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2013 CERAMICS COMMENCEMENT EXHIBITION
All the best, Mat Z. Karas
“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Ceramics holds a uniquely interlaced position in the arts, as a hub of
political, cultural, socioeconomic information. And because ceramics
(pottery, architectural ceramics, burial figurines, etcetera...) last so long
in the ground, ceramic objects have endured time and helped form a
foundation upon which our understanding of past civilizations is rooted.
Without ceramics, a substantial portion of our record of history would be
missing.
Even though we have been using ceramics for thousands of years, clay
continues to be a challenge to the novice user. It is a challenge of skill
in dexterity, engineering, chemistry, and tooling; and it still requires an
understanding of color, form, and composition. It even adds a few more
criteria; use, ergonomics and durability, to name only a few. Clearly,
ceramics is a challenging medium from which to study the visual arts,
and thus, I think it follows that it is also a very rewarding place from
which to study the visual arts, and the world around us.
Students at M.I.C.A. are constantly experimenting; the kilns are firing all
through the semester, and the studio is busy mixing, pressing, casting,
extruding, pinching, cutting, scraping and glazing. Students are trained
in ancient techniques, and cutting edge technologies, invariably making
a contribution to the field of ceramics. This catalog documents the
contributions made by 16 M.I.C.A. graduates working in clay. It has been
a privilege for me to exchange ideas with these fine young artists, and I
look forward to more work from them in the future.
It has been a pleasure,
David S. East
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.”
― Chuck Close
Art is honestly a lot of labor (I prefer “labor” to “work” as its more
associated with “joy”), and ceramics in particular is more than most…
labor that is. To take on this challenge, the challenge of asking “What is
art now; what is ceramics now?” is the incredible task that young artists
set out for themselves. Clay is contradictory, complex and compelling;
clay is more things than it isn’t, and as a teacher and an artist this
makes my job more interesting than most. In all honesty, I learn more
from my students than they could learn from me. My only hope is that
I can facilitate a group to come together as a community dedicated to
the value of learning for learning’s sake, to asking what else can be, to
embracing failure and fear. My hope is that I can be a guide. The rest is
up to the students and these young artists have risen to this challenge
with conviction.
The art of the 20th century arguably could be said to be bookmarked
between two artists using ceramics, between Marcel Duchamp’s
“Fountain” and Ai Weiwei’s “Dropping the Urn”. The question then is, what
is ceramics in the 21st century? Surely it is these 16 young artists that
make up the class of 2013 that will be the ones to answer this question.
As a teacher (one who has been truly honored to work with all of these
young artists) I can’t help but give a bit more advice….
Make up your own rules, and of course,
Make Good Art.
Red DirtBy Margaret Boozer
I’m from Alabama. There’s red dirt everywhere down there. It didn’t
impress me too much when I lived there. Mostly, it was something I tried
not to track on my mom’s carpet. I went to graduate school in New York,
then moved to DC and set up my studio just over the line in Maryland.
When I went back for visits, the pervasive red glow of the Alabama
landscape started to take on some significance. It became special in its
remoteness and emblematic of home.
In the early days of my studio practice here, I had a lot of time to sit,
sketch and think about what to make. One crisp March day, looking
out the back door of my studio, I noticed the red bank leading up to
the railroad tracks. I had looked out that door for years, but suddenly
I realized that it must be clay. I grabbed my shovel and began chipping
away at the cold, hard surface. Deeper down, it was soft and moist. My
shovel began to stick. The consistency felt very tight and dense against
the blade. I broke off a chunk. It had an intense red color that stained my
hands. I tasted a little bit…a strong taste of iron, and a smooth texture
with no sand at all. I went back for buckets. I dug four or five buckets full
and lugged them back to the studio, where I just sat and admired my haul.
Free material, right out my back door… how awesome!
I’m more of a sculptor than a potter, but this beautiful clay made me drag
out my wheel. Throwing reveals the plastic qualities of clay like nothing
else. You can feel it reach the edge of its structural capacity, in real time,
right in your hands.
The walls of the bowl stretched and thinned easily with the pressure of
my fingertips. The occasional rock meant I couldn’t squeeze too tightly,
and I couldn’t spend too much time fussing over the form. This clay
demanded a light touch: get in and get out. The result was delicate, yet
casual and gestural. Pretty nice. I worked through the clay I had wedged
and made a lovely set of 8 bowls.
