Well hello November

Mid terms have come and gone and new work has been made!   It's been a very productive semester so far and a lot of progress has been made with my installation work.  I have been honing in on my content and working on how my intuitive way of piecing together my installations work with the ideas and questions I'm concerned with in my work.


Memory and how it is pieced together after many days, weeks, or years and all of the factors that go into the remembering is an interesting notion.  As I make my ceramic objects and am collecting the parts and pieces that eventually will become my installations, there is a slowness and consideration that goes along with this part of my process.  This slowness is then in contrast to the faster pace of assembling these objects together based on my own intuitive considerations.  I am interested in the tension that happens with this time component, as well as the various formal aspects of placement and the relationship these situations have to the space.  The ambiguity of my objects placed in context with the found objects that have a somewhat recognizable reference creates a feeling of familiarity.  Yet there are open-ended questions that is left in the space.  Just as my memory is constantly being shifted and changed due to my emotions and experiences I am collecting, my pieces are left a little unanswered and continue to form inquiries and questions.

Wall Study 1

Wall Study 2

Wall Study 3

Let's start here and then go way up over there

Let's start here and then go way up over there

Can we just get through this? 

Can we just get through this?

You think that this is comfortable over here?  

Just, just place it riiiiiiight there

This really is an invitation

Here's to a successful and delightful summer

Wowie!  I can't believe I'm starting my second year as a grad student at the U.  This past summer was wonderful as I was able to travel, get into my studio, and meet some wonderful artists down in North Carolina.  I ended my spring semester making large scale installations and had made significant progress on my conceptual ideas that drive my work.

Starting off the summer I took a very refreshing trip to the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota.  It was nice to be completely detached from the world and get some time to reflect on this past year.  It was a pretty special experience.  I also took a camping trip up near Bayfield, Wisconsin; a small town right on Lake Superior with Sea Caves that you can hike near or take a kayak to see.

Double Rainbow over Duncan Lake

Bayfield, Wisconsin

Back in the studio I wanted to get back to the wheel and take a break from the conceptual ideas.  I also had a large dinner set commission that I had through Crimson Laurel Gallery.  It was a challenge but a very good experience.  It felt great to be able to deliver it to the gallery and hear that the customers that received it were very happy with their set!  Here's two settings from that dinner set. 

Two dinnerware sets

Along side making the dinnerware set, I was also investigating new processes and surface decorations on my pots.  I feel that as my ideas progress in my drawings and installation work, my pots also need to go through the aesthetic changes that are happening in my studio.  Here are a few pieces I was excited about from this summer.  I am in particular excited about my plates.  I feel there is a connection between them and the drawings that I am doing in my studio.  I will post new drawing images hopefully soon!

Tray with three cups

Small Plate

Two Bowls

Magical Penland

In August I went to Penland and had an incredible experience there working among new and old friends and many talented artist.  I was an assistant to Tetsuya Yamada (one of my professors at the University of Minnesota) along side Brandi Jessup who is on her way to a residency in Taos, New Mexico.  At the same time as Tetsuya's class, Andy Shaw was teaching a session on tableware.  It was interesting to see the two classes themes working side by side (Object and Context vs. Tableware).   It was so great to see Bailey Arend and Angela Eastman and see what they were working on in their studios as well.  As well as seeing old friends, I also met Christina Cordova and Michael Kline and saw their fabulous studios for the first time.  Their studios and homes are right near (or close to) the Penland campus and it seems like such a wonderful dream set up.  

It was a crazy and amazing experience making new work, firing kilns, running the back roads around campus, meeting new people, and enjoying the nature that Western North Carolina has to offer.  It was kind of a life changing experience for me.  While I was there I wanted to get back into hand building and start my thought processes again on the ideas I ended last semester with.  Here is an installation I did with work that I made while I was there in the Dye Shed.  Doing this quick project got me thinking about going into more specific spaces with my work and installing my objects around what the building has to offer. 

