The Form Will Find Its Way: Contemporary Ceramic Sculptural Abstraction by NCECA

2019

2019 NCECA ANNUAL MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

The exhibition documented through this catalogue is produced by the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) in cooperation with Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota.

© 2019 NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without prior permission of the publisher. The 2019 NCECA Annual Exhibition and NCECA’s 53rd annual conference in Minneapolis, MN are supported in part by a grant from the ArtWorks program of the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts is deeply grateful for this support and that of other donors. Front cover photo: detail of Waiting by Michiko Murakami Back cover photo: detail of Fissures, spills and celebration by Louise Deroualle Catalogue Design: Candice Finn Projects Manager: Kate Vorhaus The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts believes that when we touch clay… clay also shapes us. NCECA advances inclusive creation, advocacy, teaching and learning with clay in the contemporary world. This catalogue includes statements that reflect the views of the exhibition's curator and exhibiting artists whose voices are essential to sustaining a diverse and civil society.

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THE EVOCATIVE

GARDEN JANUARY 22 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; MARCH 30, 2019

Katherine E. Nash Gallery University of Minnesota | Minneapolis, MN

Nicole Cherubini Alexandra Engelfriet Jessica Jackson Hutchins Brie Ruais Anders Ruhwald

CURATED BY ELIZABETH CARPENTER

Nolan Baumgartner Dylan Beck Zimra Beiner Brian Boldon Jennifer Brandel Renata Cassiano Yang Chen Benjamin Cirgin Joshua R. Clark Naomi Cohn Chotsani Elaine Dean Louise Deroualle Yewen Dong Jessica Dupuis Trey Duvall Matthew Eames Jessika Edgar Cary Esser Sarah Gross Justin Groth Jeffrey Haddorff Sajeda Issa Wansoo Kim Adam Knoche Drew Liedtke Lauren Mayer Kate Metten Brian Molanphy Michiko Murakami Rebecca Murtaugh Kelsie Rudolph Karl Schwiesow Nicole Seisler Jim Shrosbree Jason Lee Starin

Photo left: Wansoo Kim detail of Trace of Existent: lifted

CURATORIAL STATEMENT Elizabeth Carpenter

“The form will find its way.” This statement by influential ceramic artist Peter Voulkos alludes to the freedom and wonder of trusting clay to reveal the form of his work to him through the intervention of his skill and no holds barred experimentation, but without certainty of outcome. These qualities, in addition to an authentic response to materiality no matter the media, are embodied in the spirit of this exhibition. Beginning in the mid-1950s, Voulkos nearly single-handedly ushered in an interdisciplinary approach to the ceramic arts through his conviction that the fields of pottery, painting, and sculpture could coalesce in works of great power and significance. According to the artist in his 1957 Juror’s Statement for the Annual Midwest Designer-Craftsmen show at the Art Institute of Chicago, creative “sustenance must be looked for in fields quite unrelated. Only then will it find its true relationship and validity. When it finds its true identity it also finds its very reason for existence.” Both of these statements have served as catalysts for this survey exhibition of current practices in abstract ceramic sculpture by five invited, and 35 juried, national and international artists. The works in the exhibition represent the maxim of “art for art’s sake,” setting utility aside, but not forgotten. Each is anchored along a continuum of two distinct but ever-converging histories, practices, and traditions, those of the fields of ceramics and fine art sculpture. These currents have been crossing for more than a century and see no signs of waning. Legions of artists and potters of today no longer see themselves as inextricably bound to a certain set of skills or traditions, but neither are they dismissive of them. Of all of the artists included in this exhibition, some employ clay as their exclusive material, a crucial tenet of their practices, while others work across media not only to tap into formal ambiguity, entropy, and the uncanny, but also to challenge the plinth and the pedestal while embracing the possibilities of site-specificity, performance, and time-based media. While heterogeneous in form and content, the works on view have a mutual set of affinities. What all of them share is a phenomenological, bodily presence and tactile quality, while also challenging the hallmarks of conceptualism and abstraction. Having worked as a curator for over 25 years in the contemporary art world, it has been a privilege to have been invited to curate the 2019 National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) Annual Exhibition in my home city of Minneapolis. This exhibition is one in a long line of exhibitions organized by NCECA, and to have this show be the latest addition to its history and legacy is an honor. This complex exhibition and publication required the faith of many more people than I can properly thank here. But my deep gratitude requires naming a few. First to the entire NCECA Board of Directors for their flexibility and support, ensuring that my dream checklist for the exhibition could become a reality. It is truly an understatement to say that this exhibition and catalogue would not have been possible without the determination and commitment of the following NCECA staff members every step of the way: Josh Green, executive director; Brett Binford, exhibitions director; Leigh Taylor Mickelson, former exhibitions director; Kate Vorhaus, projects manager; and Candice Finn, web and communications manager / graphic artist. Their dedication has been unwavering—I simply cannot thank them enough. My curatorial entrée into the field of the ceramic arts was due to one individual, Tetsuya Yamada, professor of ceramics at the University of Minnesota, who put my name forward to NCECA to curate the 2019 Annual Exhibition. His wise counsel and guidance throughout my research and preparation

for the show has been of paramount importance to me, as has the support of the following colleagues on the faculty of the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota: Monica Moses Haller, Tom Lane, Chris Larson, Lynn Lukkas, Clarence Morgan, and Tamsie Ringler. At the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Director Howard Oransky and Facilities Coordinator Jim Gubernick were early and enthusiastic supporters of this project. Their expertise and creativity were invaluable to the success of this exhibition. I would especially like to thank Assistant Curator Teréz Iacovino for her professionalism and tireless efforts to make this presentation the best it could be. I have also had the good fortune of working with an extraordinary installation staff, preparators Michael Benedetti, Jordan Bongaarts, Jim Hittinger, Adam Kirk, Prerna, and Emily Swanberg. Recognition must also go to the Harlan Boss Foundation for the Arts for their financial support of the Artist Residency of Alexandra Engelfriet, whose performative, site-specific work was created for the exhibition. Also, thanks are due to our local sponsor, Continental Clay Company, for their generous donation. Among the individuals and galleries that were tremendously helpful in facilitating loans, providing images for the catalogue, and coordinating shipping for the five invited artists, my thanks go to Simon Cole and Elsa Delage, Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto; Marianne Boesky and Kelly Woods, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; Alberto Morán and Mills Morán, Morán Morán Gallery, Los Angeles; Davida Nemeroff and Nicoletta Pollara, Night Gallery, Los Angeles; and Kristen Dodge, September Gallery, Hudson, New York. Finally, my deepest and most profound gratitude is due to Nicole Cherubini, Alexandra Engelfriet, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Brie Ruais, and Anders Ruhwald for their extraordinary works, and to the juried artists in the show for answering the call and making their remarkable works available to the exhibition. A special note of thanks to those artists who travelled to Minneapolis to create pieces specifically for this show. Enjoyable and edifying conversations with many of them have shaped my thinking about the ceramic arts and art in general, for which I will be eternally grateful. Each and every one of them is an inspiration.

VENUE STATEMENT Howard Oransky

Welcome to the Katherine E. Nash Gallery. We are housed in the Regis Center for Art and operated by the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota. Our mission is to be a research laboratory for the practice and interpretation of the visual arts. We believe the visual arts have the capacity to interpret, critique, and expand on all of human experience. We aspire to become a center of discourse on the practice of visual art and its relationship to culture and community—a place where we examine our assumptions about the past and suggest possibilities for the future. We are delighted to present the exhibition The Form Will Find Its Way: Contemporary Ceramic Sculptural Abstraction. The premise of the exhibition, as established by the curator Elizabeth Carpenter, is a perfect example of our research-based mission: “an exploration of experimental, cross-disciplinary, and aesthetically diverse artistic practices, with the explicit intention to avoid preconceptions about established categories.” Betsy’s curatorial practice has embodied the same ethic of the experimental and the diverse that she has valued in the practices of the artists on view. The resulting exhibition is a thoughtful and surprising expression of the endless possibilities that clay offers as an artistic medium, now and into the future. It is also fitting that the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota is hosting this exhibition because of our historical commitment to the ceramic arts. In 1955 the University of Minnesota hired Warren MacKenzie, who founded and led the ceramics program, and continued to teach here for 35 years. Other emeriti faculty includes Curt Hoard and Mark Pharis. Our current full-time faculty includes Tom Lane and Tetsuya Yamada. When the new Regis Center for Art was constructed in 2003 the commitment to ceramics was clear: the building includes over 9,000 square feet of studio space devoted to ceramics, with state of the art equipment, including 30 kickwheels and 10 electric wheels; 10 electric kilns, 13 gas kilns, and one wood kiln; and separate studios, kiln rooms, and glaze labs for graduate students. Furthermore, outside our university there is a vibrant and active community in Minnesota supporting the production and appreciation of the ceramic arts. In recognition of Claytopia, the 53rd annual NCECA conference held in Minneapolis, the Department of Art has committed all three galleries and a project space in the Regis Center for Art to ceramics. We will present the aforementioned The Form Will Find Its Way: Contemporary Ceramic Sculptural Abstraction in the Katherine E. Nash Gallery and a site-specific installation by exhibiting artist Alexandra Engelfriet in the project space, and we will present two ceramics exhibitions curated by Associate Professor Tom Lane and Professor Tetsuya Yamada: an exhibition of ceramic work by our faculty and graduate students in the Quarter Gallery and an exhibition of ceramic work by our adjunct faculty in the Regis West Gallery. In this way, the entire Regis Center for Art will be filled with ceramics and its many possibilities. As noted on the NCECA website, we will expand critical discourse on teaching, learning, aesthetics, social impacts, design thinking, and artistic production. Special thanks to the NCECA organization and staff, the Department of Art and Gallery staff, to our curator and exhibiting artists, and to the Harlan Boss Foundation for the Arts and Continental Clay Company for their support.