I still felt a restlessness to play with this material, to do something else. I
wanted it to reflect back to me something about that red expanse of bank,
something about digging, something about the ground. I got out the drill,
added some water, and mixed up a bucket of slip. I made a frame on the
floor and poured the slip into it, admiring the red puddle as it advanced
and covered the concrete. It made such a beautiful, pristine field that I
felt compelled to drop the bowls into it. What a satisfying splat!
Over the next few days, I watched the clay. The slip puddle in the frame
began to dry. The bowls began to break down and dissolve into the slip,
and the slip, shrinking beyond the tension of its taught surface, began to
crack into a pattern influenced by the bowls.
Edges curling, it was becoming a sort of clay painting, manifesting two
entirely different modes of clay work coming together in one piece. On
one end of the spectrum was the articulated pot—conceived, executed,
handled. On the other end was the untouched puddle of slip. And there
was the intersection.
Looking back, making this small piece set into motion some methods
of working that have become central to my studio practice. Instead of
choosing clay for its particular attributes, I began to work in reverse. I’d
find clay, then find out what it was good at, allowing the clay’s behavior
to suggest my approach in making the work. The experimenting became
essential to the process, and I began to think of my work as part art and
part science project.
And I began to claim this red clay as something that was mine. It’s about
where I came from, but it’s also about where I am. What’s in my own
backyard, what’s available, what’s under my feet that I might walk over
without noticing. Hamada said that if you find good clay, you should move
there. I didn’t know I was looking for it, but I’m glad I paid attention when
it found me.
ALI YOUNG
ANNA qUEEN
CAITLIN kENNEDY
CASSIS PITMAN
DEvYN bRIGGS
EDEN HOvENGA
EMILEE WOOTEN
GREG bROADWELL
MACkENzIE WENDLER
MOREL DOUCET
MORGAN bOLT
OLIvIA DIbENIGNO
SARAH OLMSTED
SHELSEA DODD
THERESA bORRUSSO
TOM DOYLE
FEATURED ARTISTS
#CULTURECeramics & Peruvian Walnut
2012 - 2013
AlI YoUng
I am interested in how different cultures have utilized majolica, a
low-fired ceramic glaze, to replicate high-fired Chinese porcelain.
In the attempt to replicate the Chinese aesthetic, each culture
developed their own unique ceramic tradition with a distinct variety
of surface ornamentation. My artwork is a direct response to the
rich history of diverse cultural traditions that form majolica’s past.
The variety of ornamental aesthetics informs how I employ narrative
imagery on ceramic objects as a vehicle for social satire.
A System and its FunctionsSlipcast Porcelain, PlywoodDimensions varied2013
FoldSlipcast Porcelain, PlywoodDimensions varied2012
Roth/Co.Fluorescent Light, Paper, Frosted Duralar Extension Cord8’ x 4’ x 1’2013
AnnA QUEEn
When individual parts of a system of objects interact, new qualities
emerge that were not present before. These relationships create
a spatial model that is deliberately constructed. A situation is
constructed in which perception and awareness of one’s surroundings
is heightened. by having a constructed order and deliberate function,
each part of the system informs another. The reduction of form in
each object creates a highly considered space that references the
environment in which it exists, both physically and conceptually. This
temporary environment created from an arrangement of objects and
the space around them functions to leave the viewer with a new frame
of reference. The perceptual shift manifests itself in adjustments of
scale, proportion, light, line, and color. A varying focus is placed on
each of these aspects. Repetitions of form and line create a lineage
from one object to the next, thus reinforcing each form’s primary
conceptual function. Through this situation, a logical group of
references is created within each individual piece, each building on
another within the system.
CAITlIn KEnnEDY
On the precipice of adulthood, I’ve come to see the labor inherent
in a ceramic practice as a manifestation of budding self-sufficiency.
