EMILY BAYLESS emilybaylessstudio.com
JEREMY BROOKS klai-body.com
Emily Bayless (b. 1988) completed a BFA in ceramics at Arizona State University before moving to Long Beach, California to continue her practice at California State University, Long Beach. After two rigorous years of exploration Bayless was accepted as a MFA candidate in ceramics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and received her degree in December 2015. Post MFA Bayless went abroad, basing herself in London, UK, and traveled the rest of Europe. She returned the United States to accept a position as an Instructor of Art & Design at Millersville University. Her work has been on view in museums and galleries such as the Susquehanna Art Museum, the State Museum of Pennsylvania, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, the Diego Rivera Gallery in San Francisco, and the Gildar Gallery in Denver. She currently lives and works in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Jeremy R. Brooks was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1979. He received his BFA from Grand Valley State University and his MFA from Alfred University. Jeremy has balanced his career between working as an artist and teaching. Some of his honors include receiving one of the 2011 Emerging Artists Awards from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA), being selected as a guest of honor at the XXIst International Biennial of Vallauris, France, and being selected as a finalist for the 2017 Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize. Jeremy is currently an Assistant Professor of Ceramics at Coastal Carolina University and resides in Conway, South Carolina.
LARRY BULLER larrybullerceramics.com
ANDRÉA KEYS CONNELL andreakeys.com
Larry earned his MFA in ceramics from the Hixson-Leid College of Fine/Performing Arts from the University of Nebraska. Prior to earning his MFA, he taught ceramics in public school settings. As an openly gay man Larry's art subverts traditional domestic ceramic forms in order to celebrate gay sexually and fetish objects. Viewers of these objects may at first be attracted to the highly decorative showy surface treatments of these pieces. However, upon closer inspection they might observe a decidedly more subversive message around gay sexuality and fetish objects. In his work, Larry seeks to blur the boundaries what is considered to be in "good taste" for the domestic setting as well as encourage dialogue around topics not normally discussed in "polite" society. Larry recently completed a 10-week residency at the Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass, Colorado. Currently he is Adjunct Faculty at the UNL Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Art in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Andréa Keys Connell is an Associate Professor of Ceramics in the Department of Art at Appalachian State University. She is a former Fountainhead Fellow and served as the Head of the Clay Area in the Department of Craft/Material Studies at VCU from 2010-17. Andréa’s work has been featured in a number of national and international publications and she has widely exhibited her work. She has had 14 solo exhibitions in various galleries and museums since 2009, including the Florida Holocaust Museum and the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft. Andréa also works on largescale public art commissions such as the See Also endowment commission with the Cleveland Public Library. Along with exhibiting her work and teaching at Appalachian State University, Andréa has taught workshops on figure sculpting at various craft schools across the country including Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.