Dye shed installation

Coming back to Minnesota all of the Grad students in the program are part of  show called Fresh Works.  I decided to take some of the same forms from the Dye shed installation and see how they could be fit into an entirely different space.

Fresh Works Installation

Bedfellow's Club Piece

Another small project and exhibit I'm a part of is the Bedfellow's Club.  Jess Hirsch (a recent MFA grad from the art department)  has taken work from artists in the Minneapolis area and have arranged the work in someone's living space.  I think the project is an exciting way to reach out to people and show them how art can be incorporated into your home life and how that may change your experience within the comforts of your own domestic space.  

And finally, I am starting this semester off taking an advanced drawing class working with Matthew Zefeldt.  I'm super excited to be in a class that is allowing me time to focus on my drawings.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this will be influencing my installations.  I am also a Teacher's Assistant for the one of the new faculty Natalie Tornatore who is the sabbatical replacement for Tom Lane this year.  It's great to be working with her and having her around the studio!  

Thanks for reading and hopefully my next post will be sooner than later!   

Year one complete!

Hello summer and hello sunshine!  This year has been a transformative year for me and my work.  I've been drawing, painting, throwing, hand building, using the wood shop, and creating installations.  

This past semester I also took a class called Theoretical Constructions of Space which was perfect timing for my transition into sculptural work.  The class helped me get to the core of my influences and solidify my ideas more thoroughly.  Here is an excerpt from a paper I wrote for the class about my installations.

"I have created a library of images in architectural references that become transformed into abstract shapes after various drawings and hand building parts of the drawings.  These shapes and structures are then assembled to create small installations that incorporate multiple mediums of various parts completing a sort of new space.   In my piece Come with me back to this place a relationship forms between the objects in the space forming a dialogue in memory and a narrative from past experiences.  There are implications of structures and perspective with in the shapes even though there are pictorial qualities that I examine.  There is a bodily engagement between the larger structures and the smaller, flatter objects on the wall forcing you to question where this space may exist and from where it came.   Leaving this uncertainty in my work leaves room for wonder and exploration."  

Carry me up and over the blue 

That's right, down over there

Here we go all the way to over here

Come with me back to this place

The first two images are from mid semester for my first year review (which went great!) and the last two images are from the end of the semester.  I'm excited for the movement my work has taken in just a year.  It gets me excited to see what will come out of the next two years here at the U now that I'm settled into TAing and my studio space.  Thank goodness for this 3 year program!

After the semester though, all I wanted to do was get back to the wheel!  So while working on a commission I'm going to be exploring new vessels and giving my conceptual ideas a rest for a little bit.  Here's a shot of a commission in progress!  

I was also lucky to be invited into the Yunomi show at AKAR in April!  It was a fantastic show with many other lovely artists!  This summer I'll be TAing for a summer class at the University as well as assisting Tetsuya Yamada in Penland in August which I am very excited about.  I'll be heading down a few days early for the exciting yearly Penland Auction!   Can't wait to hang out with my friends and fellow artists Bailey Arend and Angela Eastman.  And I can't complain about being in the hills of North Carolina again!  

Hope everyone is having a cool and wonderful summer!  

Grad school kinda takes over your life

Hello from Minneapolis everyone.  It's been quite a while, but don't worry, much has been progressing and moving along in the studio.

I moved into my beautiful studio at the U of M at the end of August and got things moving quite quickly.  I've been throwing, hand building, altering thrown pieces, drawing, painting, and trying to combine a lot of those elements together.  It's been exciting having this time to experiment and see what comes from letting go of self constraints I had.  It's been such a wonderful group of ceramic grads to work among along with the other graduate students in the program.  It's been a very supportive atmosphere to work in.  It is such a necessary thing for me to have in a studio practice, especially during big transition times.

I have been thinking a lot about the idea of space and place and how these two inform my work.  I know that's pretty vague but I'm still trying to solidify in what ways they are inspiring me and moving me to develop my work to what it is becoming.  It's a pretty exciting place to be actually.  But for now, here are some pots I've made and some in progress thoughts and ideas in the form of "constructions".