The skill necessary to throw a twenty pound bowl was not given to
me, but earned and honed through countless hours of hard work
and many failures. Still, there is something intensely satisfying
about making useful objects. It is a kind of exercise in potential: the
potential to edge a small part of myself into some small gap in the
life of a stranger, perhaps a gap of which they were not consciously
aware; the potential to make something that is perfectly suited to
a particular task; the potential to create something which will be
loved for the duration of its existence. I want to make objects that
can become fully enmeshed in the lives of others, as only utilitarian
objects can. In the way that, throughout my life, I cast layers of
significance onto my bedpost finials, I want objects that can act as
a sort of neutral ground for the personal narrative of their end user.
While it is possible to pin down and enclose meaning in very overt
texts applied to the surfaces of vessels, I am more interested in
supplying the blank page.
Craft was Created^6 Porcelain18” x 18” x 3”2013
Text About Adulthood^10 Porcelaineous Stoneware, vinylDimensions variable, 2013
CASSIS PITMAn
My heart breaks when I think about the children being sold for sex. I
am saddened when I hear about the horrors slaves face at the hands of
their oppressors. but more than just having those feelings I have a drive
to do something about it. There is corruption and evil in this world and I
want to do what I can to help its victims.. The boys in china being forced
to work in a brick factory, tending the kiln fires for almost twenty four
hours with no rest and the children in Uganda kidnapped, brainwashed,
forced to serve in a war they barely understand. I think about the girls
being forced to sell their bodies and I know that rescuing them will be
a big part of my life. I choose to stand with those who are enslaved and
call attention to their sufferings.
As David batstone of “NotForSale” once wrote
“No longer can we stand by as 30 million people are enslaved.
It is no longer enough to think about change.
It is no longer enough to talk about change.
It is time to shift gears — marrying movement with intelligent action
Our collective challenge is simple: Stand with those who are enslaved,
work together to free them, and empower them in their freedom to break
the cycle of vulnerability”
This is my calling and my life. As an abolitionist my activism
encompasses all forms of trafficking. but sex trafficking is where my
passion truly lies. In the future I would like to do some specific work with
those victims.
“You may choose to look the other way but you can never again say that
you did not know.”
-William Wilberforce
12 hours ( Detail )Mixed clay bodies
8’ x 16’ x 2” 2012 - 2013
Earthenware VesselsCeramic23” x 18” x 18”- 3” x 5” x 5”2013
ReverberationsAcrylic on canvas
6’ x 5’ 2013
DEVYn lEonoR BRIggS
The art I make is simply my means of reciprocating the joy and
beauty I am continually blessed to experience. It is birthed from
the desire to both show gratitude and share those things in my life
that fascinate me, amaze me, comfort me, and sustain me. It’s a
celebration of a faith, a heritage, a people, and a home from which I
have grown and continue to draw nourishment. Through the colors
of my culture, the textures of our homes, and the stories of my faith,
I create work with a personal vocabulary that describes my personal
experience. I work with both paint and clay, allowing the artistic
and material histories of Latin American and African cultures to
inspire the language with which I speak. My contemplations and
explorations remain the same whether I am working in paint or
ceramic. My strategies are consistent. I find those things in the world
that excite me and resonate in me and use that inspiration to create
beautiful objects with which I can give thanks and glory to God.
My paintings are often narrative or allegorical, reflecting on subjects
of faith, culture, community, and family. built up with layers of
acrylic paint, the pieces are vibrant in color and texture, yet they
maintain a sense of serenity with a hint of the sacred. Much like the
stained glass in a church, they invite contemplation and spiritual
reflection. The ceramic work is a fusion of traditional materials and
contemporary exploration. The vessels function in the same way the
figures do in the paintings. They are the metaphor for humanity, the
body and the spirit. Naked or adorned, broken or whole, empty or
full—these vessels explore humanity’s beauty and imperfection, its
fragility and strength, its humility and its pride. They reveal the will
and hand of the maker in the same way that creation reveals the will
and hand of the Creator.
Beaded VesselsCeramic, Wire, beads,8.5” x 8” x 8” & 9” x 14” x 14”2013
There Is a Storm In the Pit of My Stomach (Where Are the Elysian Fields) I & II (Detail)Driftwood, Porcelain, Mason stains, Rebar
3’ x 7’ x 6” & 4’ x 7’ x 8”2013
EDEn SIERRA HoVEngA
The maker in the studio with porcelain - rolling, coiling, pressing
in an attempt to create. The maker in the woods with a camera,
each photo a piece of a story, a piece of my perception. A vision
captured as quickly as a breath. Inhaled and then exhaled. The
maker whispering new stories, showing new ways. Manipulating
and mimicking the world - to capture, to record. Each knot and each
flower is its own, perpetually fading in and out of focus. How long
does it take for a flower to become?
