Schaefer, Vice President Maureen Lostumbo, Chair Grant Hobson, Treasurer Gail Rutigliano, Secretary
Susan Bogen Ruth Borgenicht Jane Chang Bruce Dehnert Anthony Iovino Urvashi Joneja
Zola Kendi Martin Semar Karen Stern James Turnbull Vivien Woodford
STAFF Dr. Jerry M. James Executive Director Amy Dudash Robinson Assistant Executive Director Heidi Bacaz Administrative Director Nancy Reilly Administrative Manager William Richichi Facilities Manager Bella LaRiccia Finance Manager Megan Carli Ceramic Studio Co-Manager Antonia Noonan Ceramic Studio Co-Manager Naho Kambayashi Jewelry Studio Manager Justin Lerant Marketing Coordinator Peggy White Assistant to the Executive Director
Special thanks to all of the volunteers who contribute so much of themselves to this event. You truly make the Pottery Show happen! Program design by Nancy Reilly