NCECA ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Joshua Green, Executive Director | Brett Binford, Exhibitions Director It’s been our honor to work beside guest curator Elizabeth Carpenter and Katherine E. Nash Gallery Director Howard Oransky on behalf of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA). The Form Will Find Its Way: Contemporary Ceramic Sculptural Abstraction, an exhibition several years in the making, seeks to capture energies through which contemporary artists are exploring the ceramic medium through experimental and risk-taking investigations of materiality. Art is sometimes differentiated from the realm of nature as an act involving human imagination, yet clay somehow brings us closer to nature as experience. Though experiences are intangible, somehow clay makes them touchable. Artists may be drawn to abstraction because it engages us with expressions of spirit and imagination at a time when very little in our worlds can be taken for granted. Clay’s receptivity to physical energies, its capacity to solidify effects of atmospheric change, heat, and time, encapsulate fleeting moments and emulate events that unfold over millennia in the physical world. NCECA’s exhibitions program revolves around collaborative relationships built through planning our annual conference. We are grateful to the artists whose work is included in the exhibition as well as those for whom the response to their submissions was not the one for which they had hoped. Some of our artists are being exhibited through the courtesy of their dealers, and we are grateful for this cooperation as well. Support from the ArtWorks program of the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; the Harlan Boss Foundation for the Arts, faculty and staff of the Department of Art of the University of Minnesota, and Continental Clay Company have all been instrumental to this undertaking. The dedication of NCECA staff members Candice Finn and Kate Vorhaus and the unflagging support of NCECA’s Board of Directors have been invaluable guide stars throughout the planning and development of this exhibition.

NOLAN BAUMGARTNER Chicago | Illinois

Utah is home to me; it is the place I have spent the majority of my life, although the last two years have been spent moving around the country. This has given me a new perspective on the openness and vastness of Utahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s landscape and how radically it contrasts from the environments in which I have recently lived. The field of vision is infinite; the landscape is dramatic in color and form from the red and grey rocks, to the forests in the mountains, to the ubiquitous blue sky. In contrast, Chicago has a beauty in and of itself. Lacking a sense of limitlessness and natural visual drama, it is vertical, dense, and geometric with its steel and concrete structures and urban landscape. My quasi-architectural forms are a reaction to this new environment. They are assembled in a manner that references different basic building styles and construction methods while recalling the colors of my past life.

Formal Study #2, 2017 Soda fired stoneware and reduction fired porcelain 18” x 12” x 6.5”

DYLAN BECK Portland | Oregon

My artwork explores the interaction of human activities with the natural environment and the idea that we are currently living in the Anthropocene. My interests range from concepts of land and natural resource use to the psychological effects of living in the non-places of a hypermodern world. Our contemporary condition has given us an overwhelming trust in progress and created a general disregard for our relationship to natural systems and processes. In my studio practice, there is no hierarchy of material or method. I believe in a holistic approach to art makingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;an approach that balances aesthetic judgment, craftsmanship, concept, and material. Within my work there is often a direct material-to-concept relationship. Accepting that all materials carry cultural and historical significance, I choose materials that feed my conceptual agenda. I acknowledge my implicit participation in the Anthropocene; therefore, I situate my work between skepticism and veneration.

High Dynamic Range, 2018 Ceramic, paint, and digital print on vinyl 72” x 48” x 50”

ZIMRA BEINER Calgary | CANADA

Making art overwhelms my life; therefore, my attempt to honestly expose the making process is an autobiographical narrative. My life is expressed in my method of production; the world around me is represented in things that are ubiquitous and domestic. Looking, translating, and making are continuously mixed together in a loop in which the boundary between art and life become tangled. The everyday is interpreted, re-contextualized, and abstracted as a reflection of life passing through me. The work I submitted for the exhibition questions clay's relationship to the body, time, and stillness. They were made in response to the question: Can a support determine a form? This simple premise formed the basis of a series of works made over a two year period, thousands of pounds of clay, and arduous labour making large ceramic sculptures using press moulds and simple coil building processes. My goal was to embed the work with physical tension by complicating the process with physical challenges, technical risks, and precarious forms. This investigation led me to question the relationship between art and gravity, life and stillness, ceramics and transformation.

Shine Stand, 2016 Earthenware and glaze 54” x 30” x 35”

BRIAN BOLDON Minneapolis | Minnesota

I work in the gap between old and emerging technology. Earth as recorder, kiln as creator. I use geologic process as a generative force tapping into human origins and contemporary experience. I think of material transformation as creative nonfiction, record keeping for physical phenomena and temporal events. Situations are assembled in kilns with unknown outcomes. New equilibriums are discovered. I record the present for self-reflection and navigation. 3D prints become physical records of desire and action, contemporary material culture expressing new philosophies for body/machine integration. Using evolutionary biology, human taxonomy, and the human gait as actors for incremental change, skeletal movement and cubic volume data of the lower body are converted to radial energy. Data driven forms of abstraction, where figuration emerges from body metrics, moves beyond traditional observational and mimetic strategies. Bodyplan is an experimental integration of emerging technology, body metrics, open source data, and figural abstraction. Eight vertical sacks seven feet high create a one-to-one body scale experience, a materially saturated, tactile installation environment. Empathetic and vulnerable, I am exploring 3D printed machine language recorded in porcelain that speaks to body/machine integration.

Bodyplan, 2017 3D printed porcelain, digital glass prints, glass, copper, and steel 84” x 144” x 192” Photo credit: Tiny Proctor

JENNIFER BRANDEL Oakland | California

As a woman who explores and records landscapes and places, I am constantly redefining a cultural relationship through site generated works. I am highly interested in the edge in which a natural environment becomes cultural, as well as selecting locations of extreme temporality and fragility to mark a moment of drastic environmental change. My processes are semi-scientific, anthropological, and intuitive; exploring the physicality of deep-time but also a constantly changing environment. Cairns are both an ancient and modern form of marking significant places, movements, and cosmological phenomena, particularly in places that do not have other marking devices, such as signs or roads. In developed areas humans are accustomed to navigating with the use of color, lights, and construction barriers and cones. Dust to Dust is a ceramic geode form that references these navigational devices to draw links to varying psychic spaces of human movement.

Dust to Dust, 2018 Ceramic and redwood 40” x 24” x 24”

RENATA CASSIANO Kent | Ohio

I look to capture moments of change using ceramic processes as I explore the fluidity and contradiction in the perceptions that we have of ourselves, others, and where we come from. With Cascajo, I seek to challenge the perception of ceramic materials and their role in process and form. This piece is made of several layers of cast glaze, clay, and clay coils. Glaze now speaks a different language and adopts another anatomy. It takes the place of flesh and blood; it activates the piece and makes it a sentient being, an entity of energy and synthesis that contracts and expands, breathes, moves, and gestures. As its name describes, at first glance, it appears as a dense piece of rock or rubble (cascajo) that has cracked and separated from a larger entity. There are references to both architecture and the viscera, as the piece shows two distinctive sides. A quieter one, inspired by the walls in several areas of Mexico, is flat and smooth, painted with several layers of stained kiln wash. The other side, the visceral one, is the cast glaze with clay elements embedded. The colors, greens, blues, and whites, reference a decompositional state; the fragment is no longer attached to the whole and it is slowly dying. The edges of the sculpture have been cut to emphasize that it is a fragment, a piece of the puzzle.

Cascajo (Rubble), 2018 Stoneware, glaze, feldspar, stain, and alumina 13.7" x 20.1" x 12.9"

YANG CHEN Providence | Rhode Island

My work attempts to reveal the profound paradox of life, the duality of existence regarding life and death. I look into human nature and material to continue the process of deconstruction and reconstruction, to implement a balance between the inner feelings of my self and the outside world. The works present a wild world, but my personality is quite the opposite; my appearance always leaves a quiet, introverted, gentle, introspective, thoughtful, and sometimes even depressed impression. It traces my thoughts and emotion. Vivid sculpting memories render me a unique experience of feeling the outside world and allow me to live crazy fantasies. By allowing the form to change in the over-fire process, a form was created that I could not have sculpted by hand. I play with the unpredictable results from the firing and I am always intrigued by the industrial material as a very poetic contrast with the sensitive organic ceramics material. I approach each work with an open approach material selection that at times stretches the traditional expectations of ceramic and the implementation of cross disciplinary methods which is distinctly contemporary.