How long does it take for a tree to fall?
How long does it take the maker to create her own world, to fell a
tree, to tell a story?
How sudden is the growth of a new world - a world of clay, of earth?
My world. My earth. My fingerprints pressed into each tile, each
photograph, each flower.
I make to dissolve the distance between the noumenal and the
phenomenal, to return to a naïve state of ebb and flow. Inside and
outside, real and imagined intermingle.
Each piece is a fervent pursuit to recover a moment that may no
longer exist.
If You Stand In Just the Right Place, You Can Hear the Water Humble the Earth. If You Stand Long Enough, You Can Feel the Mud Between Your Toes #2 & #20Porcelain, Enamel transfers, Lustre4” x 6” x 1” 2013
TwayStoneware, Acrylic paint, Wax
25” x 36” x 25”2013
SanjiStoneware, Acrylic paint
28” x 16.5” x 15.5”2012
EMIlEE WooTEn
I propose an investigation of corporeality in junction to selfhood. It is
worthwhile to investigate the different modes of identity, especially
the lives of anomalous people. To delve into the complexities of human
identity and its relationship to body image, one can begin to take a grasp
about the idea of bodily difference as an inherent part of our corporeal
and mental constitution. There is something to be said about provoking
consciousness of identity as well as restoring a sense of honor to the
representation of bodies of difference. Identity is fragile in nature; it
is neither given nor entitled. It is an entity that is built from the time of
birth to death. There is an emphasis placed on the separation between
our physicality and that of our self but we cannot exclude the flesh we
inhabit from the creation and sustainability of identity. The reason some
people feel unease at the sight of deformity is because the individual
does not know how to identify with the bodily image of an anomalous
person. With relative confidence one can say that “identity” is present in
the argument where the individual’s ideas of “normative self” are called
into question. . The ignorance exemplified in such terms is a failure to
investigate the modes of identity. People who live with extraordinary
corporeal realities are in their own eyes presumably ordinary. Rose
Marie Garland, author of Freakery, states that no one is a freak but
instead freak is a social construction. Freaks call into the question the
authenticity of one reality of bodily identity.
Janet, The Little ViciousStoneware, Acrylic paint
28” x 15.5” x 9.5”2012
Sculpture has a particularly gripping and effective way to invite
investigation of bodies of difference. Creating a life inside the flesh
and eyes of a sculpture has the ability to insight intimacy. The human
connection between what we see and how we relate to its formation
is striking. by discovering bodies of difference in an intimate and
immersive setting one is able to make an interpersonal connection
between the identity of the other and of ones self. I have built the
sculptures in a sincere devotion to the history, theory, and reality of
the corporeal nature of the extraordinary. They are modeled in an
honest fashion and have been done so in earnest. There should be
nothing to hide. Part of the problem of our struggle with identity and
corporeal reality is the notion of masking difference. There is a place
for the continuum of bodies and they should be investigated properly
and acknowledged for their form and their inherent possibility. To be
put simply, I have created theses people because I feel close to them
and because I admire not only their form but as well the questions
and discoveries that their bodies lend to the idea of identity and
humanness. For each person to experience anomalous individual
sculptures on an intimate and thoughtful level will provide the act of
seeing and realizing human form and its connection to the self.
Glock 7Cast Ceramics10” x 5” x 6”2013
Sans Rifle Walnut, Cherry
30” x 14” x 3”2013
gREg BRoADWEll
I like to think of myself as a practical person, and I have a reverence for things
that work. However, my artwork is comically impossible, outdated, the wrong
material, the wrong method and doesn’t do anything worth a damn. It was
simply created out of a fanciful and romantic infatuation for the formal object.
