by Carole Epp | Oct 5, 2022 | Uncategorized
Throughout our forty year history, we have used multi-artist survey exhibitions as a platform to explore social issues. We’ve focused on gender and feminist perspectives, broached relationship taboos, and challenged historical notions of ceramics and art. Last summer we partnered with Heller Gallery to present MELTING POINT as a way to use the mediums of ceramic and glass to address issues surrounding climate change. Now, it is time to turn our lens on the racist representations in mass market ceramics.
Our America, Whose America will present a dialogue between contemporary artists and a collection of commercially produced ceramics. This collection of historical objects, collected across the span of several years by Founding Director Leslie Ferrin, are in the form of plates, souvenirs, and figurines from the early 19th through mid-20th centuries. The items were produced in England, Occupied Japan, and various factories in the USA. The exhibition title was chosen from a series of plates produced by Vernon Kiln that features illustrations of American scenes by the painter Rockwell Kent.
In response to this historical collection, contemporary works by nearly 30 participating artists will provide new context and interpretation of these profoundly powerful objects. Seen now, decades and in some cases centuries later, the narratives they deliver through image, characterization, and stereotype, whether overt and bombastic or subtle and cunning, form a collective memory that continues to impact the way people see themselves and others today.
The contemporary artists we’ve invited use their work to assert their autonomy and subjectivity by presenting intertwined cultural critiques through lenses of their own choosing, starting with race, gender, and class. Each of these categories is tentacular and touch upon myriad other ideas including nature, warfare, food and water inequity, and more.
Visit Ferrin Contemporary online for more.
by Carole Epp | Mar 8, 2018 | Uncategorized
(in)Visible is a show by the group “We Are Not Invisible,” a community of artists hoping to break the silence within our world, in particular the clay community, and engage in honest discussions and education about sensitive and often taboo topics, beginning with an exhibition during the 2018 NCECA (National Council on Education in Ceramic Arts) conference in Pittsburgh PA.
Our Statement – As the 2016 election year and beyond have highlighted, deep currents of belief, experience, and culture divide our world. This exhibition highlights female and gender non-binary artists working in ceramics, who in some way feel invisible to the dominant culture. These artists represent a marginalized group in the field, often unrecognized and belonging to specific groups of race, gender, culture, religion, and/or physical and mental illnesses (commonly termed as “invisible”). For each of us, art is our voice and our way to make seen and heard what we are all too often told to keep silent about.
What We’re Doing – (in)Visible is not simply a show. As part of NCECA 2018 we will be represented on two panel discussions, and have both Facebook and Instagram pages that feature artists from all media and genres beyond the original group in an effort to bring even more voices to the conversation.
The Show: NCECA 2018 Concurrent Exhibition: (in)Visible
Location: Braddock Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
February 2- March 17, 2018
reception March 16, 5-9pm
Braddock Carnegie Library 419 Library St, Braddock PA
hours: T — Th 11-8, M, F 10-5, Sat 9-4
The Panels: NCECA 2018
Thursday March 15, 1:15pm-2:45pm Spirit of Pittsburgh Ballroom A. PANEL: THE ART OF OTHERNESS, Moderaator: Courtney Leonard Panelists: Habiba El-Sayed, Mac McCusker, Raven Halfmoon. The Art of Otherness features the experiences of ceramic artists who face challenges of belonging to a marginalized culture through ethnicity, religion and gender identity. This panel seeks to challenge diversity, and offer real solutions in tackling cultural invisibility in the ceramic community.
Thursday March 15, 4:00pm-5:00pm 301-303. PANEL: UNSPOKEN, UNSEEN: INVISIBLE, Moderator: Sarah Jewell Olsen Panelists: Sara Morales-Morgan, Jamie Bates Slone, Ashleigh Christelis. Being a working artist is difficult enough without facing the social and personal obstacles of a mental or physical illness. This panel aims to end the stigma and silence and start a conversation about mental and physical health with the artistic community, out of the shadows of invisibility.
T-shirt’s! We have T-shirt’s! Thingsmadegood.threadless.com is helping us out with the design (above) and the shop.
Website: www.wearentinvisible.org
Instagram: @wearentinvisible