Farewell Asheville

Happy summer everyone!  Sorry for the delayed posting of new work and updates on where my work has taken me.  Here's a few places I've been since I last posted!

Asheville Mountains

Magic Waterfall in NC

Wisconsin

Rollins Pond Campground, NY

Industrial Shapes in the Adirondacks

Since the Containment show, I have been busy filling some commission orders, making work for shows, and finishing up my last pieces at Odyssey.  My two years at Odyssey Ceramic Center was up in mid-June (and I can't believe how fast these past two years have gone!).  I am very grateful for the wonderful connections I have made at not just Odyssey but also by being in Western North Carolina.  From being a part of the River Arts District and Crimson Laurel Gallery, to having Penland and many talented ceramic artists in the area to visit, I was fortunate to have a plethora of inspirational people close by to meet.

I was very fortunate to have worked with many other resident artists while I was at Odyssey.  The residents that were there when I first started at the residency were Patty Bilbro, Beth Bond, Alex Irvine, Leslie Hinton, Amanda Humphreys.  It was a great group of artists to join first arriving in Asheville.  They are all very talented ceramic artists that I enjoyed working with for the few months that our time overlapped!

After the above artists' 2 years were up at Odyssey, I had the pleasure of getting to know and work with five more talented ceramic artists.  This past year, Bailey Arend, Mellie Mae Lonnemann, Elaine Buss, Ashley Roberts, and Andrew Massey have been a great crew of residents to work with.  We challenged and supported each other in our work and came together as residents to help the Odyssey program in many ways.  Big thanks to all of them for being such great studio mates and friends!  Here are some images of work that I completed my last few months in Asheville.

Flask and Cup set

Three Flasks

Scalloped stacked bowls

Casserole Jar

Back side of Plate

Four Plates

Mugs

New mixed media work

At the end of June I packed up my cozy studio along with my house, stored it all in a u-box to be shipped up to Minneapolis which is awaiting my arrival in early August, and said good bye to the lovely and beautiful home Asheville has been for the past two years.  What a crazy hectic month June was!  Now, I get to have some relaxation and time with family and friends before my adventure of  being a graduate student starts!

Containment lll

Just a quick update!  I am in a show at Crimson Laurel in Bakersville, NC called Containment lll.   The opening is tonight, May 5th from 6-9.  The show will be up and on their website until June 29th.  It will be a great show!  If you're in the area you should take the drive to go check it out.  Here's one of my pieces that made it into the show!

April News

Hello once again!  It's been a busy few weeks traveling around the country and getting work done at the studio.  At least trying to!

At the end of March I traveled to my soon to be new home in Minneapolis, MN.  I'm excited to say that I will be a Ceramic Graduate student at the University of Minnesota this coming fall!  It was a great visit and proved to be a great program to become a part of.  While I was there I was walking around campus and realized that one of the architects that I have admired for many years had built the University Art Museum.  It was a pretty surprising and influential moment for me.  Here's the museum that Frank Gehry built.

With not much of a break after that trip I was then off to Seattle for the NCECA conference!  It was a great time meeting up with some friends and helping out at the artstream.  It was a pretty great experience meeting some influential and established artists like Alleghany Meadows and Sam Harvey.  

While there I also saw some pretty wonderful exhibits.  It was definitely a stimulating experience seeing all of the magnificent work there in such a short period of time.  Here are some of my favorite images from just a few of the shows I went to.  

Mathew McConnell 

Lee Somers

Andrew Casto

Richard Serra (close up)

At the end of Andrew Casto's statement about his recent body of work, he wrote in reference to some subtle gold luster details that it "suggests that additions of emotional weight in our lives can serve as creative opportunities for refinement and purification, rather than functioning as tools of our undoing."   

I feel that that is a huge thing to remember about art making.  Artists are in a lucky field to use that possible emotional stress to our advantage.  That is probably a quote worth hanging in my studio to remind myself of the purification qualities of my practice.  

I will hopefully post some new work in the coming weeks!  

Thanks for reading!