What is clearly a knife to most people, often a symbol of violence, is in reality
a piece of steel that has a specific geometry ideal for cutting. It is just an
object, made out of a material, with no will of its own but with a great deal of
symbolic significance. If I ever succeed in my artwork, I hope to nudge people
into stripping away the extra meaning, the baggage that has been given to
them and imbued onto these objects, and simply observing them for what they
are. My work is anti-provocative in a way that is difficult to understand for
some people. I want the things I re create, namely weapons, to be understood
in a way that only a maker can see them, as an object of beauty and joy.
Clay is known to be an excellent recording device. The things I make or
emulate often have an intended purpose of destruction. Some may say I am
destroying the clay, but in fact I am simply altering it, letting the tool do the
making through my hand. I feel as though methods of destruction and violence
are overlooked, simply not thought of in this way, but in fact the process of
making is filled with these destructive acts, intended for creation. Energy
cannot be created or destroyed, only channeled.
Series of Shot Clay Bodies ( Detail )36” x 44” x 7”
2012-13
MACKEnZIE WEnDlER
I use the force of my body to create individual, sculptural parts. Each object is
a piece of the palate. Each piece a mark I get to use to paint onto the world.
Families build.
Landscapes form.
Messages pass.
I am currently fabricating the marks through porcelain and steel. I am drawn
to porcelain because it has a very persnickety memory. It cracks along places
where thick clay meets thin, an evil smile. Porcelain slips, slides, tares,
slumps, and wobbles tenderly.
My current love affair.
bright white, almost green when wet. It carries a fragile resistance. Fired
in a high fire reduction firing, the glazes pop, bubble, transform, and
brighten, often reminding me of when desert meets water, or the twisting of a
cottonwood.
Making. An instant joy.
When I use metal, I gravitate toward found, and discarded pieces. Red and
green rust flakes like skin under a microscope. I take them into the shop, and
use all the strength in me to warp them. Our strengths are tested against one
another.
Some days, my body exerts more precision and control over the clay or metal
palate, while other days they want to
rip me apart.
Jack kerouac Wrote
“It’s only through form that we can realize emptiness.”
I let the presence of my hand remain within the form, giving shape to
the space within and around the artwork: recording little moments in
time that will outlive my physical body.
As I work in relation to the fluid materials, their elasticity records
more than my fingerprint. The material records a state of being.
Through the physical cues I can see times of strain, inspiration,
confidence, love, intuition and even times in pain.
All happy struggles.
Like an aspen grove, it takes many individuals to create the beauty of
a whole. This is my approach when it comes to the making of my art:
a way to engage the self in an external dialogue, a balance of body,
space, force, and consciousness to create physical poetry.
Earth Metal and SelfMetal, Clay, and Mackenzie10’ x 5’ x 5’2013
Imprints 1-93Earth and body
Dimensions variable 2013
MoREl DoUCET
Through our dreams, we make contact with a vast,
yet elusive side of ourselves. My work utilizes
and reflects converging objects found in nature,
such as accumulation of flora and fauna. Drawing
inspiration from nature’s paradoxical beauty, I
aim to create work that not only stands out for
its regal impact but also for its sensitivity. My
inspiration comes from an ongoing interest and
profound respect for indigenous tribal cultures of
the Amazon, Aboriginal natives of Australia and
the Yoruba tribe of West Africa. I am fascinated
with garments and textiles of Native Americans
and Afro-futurism. With this vocabulary of
indigenous art, along with my personal dreams, I
make whimsical forms resulting in a diary of my
personal mythology.
My work spans the exquisite spectrum of clean
and simple, to the grotesque accumulative
take-over of the body. Through writing, drawing
and sculpting, I seek to create a dialogue with
the natural world while exploring elements of
my cultural identity. Examining different exotic
cultures of the world has enabled me to connect
the dreaming experience as a universal theater
of fantasy, nightmare, desire and prophecy. Each
work of art is the result of my personal interaction
with my dreaming experience. I explore different
themes of ambiguity as a means of subverting
the borders between my subconscious and the
mundane restrictions of society. I work with
fragmented narratives and their morphologies to
merge them in order to reflect the holistic nature
of life.
