by Carole Epp | Aug 6, 2016 | call for entry, emerging artist, job posting, monday morning eye candy, movie day, residency opportunity, technical tuesday
Artist Statement:
My current body of work entitled Seven-Sevenfold, focuses on the rocky relationship I’ve built with religion as a means of identity. In constructing a narrative of my life in the Catholic Church as a bleak landscape, I have situated isolated ceramic pieces with desolate ink drawings. My use of clay references the convention of creation myths, such as God creating man from dirt in Genesis 2:7. In this way I act as creator to my own abominations.
My whole life has revolved around storytelling. My favorite stories were alwaysthe ones that were about society and the leaders of society. Stories that have a utopian society broken by a character revealing it as dystopia: such as Ayn Rand’s Anthem and Lois Lowry’s The Giver, even The Bible. I look to these books with a critical eye and place them in the context of my own life to inspire my art, my aesthetics, and my morality. Through these books I’ve learned what it means to find the idea of ‘self’, what it means to experience, and what it means to love.
In the same way storytelling is rooted in folk tradition, I approach my artwork as an adaptation of traditional folk ceramics. I create figures in a gestural way, leaving the mark of my hand and using a loose-hand built method of construction. When thinking of a composition I pull influence from the Muromachi period of Japanese Suibokuga. The loose and gestural scroll drawings provide a much-needed harmony to the rough material and surfaces of the ceramic pieces.
For guidance in the creation of Seven-Sevenfold, I investigated the number seven and its prominence in The Bible. This body of work features seven landscapes to represent a dystopian viewing of the utopia given to the Israelites after the 40 years of wandering mentioned in Deuteronomy; mirrored in this relationship between the abominations and the alien desert landscapes that I created.
Through the lens of the Catholic Church I am that abomination; set out on my journey through the desert to find my utopia, whether or not it exists.
by Carole Epp | Jun 13, 2016 | call for entry, emerging artist, job posting, monday morning eye candy, movie day, residency opportunity, technical tuesday
Growing up in the suburbs, I saw the effects of the sprawling suburban landscape; I observed a shift from open and natural spaces to engineered environments. Land, which I once knew as forest, a place for retreat from the fenced in backyard was transformed into subdivisions, parking lots, and infrastructure. This observation raises the question: How has the perception our natural world shifted? I marvel at the beauty of the natural landscape and feel compelled share my viewpoint on issues regarding overdevelopment through my ceramics and mixed media sculptures. In using these materials there is duality in the origins of the material and content, and through them I build artificial versions of already artificial landscape.
With the end of WWII, 1950’s suburban dreams littered the surface of American communities in the form of small, quaint, and well-made houses. Ensuing generations expanded upon the aura of the “American Dream” on a much larger scale. Rapidly the market desired newer and bigger, creating an unstable infrastructure and housing with ephemeral qualities. This development deplete farmland and forests vital to the both natural world and human existence.
Along with these expanding communities, it has become necessary to carve out additional highways for transportation. The stretch of winding access roads and ramps connect suburbs with metropolitan hubs. At the same time creating divisions, effectively carving up the parts of daily life into drive-only destinations: work, home, school, shopping. These highways with their advertisements lure residents to the next current consumerist American lifestyle. A balancing act is created within an already delicate system of nature, causing the network to degrade and expose the complex issues of the substructure.
www.stephaniedukat.com
Instagram- @sdukat
by Carole Epp | Jun 9, 2016 | call for entry, emerging artist, job posting, monday morning eye candy, movie day, residency opportunity, technical tuesday
This international event is scheduled for September 1 – October 2 in
the historic City of Auburn located in the California, Sierra Nevada
foothills, heart of Gold Country.
This juried clay show celebrates visionary artists from around the
world with only 100 entries allowed in the Exposition. Online
applications will be accepted beginning April 1, 2016.
More than $25,000 in cash prizes and awards will be offered to the winning entries. The Exposition will be judged by Susannah Israel, the only American to win the New Zealand Fletcher Challenge.
This Exposition is held in conjunction with a Throw-a-Thon, exciting
workshops and a Street Fair (organized by General Gomez Gallery and the
ClayArts Studio). The exposition features a grand finale Beer &
Brats Fete, complete with local beer, food, music and commemorative beer
stein.
The North American Clay Challenge is offering $25,000
in cash prize money and purchase awards. 2016 is our inaugural year,
the not so modest beginnings of many more years to come for the North American Clay Challenge.
We started with an idea for a two-day clay throw-a-thon, and soon our
enthusiasm heightened and our ideas propagated more ideas, and the North American Clay Challenge was born.
One goal early on, was to join the ranks of Auburn’s many prestigious
events. In keeping with the true “Auburn, Endurance Capital of the
World” spirit, we soon realized that what was needed was not simply a
single clay event, but a month long, pull out all the stops,
International Clay Challenge!