Emotionality, 2017 Ceramics, bricks, and wood 48" x 40" x 40"

NICOLE CHERUBINI Hudson | New York

There are so many rules that you are taught to believe! The wrongness is what I desired, and still desire. I think the more rules that are given to me, the more I want to break them. Yet I envy those people who function within the structure, not always trying to change it.

the yellow one, 2017 Earthenware, paper clay, glaze, pigment, Magic Sculpt, plywood, acrylic, PC-11® 39.5” x 25.5” x 7” Photo credit: Pete Mauney

BENJAMIN CIRGIN Richmond | Kentucky

It is no secret, and often unquestioned today, that large-scale commodity production has been, and continues to be a driving force in economic systems across the world. Human consumption rises; media and marketing advance in controlling a vast amount of unconscious cultural capital; while the value of workers' lives today rests in the hands of a select few. This work develops by researching the undercurrent of commodified objects. Specifically, the precise moments in which human beings touch the production of these objects and how real lives are affected by partially hidden systems that determine the daily value of labor. Twenty-Four-Seven presents a mysterious, fixed black object that has no clear use value. The thin sheets of fiberglass emerge from one side and return through the other with no apparent change. This abstract and formal, mixed media arrangement exemplifies the continual production process and factory labor flowâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;where workers rarely stop the productivity of a plantâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days per year.

Twenty-Four-Seven, 2017 Ceramic and fiberglass impregnated asphalt 84” x 36” x 11”

JOSHUA R. CLARK Las Cruces | New Mexico

Attitude Effacee is made with experimental, cross-disciplinary processes that contain associations of "ambiguity, disorder, entropy, and the uncanny while challenging the plinth and the pedestal." The psychology and tension in the scale, materiality, and the bodily movement during creation, as well as the spectator experiencing the art, are all crucial considerations. Sculpting a raw clay form and then pouring resin over its surface create the top portion of the sculpture. Once the resin hardens, the form is submerged in water allowing the raw clay to dissolve leaving the hollow cast of the surface of the form that once was. A unique process created the bottom portion of the piece where I synthesize the geologic process by fusing ceramic and glaze together in a ceramic shell. Once fired, the shell is removed leaving just the dense accumulation of metamorphic material. In this process, I use glaze in equal proportions to ceramic material rather than glaze's more traditional use as mere surface decoration. Both processes freeze a moment, and in both cases, something is removed. One process captures a surface, and the other captures an interior. One is dense and solid, and the other is light and hollow.

Attitude Effacee, 2017 Ceramics and resin 70” x 18” x 24”

NAOMI COHN Bedford | New York

Gestural abstraction has been my primary painting vocabulary. In ceramics, I am interested in allowing the clay to have its way while I attempt to coax it into forms which retain the original gesture of the hand. Gyre physically retains for the viewer every step of its creation in the final form. The process begins with clay blocks that anchor a tall, pyramidal, patchwork form. The piece is then flipped onto a base and becomes a vessel, retaining the blocks as sculptural elements while revealing the folds and every bit of the history of the construction of the interior as well as exterior of the piece. The considerable physicality of the process continues in the gestural mark, glazing, and multiple firings.

Gyre, 2018 Ceramics, underglaze crayon, underglazes, and glazes 20” x 13” x 13” Photo by: Mark Weiss

CHOTSANI ELAINE DEAN Greenville | South Carolina

The many layered realities of the history and visual archives of my communal ancestry establish and impart creative purpose and structure in my studio practice and research. My ancestors, experiences, events, and voices from the Trans-Atlantic Enslavement through the Civil Rights movement, serve as points of departure for me to explore, connect, and process harsh and complex realities of American history in ceramic materials. I use ceramic material to convey the power and bring to form the people, lives, events, and experiences of the untold, the unknown. Memory Spoons: Georgia Gilmore and the Club from Nowhere, #3, an abstract spoon form, is a piece in honor of Georgia Gilmore, a cook and activist at the center of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She raised funds for the boycott and fed many along with other cooks and bakers, referred to as the Club from Nowhere who were major forces that served significant roles in the Civil Rights movement. The piece references the utility of the spoon expressing the notion of nourishment and power in serving, food, and cooking... uses beyond the utility to the power of the hands that hold and use a spoon.

Memory Spoon: Georgia Gilmore and the Club from Nowhere, #3, 2018 Porcelain, paper clay, glass, silica sand, black sand, and resin 9.5” x 4” x 1.5”

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LOUISE DEROUALLE Snowmass Village | Colorado

I am interested in creating expressive surfaces with ceramic materials that, like my own skin, become a thin and fragile barrier between the internal and external world. And like skin, the cracks, blisters, and wrinkles that texture the surfaces of my works record time and stories, veiling and yet revealing who we are. The concrete and physical nature of the ceramic materials gives my work a present sense of the real, while its surface invites the viewer to create their own interpretation of an imagined place. This dual perception creates a conceptual overlap between object and image, reality and imagination, physicality and emotion. Only through careful observation does the work unfold itself, allowing the viewer access to the many different layers of material and meaning, rewarding them for their engagement. This is an intimate way of establishing a dialog between the viewer and the sculpture, that requires not only a body interaction (as the viewer needs to physically approach the work), but a mindset to allow themselves to establish a connection that can trigger their own reveries. Fissures, spills and celebration addresses ceramic surface as sculpture itself. The clay becomes the support for the ceramic materials to be. In this piece, I subvert the traditional order of layering glazes over slips and utilize the fluidity of the glaze layer underneath as a symbol of my inner world of emotions as well as my cultural identity. The slips become an external barrier, while glazes turn into an extremely powerful emotion that always finds its way to the outer reality.

Fissures, spills and celebration, 2018 Ceramic and slips layered over glazes 21” x 21” x 2.5”

YEWEN DONG New York | New York

My work is about the tension and relationship between human (man-made) space and natural space. I am drawn to the surface of different spaces—solid and liquid, striated and smooth, city and landscape, which record the marks of human interaction. I use clay, ceramics, handmade paper, collage, and video to translate the fragments of spatial memories into tangible and physical forms. Textures and shapes mark my movements through space as I have experienced them before. Much Ado About Nothing. 3. is made with unfired clay installed on the wall. The moment it happens is it, and the whole process is the work. The installation begins with wet clay on the wall that will dry slowly over time. This clay drawing seems to stay intact, but it will gradually fall and peel off the wall due to the fragility of the material in its state and the humidity of the environment. As time passes, the installation will decay to fragmented clay, scattered on the floor. The fragmented clay maintains the record of being touched, and it will leave its residual history on the wall as a palimpsest. I imagine that the installation space will be ephemeral, evolving with the passing of time. In this way, the work lives with its current state and with its residual and palimpsest simultaneously. I hope to invite the viewer to experience these “moments” and the “happenings” that arise and fade through the duration of the installation like the abstract nature of memory.

Much Ado About Nothing. 3., 2017 Unfired red clay and charcoal grey paint 134” x 68” x 0.15”

JESSICA DUPUIS Chapel Hill | North Carolina

Invisible and visible boxes surround us every day, from standards of society and institutions to houses, studios, and offices. Within these structures, individual perceptions and senses vary, just as our memories and attachment to objects differ from one person to another. For me, the physical form of sculpture functions as a journal; architectural spaces that are open for the viewer to explore. My work evolves from a process in which I use a combination of clay slip and discarded materials such as newspaper, cardboard, and furniture and transform them into art objects.

Bed Frames XI & XII, 2017 Ceramic and wood parts from a twin bunk bed 74.5” x 87” x 2” each bed frame

TREY DUVALL Denver | Colorado

Loschmidt's Column explores the passage of material states subjected to entropic time. The unfired porcelain performs an architectural role, with the ultimate distribution of clay contingent on conditions of site and chance operations as the work unfolds. Creating systems and experiments that operate within determined parameters exemplifies relationships between time, entropy, and ontological understanding. All matter is in constant transfer from one state to another, organized structures ultimately become disorganized. By embracing entropy these porcelain and steel installations play out a resonant sequence of change and failure. The progression of the form is a signal of the fatigue of the clay as the development of iron oxide is evidence of the breakdown of the steel; the porcelain acts as a receptor surface, absorbing the rust from the steel. The blending of iron oxide and clay characterizes the passage, change, and enmeshment of material states while the change of form highlights impermanence of structure. Within the lexicon of ceramic art, these works expand on notions of scale in ceramic sculpture. They challenge the kiln as it relates to the desire to control the variables of clay as a material and fix a form in time. It is the specific material variability and structural ambiguity of clay that is engaged via these durational installations. Ultimate orientation to these forms is best considered via duration, with the singular form experienced at any point in time being secondary to the progressing process.

Loschmidt’s Column, 2016 Porcelain and steel 84” x 264” x 264” Photo credit: Art League Houston

MATTHEW EAMES Carbondale | Colorado

I am fascinated by the development of structure. With my work, I look to interpret structure and the space it inhabits through physical and emotional layers. My use of materials, space, angles, and movement are all meant to trigger some amount of emotional discomfort amongst the structural presence. By presenting incomplete junctions of materials juxtaposed with recognizable structural elements, this work is a reminder of the lack of permanence that exists within our constructed realities. Tilt presents an abstract representation of structure in our modern world. The delicate balance of structure is held by a web of threading and visually weighted by concrete. In this piece, I use thread to hold certain parts of the sculpture together knowing that these materials, in small quantities, are not strong enough to completely secure the entire structure. This ceramic imagery presents a tenuous relationship due to the fragility of clay, the tension of balanced parts, and the unconventional use of materials to bind and secure elements of the sculpture.