Flored EchidnaTile 6 Clay, Oil Paint
22” x 16” x 20”2013
Leshy and the TravelerTile 6 Clay, Oil Paint
12” x 8” x 10”2013
Untitled ( Tree Spirit )Tile 6 Clay, Under Glaze, Watercolor29” x 27” x 25”2012
MoRgAn BolT
My work plays with the use of pattern by transforming iron objects
into light and fragile porcelain while simultaneously transforming
the industrial into the handmade. Industrially made objects serve as
inspiration- in particular manhole lids, grates around trees and water
drains. These are sites that often get overlooked, but specific people
spent time adding unnecessary embellishments to these objects that
perform such a simple functional task.
My process begins with the patterns that I find in urban and industrial
spaces. I make the choice to alter them by using clay as a medium to
introduce these patterns into our homes in a more familiar way, with
ceramic tiles or functional dinnerware. My goal is to create a space in
someone’s home where they are confronted with these patterns on a
daily basis. As they step out into the world they will start to pick up on
these sometimes ignored objects. Geometric pattern is simplified then
reconstructed to mimic these objects again as a whole. Though these
patterns are very simplistic they act as a personal map, pinpointing
exactly where I have been, observed, and what I would like for others to
notice out in the world.
UntitledCone 6 Porcelain, black Slip, Clear Glaze
11” x 5” x 1”2013
Tree GrateCommercial Ceramic Tiles, Acid Etching Cream
72” x 36” 2013
DrainsCommercial Ceramic Tiles, Sandblasted,
41” x 11”2013
Manhole Cover Dinnerware (Baltimore III)Cone 10 b-Mix, Gold Shino Glaze, Wood Fired
9.5” x 9.5” x 3”2013
olIVIA DIBEnIgno
I create art that represents my personal history – aspects of
buildings that have stayed ingrained in my memory. I am inspired by
architecture, these moments in space that, much like my drawings
and ceramics, are frozen in time; memories that reevaluate what is
reality. Through my use of found family photography, I intend to not
only recreate reality, but also redefine it. I suggest the desire for
home, whether that is a building or a symbol, as architecture is often
equated with memory and nostalgia.
being conflicted by paradoxical themes, I am in a constant
state of being pushed and pulled – between Italy and America,
drawing and clay. This tension informs and ties my work together.
This combination of drawing and clay acts as a metaphor for
how nostalgia and memory influence the work I create. These
compositions are meant to illustrate a space occupied yet incredibly
isolated. My infatuation with isolated buildings emphasizes the
simultaneous idea of being alone and being a part of something.
This isolation fuels my work, as I am drawn to images that suggest
longing for the past.
Shutter/OtturatoreRed Earthenware26” x 48” x 2”2013
Memory/Memoria (1977)Porcelain6” x 3.5” x 0.25”2013
Roof/TettoWhite Earthenware, Wood, Paint
42” x 55” x 24”2013
SARAH olMSTED
I am interested in connections and relationships between humans, and how
those relationships are reflected in the architecture and utilitarian inventions
from the Neolithic age through the present. In general humans have always
built off of the ideas that came before them. As a result, every mundane object
we use today possesses a long and extraordinary history. I am interested in
exposing this history of the human thought process through my work. Clay,
one of the first building materials ever used represents a foundation or origin
of an idea. by applying this ancient material to modern structural designs, I
am displacing the function of the object and re-assessing the strength of the
material.
I am investigating the simple shapes and fundamental building blocks that
make invention, engineering, and construction possible specifically—the
wheel and axle, inclined plane, pulley, wedge, lever, and screw. These six
simple machines act as the common thread through every era of history. I am
curious about how we build, what materials we use and where the value of
aesthetics and engineering meet. by altering mundane objects from functional
to metaphorical, from industrial to hand-made, I invite the viewer to look at
how our familiar constructed environments can be re-understood.
Inclined PlanePorcelain19” x 10” x 11”2013
LeverLocally found Clay
34” x 5” x 12”2013
RakeLocally found Clay 7” x 9” x 8 1/2”2012
SHElSEA DoDD
Most artists create their own beauty. I try to harness the beauty
that already exists so abundantly in the world. I am inspired by
a degree of awe that fills me when witnessing life. My personal
philosophies combine the wonder and poetry of the natural world
with the power of science and psychology. because of this, I often
play with the line between science and art in my work.