With the expertise of clay artists Larry Ortiz and Ray Gonzales, we
soon had internationally known artist Susannah Israel on board as juror
for the show. The Clay Challenge exhibit will be located in the General Gomez Arts building at 808 Lincoln Way in Auburn, California, USA.
The exposition includes challenges in the following four categories:
Figure Sculpture, Sculpture, Functional (Thrown), and Tile/Wall Hanging.
September begins with an exclusive invitational VIP reception, followed
workshops, the clay throw-a-thon, the General reception along with a
street fair with demonstrations, live music, and vendors.
October 1st wraps up the month with a Beer and Brats festival.
TAKE THE CHALLENGE!
www.northamericanclaychallenge.com/entry_page/
by Carole Epp | Jun 1, 2016 | call for entry, emerging artist, job posting, monday morning eye candy, movie day, residency opportunity, technical tuesday
by Carole Epp | May 27, 2016 | Uncategorized
Northern
Clay Center is pleased to announce the recipients of the Jerome Ceramic
Artist of Color Residency, Anonymous Artist Studio Fellowships, and
Fogelberg Studio Fellowships; Ellie Bryan (Minneapolis, MN), Valerie
Ling (Valley Stream, NY), Lily Fein (Syracuse, NY), Gillian Doty
(Portland, ME), and Gregory Palombo (Alfred, NY). The new residents will
join Northern Clay Center in September. The work produced during these
yearlong residencies will be on display in a group exhibition that will
take place in January 2018, at Northern Clay Center.
Ellie
Bryan, awarded the inaugural Jerome Ceramic Artist of Color Residency,
will spend her residency exploring soda and wood-firing techniques.
Bryan is interested in incorporating ideas of animism, ancestry, and
tradition in her work. This residency allows artists a unique
flexibility and will give Bryan an opportunity to focus on her
development as a ceramicist, rather than produce work with a
sales-driven focus. In a recent interview, Bryan shared her interest in
animals and their place in her work, “I
believe that the animals around us—found either in their natural
habitat or in the new habitats we, as humans, have created for
ourselves—have stories to tell us. They are messengers and harbingers of
the old and new. As spiritual beings, animals have a connection with
the earth that we once held, but must now struggle to rekindle. I
interpret these beliefs by creating imagery on pots that embody these
messages to forge a unity that is so often lost between creature and
place.”
Anonymous
Artist Studio Fellow, Valerie Ling employs bright colors and absurd
imagery to explore her interest in the worry-free imagination of
children. Ling expresses hope for her work to, “bridge the world of pure
imagination to the reality of adulthood”. She seeks to capture the
innocent, limitless possibilities we experience as children and
challenges viewers to allow themselves to be free-spirited creators. Her
intricate sculptural pieces evoke the purity of childhood joy and
expose her observations about how we, “learn to grow fearful of things
and [become] self-conscious of our silly ideas and behaviors”. With the
resources at NCC, Ling hopes to experiment with larger-scale sculptures,
while further challenging the boundaries of absurdity.
Joining
NCC from Syracuse, NY, Lily Fein intends to spend her year as Anonymous
Artist Studio Fellow immersed in sculptural vessels that she believes,
“speak to intimacy in human relationships and with the hand.” Fein
states, “I want to facilitate experiences like these where touch
permeates the mundane.” Fein’s work is significantly shaped by the
awareness of touch and communicates this with thoughtful texture and
decisive forms. With a background in Art and Ceramics History, Fein
approaches her ceramic work with a strong academic intent informed also
by her writing practice and voracious reading.
Gillan
Doty’s existing affiliation with atmospheric firing practices will be
further explored during his year in residence as Fogelberg Studio
Fellow. Doty’s work offers an array of colors that call attention to his
bold geometric and ovoid forms. Interested in concepts of weight,
visual mass, simplicity, and fluidity of line, Doty creates both
handbuilt and wheel-thrown functional pieces. He states, “These pots are
cut, shaved, slapped, scratched and molded into a finished form.” His
variety in process is reflected in his diverse yet intensely cohesive
work. Currently based in Portland, Maine, Doty is looking forward to
experiencing the rich history of studio ceramics in the Midwest.
Fogelberg
Studio Fellow, Gregory Palombo will join Northern Clay Center from
Alfred, New York, where he is currently finishing a BFA program at New
York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Song Dynasty
Qingbai-ware inspires his material choices and both the Bauhaus movement
and architect Adolf Loos have influenced his focus on functionality.
Palombo’s volumetric forms often appear to be swelling; imitating flower
buds or balloons. During his residency, Palombo is looking forward to
making use of NCC’s extensive ceramics library and said of his research
process, “I look at
history and if I find something appealing I try integrate it into my
work, most of the time this integration is slow and full of failures so
it takes some time and studio research to flush things out in a
satisfactory way.”
Northern
Clay Center provides resources and a space for ceramicists to further
their practice. Northern Clay Center is looking forward to welcoming these five artists into this diverse and rich community of makers.
www.northernclaycenter.org