Tilt, 2018 Ceramics, metal, concrete, and thread 36” x 36” x 10” Photo credit: Petr Wiese

JESSIKA EDGAR Detroit | Michigan

My research focuses on an exploration of representation through the idea of formlessness. This exploration is inspired by George Bataille's concept of l'informe. Formlessness can be used to describe an object that is mobile or fluid enough to evade classification and meaning. The formless results in a blurring of categories and identification. I am interested in expanding this notion in relationship to socially constructed identity and value while referencing contemporary, popular culture and mass media influences that propagate consumption. Drawing from media, imagery especially related to gender, beauty, and material desire, my sculptures and installations aim to create a feeling of cognitive dissonance, a psychological space that is simultaneously critical and indulgent. Lumpy and Pointy explore the idea of formlessness within the tradition of sculptural abstraction.

Lumpy, 2018 Red earthenware with mica, Jungle Gem‚ glazes, spray foam, variegated metal leaf, spray paint, and stool 45” x 24” x 24” Pointy, 2018 White earthenware and dry glaze 18” x 8” x 12”

ALEXANDRA ENGELFRIET Amsterdam | The Netherlands

The essence of my work still is movement, moving matter, structures, and rich textures emerging out of the process of kneading and molding clay with the body. New possibilities emerge. In a world that becomes more and more virtual, to be able to feel and experience the touch and sensuality of the body through the art of clay, is what I aim for.

Still from Fortiter et Suaviter, 2018 A film by JĂŠrĂŠmie Basset

CARY ESSER Kansas City | Missouri

These ceramic pieces titled Parfleche are cast with liquid clay in flexible molds configured to encourage what might be considered technical flaws. The markings and fissures left by their forming process contrast with gridlines that recede into the mass of the objects. I aim for a tension between order and entropy. The application of monochrome colors and textures emulates various industrial and natural substances such as metal, salt, coral, and oil, often confounding the sense of their materiality. The sculptures provoke me to consider the mystery of their interior - the shallow, folded, and compressed space held between two planes. They suggest to me an internal state that is the human need and impulse to protect, both physically and emotionally. The etymology of their title, the word parfleche, connotes the same. It derives from the French parer “ward off” plus fleche, “arrow”. Yet, the shield inevitably frays.

Parfleche (b5), 2017 Earthenware and glaze 16” x 11.25” x 1.75” Photo credit: E.G. Schempf

SARAH GROSS Lawrence | Kansas

Inviting and forbidding, my work addresses issues of power, desire, vulnerability, and visibility. Through it, I disrupt ideas about gender roles, sacred space, and what it means to be the object of another’s gaze. I make art that unsettles the viewer’s perspective. Physical walls and paths confront the viewer, creating spatial and visual relationships that shift and disorient. Scale, intimacy, and the body of the viewer are fundamental considerations. In the encounters I create, the viewer must question how they fit into the structure, making the act of looking more self-aware. Consumption uses repetition and abstraction to both attract and repulse its viewers. From across the room, Consumption’s audience will spot a long, sumptuous, red carpet; approaching, they will discover it is not a textile at all. Upon close inspection, observers will be taken aback by casts of my fingertips, covered in blood-red glaze, which penetrate the hundreds of hexagonal tiles that comprise the installation. It seduces with its larger-than-life glamour and suddenly becomes uncomfortably familiar and human. A simultaneous celebration and criticism of celebrity-worshipping pop culture, this carpet is too fragile to walk on, and yet it compels viewers to touch it. Observers phenomenologically experience the alienation and intimacies forged between celebrities and their publics by imagining the act of stepping on—and crushing—the hands of those who elevate them.

Consumption, 2018 Slip cast talc claybody and red glaze 2” x 432” x 66” Photo credit: Aaron Paden

JUSTIN GROTH Seward | Nebraska

In my practice I am looking to open people up emotionally when viewing my artwork by creating in a manner that holds a certain tension. Through the Glass Dimly places a barrier between the viewer and the work. The glass as an object and material transforms the sculpture into an only partially known object. The greens all blur together like a forest canopy casting an eerie light on the specimen-like and twisting sculpture. I am interested in the desire to engage with mystery and live with mysteries as well as the loss of understanding. This work elucidates that tension of articulating almost being able to know, but not knowing at all.

Through the Glass Dimly, 2018 Ceramic, stained glass, and painted wood 16.5” x 19.5” x 16.5”

JEFFREY HADDORFF Minneapolis | Minnesota

I am interested in clay because I like what it can do. I am interested in direct interaction with the material, I am interested in the physical struggle of the work. I am interested in instability, allusion, ambiguity, and uncertain outcomes. I like making big things from a stack of smaller things and how they do or do not align as they move through the process of firing and glazing and re-firing, moving from the ideal of precise drawings and templates to the reality that the material will have its say, and how that transition (from ideal to reality) is the core of my expression.

untitled, 2018 Earthenware and glaze 76” x 36” x 36” Photo credit: Tim Rummelhof

JESSICA JACKSON HUTCHINS Portland | Oregon

… the body is where the mystery of the making is for me. I said yesterday to a writer friend of mine that I don’t really believe in ideas. Ideas just seem like a dime a dozen—there’s a lack of magic. I wasn’t ever interested in linear narratives, either. My art has to escape the confinement of making sense, which is not only a drag but a means of oppression. So part of that is to let it come out of my body, and be about the body, which is where one’s vulnerability, awkwardness, and humanity are.

Pithos, 2017 Ceramic and plaster base 48” x 28” x 33” Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen. © Jessica Jackson Hutchins. Photo Credit: Object Studies

SAJEDA ISSA Hazelwood | Missouri

A barrier is something that conceals, veils, and divides. The unknown often heightens our curiosity. I associate the idea of strongly desiring to overcome a barrier with seduction, hence the ambiguous, smooth forms that are divided. The overall sculpture was fabricated as one piece, then split apart down the middle. Reflective caution tape emanates on the planes that face each other. The voluptuous organic forms are juxtaposed with the intersection of the flat plane. These two forms were thrown then liberated from the traditional potters wheel, hand-built, and manipulated to its explored form.

Undocumented Series: Glitch, 2018 Ceramic, acrylic, metal, and reflective tape 10” x 16” x 10.5”

WANSOO KIM Kansas City | Kansas

In my eyes, the world is composed of both revealed things and hidden things. I interpret my surroundings based on this idea, seeking to realize my ignorance and awareness. With this in mind, I create objects in which dichotomous ideas are present, using their physically revealed and concealed aspects to represent the greater human struggle to see and understand what is hidden from us. I question what sustains our daily lives. An individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beliefs and perceptions are created not only by personal history, memory, and experience, but also by society's tradition and culture, accumulated throughout human history. I interpret this invisible background as a spiritual support for individuals by materializing it as physical supports. Thus, the idea of verticality and horizontality are fundamental elements in my work. In this respect I focus on developing and expressing an imagery of verticality from what I have observed such as a column, the legs of humans, and ordinary table legs.

Trace of Existent: lifted, 2018 Stoneware, earthenware, and vinyl floor 54” x 48” x 48”

ADAM KNOCHE Richardson | Texas

Colluvium translates to material which accumulates at the foot of a steep slope. This piece was created in reaction to the political and environmental landscape which is being observed today. The daily abuse brought on by political decisions and environmental setbacks feels as though life is piling up in a heap of detritus. I created this work through pulverizing clay into a powder and ram pressing it into molds then fired to cone 6 oxidation. The pieces are then assembled together with paper clay and glaze then fired again. My work has a solid foundation in material and process. I am drawn to the color, texture, and feel of clay. Clay's ability to be soft and record marks and movement while also transforming into a hard stone-like material vulnerable to cracks and breakage.

Colluvium, 2018 Ceramic, glaze, and stain 28” x 35” x 26” Photo credit: Chunyu Han

DREW LIEDTKE Ellensburg | Washington

I make bricks. With these, I build structures that reference architectural forms that are then placed into a kiln and fired to high temperatures. While in this environment, qualities in the bricks emerge and interact with themselves and one another. My intent is to show that these commercially processed materials are active if they experience enough heat energy. The created objects strengthen, weaken, crack, melt, and blend in accordance to their respective elemental compositions. When cooled, their reactions are captured as a mysterious gesture: a triumph, a collapse, an embrace.

28 Stacked Red Bricks, 2017 Ceramic and glaze 112” x 12” x 12”

LAUREN MAYER Longmont | Colorado

I am drawn to the human tendency to physically and psychologically accumulate objects within a personal space. Much of my work revolves around perceptions of time and the idea that memory attaches itself to these accumulated objects and the space in which they dwell like an ephemeral residue. Memory is a nebulous thing; I am intrigued by the amorphous chronology of remembering. It behaves non-linearly and weaves around us as we go through our lives, lurking in the corners of our lived space, slightly haunting us. I imagine the construction of the walls of our homes as embedded with the accumulation and debris of our lives; our tangible clothes, bowls, cutlery, and furniture along with our seemingly intangible habits, routines, and thoughts transformed into stratified bricks, both constant and tenuous. These become part of a physical and metaphorical architecture, one that perhaps, memory would take if it assumed the physical form of a lived space. The space becomes the memory itself.