These biological and metaphysical meditations lead me to ultimately
consider the body: the manifestation of life and nature’s opus. The
human body, in its capacity for cognitive thought, separates us from
all else, yet, in it’s raw biology, binds us to all else as well. The iron
that colors our earthenware is the same iron that colors our blood.
Our blood, like our bodies, runs so much like the blood, and the
bodies, of the animals. Throughout history we have coexisted
and interacted with the animals in every way imaginable; we have
arguably sprung from the animal ourselves. This is what makes
our myriad connections so delicate and poignant. Along with
our dominion, we have inherited a great and grave responsibility,
usually left unexamined. My work investigates the relationships
between humans and animals on a biological, philosophical, and
psychological level.
Faithful to this triptych of ideals, my work is made using specific
materials, both natural and manmade, romantic and logical. These
materials create simple imagery that shelters layers of concept.
With regard to Plato, I strive to capture beauty and Truth through
material, anatomy, and simple existence.
Suckle (Milk Pillars)8 gallons of milk, glass
6” x 18” x 38”2013
Through a Glass, Darkly (detail)Porcelain, Mice fired to various temperatures, Wood, Plexiglass6” x 6” x 36”2012
OdalisqueStoneware, Paint, Glass taxidermy eye36” x 40” x 16”2013
Through a Glass, Darkly (detail)Porcelain, Mice fired to various temperatures, Wood, Plexiglass6” x 6” x 36”2012
Bulbous (detail)Earthenware, Low Fire Glaze, Underglaze13” x 8” x 8”2012
THERESA BoRRUSSo
Through the use of clay I mimic the actual mineral formations
that exist in nature on a smaller scale. My work deals with the
illustration of environmental succession- the replacement of the
controlling community by another that is more fit; in this case,
involving the breakdown and growth that occurs in a location,
specifically by having structures or earth growing in places they
shouldn’t be, through whatever means necessary. The avoidance of
organic material in my work has to do with my wish to avoid a direct
relationship to any specific locations. Instead of creating a model
of a particular site, I’m interested in the idea behind the landscape.
by creating sculpture that is lacking components that people would
generally recognize as belonging to a location: plants or animals,
it brings the focus of my work away from being about a location or
about the memories of a location, and instead brings it back to being
about the actual growth of the environment.
DescentEarthenware, Underglaze
12” x 5” x 12”2013
Shard (detail)Earthenware, Underglaze48” x 15” x 5”2013
ToM DoYlE
There is meaning in the everyday materials of our world, from the cheap flooring in the
bathroom downstairs, to the guest room’s decorative molding. There is a reason why we
construct the way that we do. I am interested in taking raw elements from our everyday
architecture and arranging them in such a way that is honest, appreciative, and even reverent
to the object’s ever-changing social and structural value.
The materials that we build with have always intertwined both structural support as well
as image, but today we build cheaply and fastidiously, covering a new craftsmanship with
applied facades. New building materials though allow us to reflect on older ones and to see
the moments when the image of structure meets its physicality. I hope to take the language
and lessons of our contemporary building blocks and apply them honestly to traditional
means of construction, always looking for what the object really does, its total meaning.
Front: Job DoneTerracotta, Linoleum, Plywood, Wax3’ x 1’ x 1.5’2013
HangGlazed terracotta, Nylon mesh, Oak3.5’ x 1.5’ x 6’ 2013
Overview of Exhibition2013
For more information on featured artists and programs of study please visit the Ceramics home page at:http://www.mica.edu/ceramics
Founded in 1826, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is the oldest continuously degree-
granting college of art and design in the nation. The College enrolls more than 2,000
undergraduate, graduate, and continuing studies students from 46 states and 53 countries
in fine arts, design, electronic media, art education, liberal arts and professional studies
degree and non-credit programs. Redefining art and design education, MICA is pioneering
interdisciplinary approaches to innovation, research, and community and social engagement.
Alumni and programming reach around the globe, even as MICA remains a cultural cornerstone
in the baltimore/Washington region, hosting hundreds of exhibitions and events annually by
students, faculty, and other established artists.
This publication was made possible by the MICA Alumni Association, the Office of Academic Affairs and the Friends of Ceramics
CERAMICS DEPARTMEnTMaryland Institute College of Art
1300 Mount Royal Ave.baltimore, MD 21217Office: 410-225-2251
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