I am the Space Where I am, 2017 Clothing slip-dipped in porcelain, dehydrated glazes, colored slips, other raw materials, slumped glassware, steel wool coated in borax crystals, and plywood 96” x 96” x 3”

KATE METTENÂŹâ&#x20AC; Vancouver | Canada

Cunt Sap is a wall-bound ceramic sculpture that ignites a dialogue between the history of ceramics, painting, craft, and feminism. Conceptually, it speaks to the history of Neo-Concretism, a movement that intended to push back against the constraint of the canvas by bringing new materials into painting and allowing the support to take three-dimensional form. Cunt Sap brings that relationship into ceramics and its process reflects that of a production potter who has abandoned the table by seeking new orientations for this medium.

Cunt Sap, 2018 Wood-fired porcelain and stoneware 19” x 5” x 3”

BRIAN MOLANPHY Dallas | Texas

I make containers to extend the hand, fill the embrace, light up the eyes, shelter the body, and enrapture the mind. Besides the interdisciplinary mode that is architectural ceramics, series since 2010 originate in the disciplines of fiction and poetry. sink recalls the horizontal plumbing of Endless Plumb (Plugged), 2014; instead of the obstructions that closed both ends of that artwork, sink renders a double curve–the “punt” or “kick-up” inside a bottle that is just slightly budding toward the continuous surface of a Klein bottle. sink taps into "ambiguity, disorder, entropy, and the uncanny" like a culvert, after the culverts in some of Robert Gober’s sculptures, though sink turns back on itself inside. sink draws on the “unaccountable one” of the “cassock” in Moby Dick. In tension in space, sink bursts from the wall like an extruded architectural feature and goes further with its horizontal extension in a tradition, after Eva Hesse and Richard Serra, of defiance of gravity, depiction of flow, and combination of sculpture and painting. sink turns fully round and horizontal like the truncated parabola of Ellen Carey’s photographs. The piece holds hidden contents, passages, and surfaces that reveal themselves upon bodily movement on the part of the beholder. A single example is exhibited here from a series of nine individual artworks. In addition to those already named, Ernest Chaplet, Pierre Soulages, Michel Muraour, Sadashi Inuzuka, and John Utgaard are prominent inspirations.

sink, 2018 Coiled stoneware, high-temp and low-temp glazes 8” x 8” x 16”

MICHIKO MURAKAMI Los Angeles | California

Mixing abstraction with identifiable imagery, highbrow and lowbrow, reverence and irreverence, old and new, stillness and agitation, allows me to explore the complexities of the human existence. Waiting explores literal and conceptual ideas of access and inaccessibility. The form has built in "windows" that allow sections to be open and clear, yet access to its insides are still deniedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;one may see through it, but not into it. I point to the outer to allude to the inner in these forms. As Toshiko Takaezu once stated, "the inside is the most important part".

Waiting, 2017 Hand-built ceramic 18” x 8” x 8” Photo credit: Anna Garner

REBECCA MURTAUGH Queens | New York

The mark and history of the hand play important roles in my philosophy and process as an artist. I work in clay for its distinct physical quality of malleability, which allows gesture and touch to be imparted with immediacy and subtlety, as well as its prehistoric origins and direct connection with the earth. I began making this series after the presidential election. Rather than internalize my own fear and frustration, I chose a method of self-empowerment in the studio. I embarked on a process of engaging my entire body in creating sculptures by beating large mounds of clay with a homemade paddle accompanied by pinching to direct the abstract form. These actions of transformation are entropic, cathartic, and metaphorical; and ask the viewer to slow down and interact with the vivid surfaces in an intimate manner. Pieces are titled two-fold, first descriptive with a prefix of how the sculpture is created, followed by the names of the glazes utilized. I further these often cringe worthy and garish pairings by creating juxtapositions of color with symbolic meaning, psychological weight, and tension.

Mallet and Burrow: Lichen and Lizard (Red), 2017 Ceramic, underglaze, glaze, and wood stool 12” x 10” x 7”

Paddle and Pinch: Lizard and Beads, 2017 Ceramic, underglaze, glaze, and wood stool 16” x 15” x 10”

Mallet and Burrow: Lichen, Bling, and Beads (Orange), 2017 Ceramic, underglaze, glaze, and wood stool 16" x 9" x 8"

BRIE RUAIS Brooklyn | New York

I initially gravitated towards clay for its capacity to record the process of its own transformation. I wanted to work with a material that could both resist and yield to the, at times, confrontational and synergetic actions I made upon it. It captures physical expression, as well as poses its own set of questions and challenges through the nature of its materiality. The world of this work developed through its own idiosyncratic process.

Red Pushes 1, 2, and 3 (130 lbs each), 2017 Glazed stoneware 72” x 23” x 14” (each) Courtesy of Brie Ruais and Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto

KELSIE RUDOLPH Bozeman | Montana

I am continuously searching for commonalities across cultural and social systems, woven between travel experiences and daily life at home. How we exist in our relationships and relate to the world around us is an endlessly complex and emotional experience. My work breaks down these cross-cultural feelings of confusion, solitude, and wonder into color, material, and form. Self Portrait of Wall humanizes the basic architectural function of a wall, giving it character and emotive qualities through scale and material. Self Portrait of Wall is composed of a heavy ceramic base, a rubbery latex middle, and a faux fur top; these materials are comparable to human characteristics like dependability, flexibility, and comfort. The joint allowing these three pieces to comprise the full wall is specific, giving Wall something reliable to fall back on. As separate pieces, the positive and negative forms are relatable from a distance; close observation making it obvious that they become one thing. Like this, our motions and social perceptions are reflected through our personality, sometimes becoming disjointed or seemingly unrelated, but always comprising the whole. This work is an abstract exercise in relatability, comparing our emotional experiences to the basic materials and spaces we exist with and within each day, providing us with a renewed sense of reciprocity and solace to our surroundings.

Self Portrait of Wall, 2018 Ceramic, faux fur, steel, crocheted yarn, and latex paint 72” x 36” x 9”

ANDERS RUHWALD Chicago | Illinois

I have always found it difficult to describe my practice in a few sentences. It seems to me that the description will change depending on when I am asked and where I am at in a specific cycle of organizing and making. I have worked with ceramics since I was 15 and understand the mechanics of the clay process intuitively. It is a material that I use to think with. I think of it as an extension of the bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a material onto which I can record movement and intention.

Residual (Tan), 2017 Glazed ceramic 57.5" x 17" x 16" Index (Mass), 2017 Glazed ceramic 57.5" x 22" x 20" Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Way, 2017 Glazed ceramic 56.75" x 17.5" x 16.5" Utterslev, 2017 Glazed ceramic 57.25" x 17.5" x 16.35"

KARL SCHWIESOW Red Lodge | Montana

My work is a breakdown of what I know of a thing through a synthesis of found and manipulated objects in conversation with hand-built forms. I take note of the original function and concept of things, but become unfamiliar through contextual shifts. I deconstruct and reconstruct vernacular. Found objects and forms begin to exist with equal measure of industrial, domestic, or structural associations with an overlay of organic touch. I cut, fuse, combine, layer, pinch, attach, stitch, perforate, bind, suspend, clamp, lift, peg, and twist until original function and context become a starting point for dialogue between our shared cultural experiences and assumptions. The work is both formal and object based. Its appreciation as art-object is dependent upon viewers' engagement and cultural understanding.

Uncategorized Attraction, 2017 Stoneware and found object 60” x 40” x 36”

NICOLE SEISLER Los Angeles | California

My work is part of a hybrid movement emerging from ceramics, in which materiality and temporality are grounds for a conceptual framework. I embrace the haptic qualities of clay and use other malleable materials such as paper, plaster, rain, snow, and sunlight to create ephemeral, public interventions that track and trace particular moments in time between people and place. Sometimes the installations absorb and erode in a manner of days, weeks, or months; in other instances, the work exists as an organized event for a specific duration. My work is at once sculptural, site-responsive, performative, and participatory. I directly engage others in my process and often position myself as facilitator in order to question authorship and to blur the overlapping roles of artist/viewer/participant/collaborator.

Preparing, 2018 Clay and pencil 48” x 204” x 0” Photo credit: Estaban Pulido

JIM SHROSBREE Fairfield | Iowa

In this sculpture, things come apart and cohere at the same time. Largeness is compressed into small places. Covering and revealing are simultaneous. Shapes on the wall extend the interplay of line and shadow, creating nebulous relationships that can question materiality. Height and placement of the work engages the discovery of hidden color, shadow, reflection, and volume, which, seen only from oblique angles, causes perceptual shifts. Juxtaposition of materials helps to create a context for the work. The marriage of materials is driven by attention to the potential of each situation while a presence of gravity is constant, affecting delivery, and creating different emotional implications for placement. The intersection of vertical and horizontal planes locates an understanding of proportion and scale, dictating an economy of means unique to each piece. Understanding its operation helps me enliven a potential for multiple readings and no hard memory of having been there before.

WORB (polka), 2017 Ceramic, towel, acrylic, and upholstery tacks 6.5” x 17” x 5” Photo credit: Paul Moore

JASON LEE STARIN Philadelphia | Pennsylvania

In todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s insatiable quest for information at instantaneous touch, I prefer to approach making experimentally and by hand. Influenced by the mysteries surrounding the mythological, the alchemical as well as referencing science fiction speculations, my practice is based on accepting the unknown, the incomprehensible as well as the absurd. Rendering material as an amorphous solid, my work is a record of my physical interaction with it. When swishing and smearing, poking and clawing, I am making the decision to stay mentally connected to this physical realm, however ambiguous and alienating that may feel at times. Hands-on interpretation helps me to consider the total state of things as they exist in the world today, as they will always be in a state of change, adaptation, and evolution. I strive to transcend the limiting definitions of art, craft, and design objects. My art works are reflections of my existence through a haptic awareness of form, space, and necessity.

Catacocoon, 2018 Stoneware and glaze 45” x 15” x 15”

NOLAN BAUMGARTNER, nolanbaumgartner.com

DYLAN BECK dylanjbeck.com

Nolan Baumgartner is currently in his second year as an artist in residence at Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago, Illinois, and he is also the ceramics coordinator at the Evanston Art Center in Evanston, Illinois. He earned his BFA from the University of Utah (2001), and his MFA in ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2004). Nolan was previously a long-term artist resident at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, Florida and a short-term resident at The Clay Studio of Missoula, Montana. He has taught at Oakland County Community College in Auburn Hills, Michigan, and at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT from 2006 to 2015 as an assistant professor/lecturer in ceramics and 3D foundations.

Dylan Beck is an associate professor and department head of ceramics and digital strategies at Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland, Oregon. He earned his BFA from Ohio University, Post Baccalaureate Fellowship from Illinois State University, and his MFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After teaching at Kansas State University as the area coordinator of ceramics from 2007–2013, Dylan moved to Portland, Oregon to accept his current position at OCAC. He has exhibited and lectured extensively and has published articles in Ceramics: Art and Perception, CFile, and the NCECA Journal. Beck has served on the boards of Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Artaxis.org, and NCECA.

ZIMRA BEINER zimrabeiner.com

BRIAN BOLDEN brianboldon.com

Zimra Beiner, born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, earned his BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (2009) and his MFA from Alfred University (2012). His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Canada, including exhibitions at The Hole NYC, Present CO, Cross Mackenzie Gallery, and the Gardiner Museum. Recent awards include the NCECA Emerging Artist Award (2014), nomination for the RBC Emerging Artist Award in Ceramics, and the Winifred Shantz Award. Recent residencies include The Berlin Ceramics Centre, Germany; Private Studio Jingdezhen, China; and the Center for Contemporary Ceramics at California State University, Long Beach. He is currently an assistant professor in ceramics at the Alberta College of Art + Design in Calgary, Canada.

Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Brian Boldon exhibits his sculpture nationally and internationally as a solo artist and as part of a collaborative team with artist Amy Baur creating permanent public art installations. Integrating emerging technology with ceramics and glass, Boldon uses 2D and 3D ceramic printing for self-expression, exploring new potentials for art making in this age of automation. Boldon coordinated the ceramics and graduate programs at Michigan State University from 1995–2008, headed the ceramics program at the University of Alaska, Anchorage from 1990–95, and taught sculpture and ceramics at Hamilton College from 1989–90. Boldon earned his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (1986) and his BS in art from the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1982).

ARTIST BIOS

JENNIFER BRANDEL jenniferbrandel.com

RENATA CASSIANO renatacassiano.com

Jennifer Brandel is a San Francisco, California Bay Area artist and architect with practices pursuant of social engagement, healing space, sculptural making, mapping, and ceramic work that is thematically exposing the human/nature relationship. Her work is grounded in place, time, observation, and direct experience.

Renata Cassiano is a Mexican-Italian artist born in Mexico City. Cassiano works predominantly in the medium of clay but her background in painting and drawing takes a big part in her ceramic practice. Educated in Mexico and the United States, she has had the opportunity to work in different clay environments from a ceramics factory in the north of Italy, a residency center in Denmark, and with artists such as Nina Hole and Gustavo Pérez. Her work has been exhibited in Mexico, United States, Denmark, Cuba, Japan, Australia, and Hungary and can be found in public collections in Taiwan, Germany, Denmark, Latvia, China, and Slovenia.

YANG CHEN yangchen.space

NICOLE CHERUBINI nicolecherubini.com

Yang Chen is a multimedia artist who works with ceramics, printmaking, sculpture, installations, painting, and jewelry. She was born in Beijing, China, earned her BFA at Tsinghua University (2014), and her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (2017). Yang’s work, which shifts between poetic expressions and aggressive constricting brambles, connects with viewers through a deep sense of emotional resonance. Using her unconsciousness, memories, and imagination as tools, Yang demonstrates a wondering world through sculptural and installation processes. She has exhibited her work in several venues including the National Art Museum in China, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, and the Woodstock Artist Association and Museum. She has participated in many residency programs, such as MASS MoCA Studios, the Hambidge Creative Art Center, and the Clayarch Museum in Korea.

Nicole Cherubini earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and MFA from New York University. Her solo exhibition venues include the Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania); the Jersey City Museum (New Jersey); the Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn and the University Art Museum, Albany (New York); the Pérez Art Museum Miami (Florida); and the Santa Monica Museum of Art (California). Her work is in numerous private and public collections including the Cranbrook Art Museum, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, the Museum of Arts and Design and the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery (New York); and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, (Florida). Cherubini lives and works in Hudson, New York.

BENJAMIN CIRGIN benjamincirgin.com

JOSHUA R. CLARK artaxis.org/joshua-r-clark/

Benjamin Cirgin is a maker and educator who worked as a craftsman building furniture and renovating historic homes before earning his BFA in fine art from Indiana University Bloomington, and his MFA in studio art from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, California. Benjamin has held numerous solo and group exhibitions in the field of art and ceramics, served as an advisory board member for the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, and co-founder of the artist collective One + One + Two in San Francisco, California. Benjamin is currently an assistant professor of ceramics at Eastern Kentucky University in the Department of Art and Design.

Joshua R. Clark is an American artist born in Columbus, Ohio. He earned his BFA from the Ohio State University, and his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He lives and works in Las Cruces, New Mexico where he is an associate professor of art at New Mexico State University. Clark's work provokes strange and wonderful associations to the psychology embedded in the surroundings of the "everyday" mashed up with a surrealist sensitivity in material exploration.

NAOMI COHN naomicohnstudio.com

CHOTSANI ELAINE DEAN chotsanielainedean.com

While pursuing an art major at Oberlin College, Naomi Cohn’s history as a trained dancer in New York City, instead led her back to performing. She participated in the invention of Contact Improvisation at Oberlin College and became a dancer with Twyla Tharp’s seminal company in 1970–71. A post-dancing career led to medical school and a master’s degree in child health. Finally, pursuing her original passion, she left medicine and became an abstract painter, finding representation with PLUS Gallery in Denver, Colorado. Back in New York as a permanent resident, she has embraced ceramics in her current practice. Ms. Cohn curated Take Five in 2010, for PLUS Gallery and in 2015, Ulterior Motif, a 13 person show at The Painting Center in Chelsea, New York.

Chotsani Elaine Dean is an artist and assistant professor of art at the South Carolina School of the Arts, Anderson University. She earned her BFA from Hartford Art School and her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2014, Dean was the inaugural MJ DO Good resident at Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana. Also, Dean was awarded a 9-month Teaching/Research Fulbright Scholar grant in 2012–13 traveling throughout India conducting workshops at Sanskriti Kendra, Krishnamurti Foundation/Raj Ghat Besant School, Kriti Gallery, Banaras Hindu University, Faculty of Visual Arts University of Baroda, and artistin-residence at Clayfingers Pottery, Thrissur, Kerala. Dean has lectured and exhibited widely; Iowa Ceramics Center and Glass Studio, Appalachian State, Kriti Gallery, Aurodhran Gallery, Hans Weiss Newman Space, Windsor Art Center, Hunterdon Museum of Art, Gallery on the Green, and Silo Gallery among others. In 2010, Dean was awarded a Connecticut Arts Grant.

ARTIST BIOS

LOUISE DEROUALLE louisederoualle.com

YEWEN DONG dongyewen.com

Louise Deroualle earned her MFA in ceramics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2017) and her BFA in Visual Arts from Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in São Paulo, Brazil (2001). Louise has exhibited her work in the United States and Brazil. Since 2010 she has been involved with both the Curaumilla Art Center in Chile and the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado, as a studio manager and teaching assistant. In 2017, she was awarded the Roswell Artists-in-Residence Fellowship. Her most recent exhibition was a solo show at the Roswell Museum and Art Center in New Mexico. She is currently the ceramic studio coordinator at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado, where she also has her studio.

Yewen Dong was born and grew up in Shenzhen, a coastal city in China. She earned her BA in art and design from the China Central Academy of Fine Arts (2013), then continuing her education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) where she earned her MFA in ceramics (2017). Her practice incorporates drawing, sculpture, ceramics, papermaking, and video. She has presented her work at the American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, California; Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Mana Contemporary, Chicago, Illinois. Her work is part of The Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection at SAIC.

JESSICA DUPUIS jessicadupuis.com

TREY DUVALL treyduvall.com

Jessica Dupuis was born in Buffalo, New York and grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She earned her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her BFA with a concentration in ceramics and print media from Alfred University. Dupuis exhibits her work regionally and nationally. She has been a resident artist at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and the Women's Studio Workshop. Dupuis is a recipient of the International Sculpture Center's Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award and an Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artists Grant from the Durham Arts Council.

Trey Duvall’s work concerns entropy, futility, humor, duration, stamina, and material or physical exhaustion. His creative practice includes various forms of large-scale installation, video, performance, and other sculptural and organizational mediums. In addition to site specific installations and performances, Duvall’s work has recently been exhibited at Rice University, Lawndale Art Center, and Art League Houston (Houston, Texas); Triumph Gallery (Chicago, Illinois); Galerie des Beaux-Artes de Nantes (Nantes, France); School of Visual Arts (New York, New York); and Plot Manifest (Marfa, Texas). His work has been featured on “ABC News”, in the Houston Chronicle, and in Art In America. Duvall earned his MFA from the University of Houston, and is currently an artist in residence at RedLine Contemporary Art Center in Denver, Colorado.

MATTHEW EAMES mattheweamesceramics.com

JESSIKA EDGAR jessikaedgar.com

Matthew Eames is a ceramic artist born on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He earned his BFA in ceramics from the University of Hartford (2007). After graduating, he took a residency position at the Worcester Center for Crafts and a year later began working as their studio resident technician. Matthew then attended a Post-Baccalaureate program at the University of Arkansas and earned his MFA in ceramics from Wichita State University (2013). After graduate school, he moved to the Aspen Valley in Colorado for a residency at the Carbondale Clay Center, which transitioned into a full time position as the studio and gallery manager. Matthew has had the privilege of exhibiting in many national shows including a solo exhibition at the Ulrich Museum of Art in Wichita, Kansas and an installation for NCECA's Projects Space at the 2017 conference.

Jessika Edgar earned her BA (2008) and her MA (2009) in art from California State University, Northridge and her MFA in ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2011). Jessika has exhibited nationally and internationally, in venues that include Arizona State University’s Ceramic Research Center, Brickyard Gallery, and Museum De Arte de Ciudad Juárez. She has been an assistant and artist at Guldagergaard: International Ceramic Research Center in Skælskør, Denmark, a Post-MFA Fellow at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, and most recently an artist in residence at The Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada. Jessika is currently an assistant professor and the area coordinator of ceramics at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

ENGELFRIET, ALEXANDRA alexandra-engelfriet.nl/

CARY ESSER caryesser.com

Born in the Netherlands, Alexandra Engelfriet studied at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Her work with clay as a sculptor and performance artist evolves out of a fascination with and reference to nature. Using her body as the locus of energy and form-making; the flows, ripples, and shapes she creates are spontaneous interactions between herself and the material being worked on. Her focus is on the process; and its remnants captured through video provide remembrance and celebration of physical action rather than a product. Engelfriet maintains a ceramics studio in France, when not traveling or creating through residencies.

Cary Esser is a resident artist at Belger Crane Yard Studios and has also worked at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, the Northern Clay Center, and the International Ceramics Studio, Kecskemét, Hungary. Esser, her Kansas City Art Institute students, and colleagues were presented in Season Two of the PBS "Craft In America" television series. She received a Lighton International Artists Residency Program Grant, a McKnight Residency, and the Kansas City Art Institute Distinguished Achievement Award. Her work is shown nationally, most recently at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art and Kemper at the Crossroads in Kansas City, Missouri. The January 2018 issue of Ceramics: Art and Perception features an article on her current work, titled Natural Language, by S. Portico Bowman. Esser earned her BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute and her MFA at Alfred University. Cary Esser is currently Professor, The Kathleen Collins Chair of Ceramics at the Kansas City Art Institute.

ARTIST BIOS

SARAH GROSS sarahgrossceramics.com

JUSTIN GROTH justingroth.com/

Born and raised in New York City, Sarah Gross makes work that investigates the contradiction of physical closeness and emotional distance. She is currently an assistant professor of visual art at the University of Kansas, having earned her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her BA from Carleton College. She has participated in artist residencies at Greenwich House Pottery, Grand Valley State University, the Lawrence Arts Center, Green Olive Arts, and c.r.e.t.a Rome. She has work included in numerous collections including the US Department of State, the University of Costa Rica, and the Shiwan Ceramics Museum, Foshan, China.

I have always been a maker...since a young child building with blocks and construction sets to completing a graduate degree in ceramics at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Exploration at Cranbrook led to an increase of my interests in ceramic sculpture as a means to interpret and relay a complex overlap of design and experience while exploring the necessity of making and designing objects for people to interact with…kindling the same excitement I had when I was young. Currently, I live with my family in the heartland of America, Lincoln, Nebraska. I teach ceramics and sculpture classes at Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska, a town of 7,000 people. Being in Nebraska deeply connects me with the slowness of life. Every day I see fields and am reminded of mystery and process. Mystery as a seed is laid in the ground that will become a 12-foot plant. Process in preparing, tending to, and reaping the land at the right time.

JEFFREY HADDORFF jeffreyhaddorff.com

JESSICA JACKSON HUTCHINS artsy.net/artist/jessica-jackson-hutchins

Jeffrey Haddorff earned his BA degree in psychology from St. Olaf College and his MFA from the University of Minnesota. He also spent a year at the University of Copenhagen, where he studied film, design, and art, and fell in love with each. He is the father of two fine young men and works part-time as a structural designer at the BKV Group Architects and Engineers. For the past 30 years he has lived and maintained an active studio life in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He does not like winter.

Jessica Jackson Hutchins lives and works in Portland, Oregon. Hutchins’ expressive and intuitive studio practice produces dynamic sculptural installations, collages, paintings, and largescale ceramics, all hybrid juxtapositions of the handmade. As evidence of the artist’s dialogue with items in her studio, these works are a means by which the artist explores the intimacy of the mutual existence between art and life. Her transformations of everyday household objects, from furniture to clothing, are infused with human emotion and rawness, and also show a playfulness of material and language that is both subtle and ambitious. Based upon a willingly unmediated discourse between artist, artwork, and viewer, Hutchins’ works ultimately serve to refigure an intimate engagement with materiality and form.

SAJEDA ISSA craftalliance.org/artist-in-residence/sajeda-issa

WANSOO KIM wansookim.com

Sajeda Issa grew up in the United States as the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, often situated between cultures looking from one side to another. Revisiting a homeland that faces an ongoing struggle for cultural and national identity allows her to forcibly question what the foundation of human civilization is.

Wansoo Kim was born and raised in South Korea where he earned his BFA in ceramics from Seoul National University of Science and Technology. During his experience in South Korea, he earned multiple awards from both the school and from other juried shows. He participated in the 2015 International Art Workshop in Turkey as one of six Korean ceramic artists. He earned his MFA at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2018). Since moving to the United States, Wansoo has continued to push his career forward, showing regularly in national exhibitions held in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, Kansas, and North Dakota. He is the recipient of one of the 2017 NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) Graduate Student Fellowships. Recently, he was featured in the 2018 April issue of Monthly Ceramic Art in South Korea, and joined the Red Star Residency program as a foundation artist at Belger Crane Yard Studios in Kansas City, Missouri.

Issa was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and earned her BFA from Webster University. Academia allowed Issa to dive deep into her traditional cultural roots and connect those to concepts in art. Racial and identity subjects are ongoing issues she faces in both the East and West. Living in a city where racial tension is high, Issa is constantly researching why these issues continuously occur in history and makes those connections to her environment. Creating art upon the ongoing issues of barriers allows her to understand various ways barriers embody themselves even outside the subject of race.

ADAM KNOCHE adamknocheceramics.com

DREW LIEDTKE drewliedtkeceramics.com

Adam Knoche is a ceramic artist working and teaching in Dallas, Texas. He earned his BFA from Ball State University (2010) and his MFA from Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville (2014). He has exhibited nationally and internationally, as well as given artist lecturers and demonstrations around the United States and other countries. In 2012, Knoche spent three months at Strathnairn Art Association in Canberra, Australia as an artist in residence, in 2015 he worked and lived in New York City at Greenwich House Pottery as the studio and fabrications manager, and most recently had his work published in Ceramics Monthly when he was designated as one of their 2018 Emerging Artists. His work is informed by the perceptions of the changing environment of the 21st century.

Drew Liedtke earned his MFA at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington (2018). With origins in rural Wyoming and Utah, he developed an affinity for the surrounding geologic history and sought to understand it through mineralogy. Drew's interest in ceramics spawned after pressing small stones into a pot where he noticed that, upon firing, the stones had melted to form a glaze. He has been melting things ever since. Drew earned a BFA from Utah State University (2012) and a Post-Baccalaureate at Northern Arizona University. In 2015, he married his long-time girlfriend, and together they adopt senior pit bulls.

ARTIST BIOS

LAUREN MAYER laurenmayerstudios.com

KATE METTEN katemetten.com

Lauren Mayer is a ceramic artist, who lives and works in Colorado. Her work investigates the physical manifestation of memory and trace through furniture and accumulated objects through mold-making and hand-building. Currently, she works at Metropolitan State University of Denver teaching ceramics. She has also taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the University of Denver.

Kate Metten, born in Vancouver, Canada, is an emerging artist whose phenomenological research is rooted in the shared materiality between painting and ceramics, art and science, and landscape and psychogeography. She is currently apprenticing with secondgeneration potter, Gailan Ngan, sourcing raw material from natural clay deposits across Canada. By using the earth from a site as her material, she preserves the history of a particular place within a work's materiality while delving into her identity as a Canadian artist. Kate Metten is a recipient of the Thelma Ruck Keene Memorial Award for Ceramics. Recent exhibitions include an art-science collaboration with a physicist at TRIUMF (Canada's national particle accelerator centre) to interpret new research on antimatter.

BRIAN MOLANPHYÂ brianmolanphy.com

MICHIKO MURAKAMI michikobra.com

Brian Molanphy learned to apprehend the world through containers as a bookmaker and a baker. Coupled with the muck of paper pulp, printer's ink, pastry cream, and bread dough, containment led to ceramics, principally inspired by French fiction and American poetry. He graduated magna cum laude with distinction in art from Colorado College. A University Fellowship provided for his MFA from Pennsylvania State University. Fellowships from the Fulbright Commission, the Camargo Foundation, and the Brown Foundation took him to France. He moved from Marseille to join the SMU Meadows School of the Arts. Exhibition venues include Southwestern University, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, Dublin Castle, Gallery XXI, Barcelona Design Museum, and the Rocca Flea Museum. He has lectured at the Newberry Library, NCECA, and the Nasher Sculpture Center. A member of Phi Beta Kappa and the International Academy of Ceramics, Molanphy is represented in public and private collections in the United States, Europe, Korea, and China.

Michiko Murakami was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She earned her BA from California State University, Los Angeles and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2015). She has taught at California State University, Fullerton, East Los Angeles College, and Ventura College. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

REBECCA MURTAUGH rebeccamurtaugh.com

BRIE RUAIS brieruais.com

Rebecca Murtaugh earned her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, a BS from the Pennsylvania State University, and attended Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in venues such as Pentimenti Gallery (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania); Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn, Lichtundfire Gallery, New York, The High Line, New York, and the Everson Museum, Syracuse, (New York); Frist Center for Visual Art (Nashville, Tennessee); Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts (Grand Rapids, Michigan); Delaware Contemporary (Wilmington, Delaware); District of Columbia Arts Center (Washington, D.C.); and the American Museum of Ceramic Art (Pomona, California). Murtaugh's work has been included in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Huffington Post, The New Criterion, Philadelphia Inquirer, BUST, and Bushwick Daily. She splits her time between Queens and Upstate New York where she is a professor of art at Hamilton College.

Brie Ruais lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She earned her MFA from Columbia University's School of the Arts (2011). Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Katzen Arts Center at American University, Washington, DC and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Solo exhibitions include forthcoming Albertz Benda Gallery, NYC (2019); Night Gallery, Los Angeles (2018); Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada (2018); Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton (2017), Mesler/Feuer (2015), and Nicole Klagsbrun, NYC (2013). Selected awards include The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2018) and The Sharpe Walentas Studio Program Fellowship (2018). Her work is featured in Vitamin C: New Perspectives in Contemporary Art, Clay and Ceramics, by Phaidon (2017).

KELSIE RUDOLPH kelsierudolph.com

ANDERS RUHWALD andersruhwald.com

Kelsie Rudolph is a ceramic artist based in Bozeman, Montana. She earned her BFA from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point (2013). She then apprenticed with wood-fire potter Simon Levin in Gresham, Wisconsin. She graduated from Montana State University with her MFA (2018). She has traveled extensively to China, Taiwan, South Korea, Cuba, and Brazil working and exhibiting in clay. These travel experiences have shaped her works' focus on commonalities across social and cultural systems reflected through abstracted architectonic and utilitarian forms. Rudolph is currently continuing her research as an assistant to Hun Chung Lee in South Korea during fall 2018, followed by a spring 2019 residency at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado.

Anders Ruhwald (Denmark, 1974) is a sculptor and installation-artist working in Detroit, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in London (2005) and has exhibited widely internationally. His work is in over 20 public collections including Victoria and Albert Museum (UK), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, and Musée des Arts décoratifs (France). He was awarded the Gold Prize at the Icheon Biennale (S. Korea) in 2011, and the Sotheby’s Prize (UK) in 2007. From 2008–2017 he was the head of ceramics at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Currently he is a visiting professor at the National Academy of Arts in Oslo, Norway.

ARTIST BIOS

KARL SCHWIESOW artisfine.com

NICOLE SEISLER nysprojects.com

Originally from Homer, Alaska, Karl Schwiesow earned his BFA from Sierra Nevada College and his MFA from the University of Montana. He has been an artist in residence at the Sonoma Community Center, Sonoma, California; Red Lodge Clay Center, Red Lodge, Montana; and the Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, Montana. His work has been exhibited in the United States including Montana, Nevada, California, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

Nicole Seisler earned her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Elmhurst Art Museum, Illinois; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee; Customs House, Sydney, Australia; Alto Galleria, Brussels, Belgium; and Flash Atรถlye in Izmir, Turkey. Reviews of Seisler's work have been published in the New York Times, Hyperallergic, Ceramics Monthly, the Boston Globe, and the Boston Herald. Seisler has received multiple public arts grants and she recently completed a large-scale installation for the Airbnb Headquarters in San Francisco. Seisler taught ceramics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Washington. She was the Lincoln Visiting Professor of Ceramics at Scripps College for the past three years. Seisler also founded and directs A-B Projects, a nontraditional ceramics exhibition space in downtown Los Angeles.

JIM SHROSBREE jimshrosbree.com

JASON LEE STARIN jasonleestarin.com

Jim Shrosbree earned his MFA from the University of Montana. His work is in collections such as the Detroit Institute of Art, Des Moines Art Center, Los Angeles County Museum, Edythe and Eli Broad Museum, University of Iowa Museum of Art, and the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art. He has been a visiting artist at numerous art institutions including Cranbrook Academy of Art, University of California, Davis, Bard College, Pennsylvania State University, and the Alberta College of Art and Design. Reviews and publications include: Ceramics: Art and Perception, American Ceramics, Ceramics Monthly, New Art Examiner, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, and Sculpture Magazine. Honors include residencies at MacDowell Art Colony, Yaddo, and Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts. He has received grants from the National Endowment For the Arts/Midwest Fellowship, Idaho Arts and Humanities Commission, Iowa Arts Council, and The Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2018). Shrosbree is a professor of art at Maharishi University, Fairfield, Iowa and he is represented by Paul Kotula Projects, Detroit, Michigan.

Jason Lee Starin earned his MFA in applied craft and design from Pacific Northwest College of Art and Oregon College of Art and Craft (2011), and his BFA in ceramics from Grand Valley State University (1999). Starin has shown in numerous group exhibitions throughout the United States. In 2017 he received an Independence Foundations Grant to research his interest in geomythology while in residence at the NES Foundation in Iceland. Currently residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Starin is faculty and the ceramic shop supervisor for The University of the Arts and a full time resident artist at The Clay Studio.

CURATOR & EXHIBITIONS DIRECTOR

ELIZABETH CARPENTER CURATOR

BRETT BINFORD NCECA EXHIBITIONS DIRECTOR

Elizabeth Carpenter is an independent curator, writer, and educator. As curator of visual arts at the Walker Art Center from 2001-2013, some of her exhibition highlights included Frida Kahlo (2007); Robert Irwin: Slant/Light/Volume (2009); Hélio Oiticica / Rirkrit Tiravanija: Contact (2010); Absentee Landlord (2011), curated with filmmaker John Waters; Frank Gaard: Poison & Candy (2012); and Dance Works III: Merce Cunningham / Rei Kawakubo (2012). Prior to her role at the Walker, Carpenter served on the curatorial team responsible for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum exhibition, Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective (1997). In 2001, as guest curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings, she curated Jim Dine Prints: 1985–2000 at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts for which she also wrote and edited a catalogue raisonné of Dine’s graphic work. Carpenter’s writing has appeared in numerous exhibition catalogues and Art in Print.

Brett Binford is an artist and entrepreneur residing in Portland, Oregon. He is the co-owner of Mudshark Studios, Eutectic Gallery, Kept Goods, Clay Street, and The Portland Growler Company. Brett currently oversees production at Mudshark Studios as their CEO and Operations Manager as well as operates Eutectic Gallery as the gallery director. Brett first served on NCECA's board as an onsite liaison for the 51st annual conference held in Portland, Oregon in 2017 and is currently serving as the exhibitions director.

Currently a Lecturer in the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota where she teaches art history and theory, Carpenter holds a BA in English from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, MA in art history from the University of Minnesota, and M.Phil. in art history from the City University of New York Graduate Center (CUNY).