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John Beckelman: Thirty-Six Years A Retrospective Exhibition of Work Created at Coe College

John Beckelman: Thirty-six Years

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A retrospective exhibition of work created at Coe College.

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Page 1: John Beckelman: Thirty-six Years

John Beckelman:Thirty-Six YearsA Retrospective Exhibition of Work Created at Coe College

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John Beckelman:Thirty-Six YearsA Retrospective Exhibition of Work Created at Coe College

September 12 — October 5, 2014Sinclair Galleries, Coe College

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AcknowledgmentsI met John Beckelman when I came to Coe College as an art major in 2000. Nine years later, I returned to Coe as the Gallery Director. Since that time, I have had the occasion to work with John on several projects both on and off campus. The opportunity to assist in organizing this exhibition has been an especially rewarding experience. The breadth of artwork John has created during his time at Coe demonstrates his commitment to technical, formal, and experimental approaches. As a ceramicist myself, it has been a real pleasure to see the range of materials, surfaces, and processes explored. There is a wealth of knowledge present in these pieces and they illustrate an active mind and skilled hand.

The arrangement of the galleries illustrates the same careful attention. Without regard to chronology, the work is arranged to build visual and formal relationships among pieces that were created, in some cases, decades apart. The intentional placement of each piece leads the viewer to find and experience continuity through color, surface, texture, form and mark making. Contrary to the organization of the exhibition, the catalog is arranged to provide a more direct and contextual impression. It is a document that will undoubtedly be revisited long after the show comes down.

On that note, I need to express my gratitude to Josh Mateer, who donated his time and wonderful talent in designing this catalog. Others that deserve mention for their contributions are David Van Allen for photographing artwork and Andrea Kann, Priscilla Steele and Sean Ulmer for generously writing essays. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank those that graciously loaned artwork for this exhibition and extend a big thank you to the Art Department and our hardworking gallery assistants.

by Jennifer Rogers, Director of Collections and Galleries, Coe College

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I started teaching at Coe in 1978 and in those first years continued directions in my artwork begun in graduate school. The work explored my understanding at the time of the emotional/psychological character of visual space—and the relationship between that and reverie, or “dream space”1. That fired clay, which is so hard, dense, impenetrable and permanent, could also “play” with perceptual space in such provocative ways (as simultaneously both object and window; at once physically present and ephemeral)—this implicit contradiction—intrigued me then, has informed much of the work I’ve made over the last thirty-six years and continues to appeal to me.

While these ideas about material, space and perception were originally associated with two-dimensional work, they have had an equally surprising impact on the pots, vessels and objects that I’ve made. My work with clay started on the potter’s wheel and to this day there’s something in the rhythms of that process, as well as its potential for expression, that I still find pleasurable and exciting. The opportune intersection of two and three dimensions, along with the addition of various other materials, enable yet more occasions for expression. Accordingly, ever since coming to Coe, my work has moved between two and three dimensions and has often incorporated other materials.

Layered on top of this very basic conceptual framework are a myriad of varied and diverse life experiences that have influenced and shaped the work, including my long-term and supportive marriage to Marsha and later the birth of our son, Tyler, literature of various sorts, a growing involvement with meditation and Buddhism, and, of course, the ever-present influences of potters, sculptors and painters—Neolithic to contemporary. All have had an impact on my artwork in one way or another.

Since my studio practice was often organized around my teaching and administrative responsibilities at the college, it’s interesting to look back and see how the rhythms of creativity and production have been influenced by the demands of the job. Having worked almost exclusively in the Coe ceramics and sculpture studios, most of my artwork has been done during summers, often spilling into the fall semester as space and time permitted. Sabbaticals were, of course, wonderful and unfettered opportunities to produce new work. These large blocks of uncommitted time were crucial in allowing new ideas to grow organically and for older work to come to fruition. I found that working in the Coe studios, often alongside students, while at times constraining, worked well for me in the end. The interaction with those students was almost always both enjoyable and supportive—for me and, I hope, for the students.

Some Chronology

Much of my artwork in the early ‘80s was a response of sorts to the birth of our son—and observations of his subsequent growth and development. In time, I discovered intriguing correspondences between his unselfconscious use of

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Reflections…by John Beckelman

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A few words of thanks I’d like to add to Jen Rogers’ acknowledgments a few of my own.

First, I’d like to personally thank those individuals and institutions that generously loaned work for the show. Thanks also to Dylan and Allison Rogers and Craig Campbell for their help in gathering and transporting the work to the galleries. To Suzy McGrane-Hopp for her help in identifying older work for the show. To Janelle McClain, who represented my work for many years, for helping to locate some of the older work for the show and for her valued advice and counsel over the years. To Sean Ulmer for his perceptive and provocative catalog essay. To Priscilla Steele, for her invaluable help in identifying and gathering work for the show, for her inspired and generous catalog essay—and for being a trusted critic and a zealous advocate for my work over the years. And to Andrea Kann, for her encouragement and for her insightful and thoughtful catalog essay. To all for their friendship and support.

Special thanks and gratitude go to Jen Rogers, for her expertise, long hours, patience and good will in organizing and installing the show and in putting the catalog together. And to her student work-staff, for their invaluable help in setting up the show. To David Van Allen, for his first-rate photography for the catalog and to Josh Mateer, for his smart catalog design and patience in shepherding the catalog through the design and printing process.

Finally, I’d like to acknowledge my colleagues in the Art Department—and friends on the faculty and staff, current and past—for their part over the years in making the College a dynamic and supportive place in which to both teach and make art.

marks and color and much African tribal and Mexican mask imagery. They all seemed to possess archetypal qualities capable of deep expression.

A brief but intense romance with glazed ceramic tiles began in 1989 with a large tile mural commissioned by Iowa State University. This interest continued into the ‘90s with a series of individual artworks and private commissions, in most cases using low-fire underglazes, glazes and ceramic pencils and chalks. It was during this same time that I also had fun exploring form with a series of ceramic and glass sculptural tables.

An exciting period of material exploration that began in the late ‘80s led to the development of techniques for applying unfired clay—stabilized with a variety of oil and acrylic binders—to paper and wood. In these pieces, images were slowly built up using clay and other materials such as oil and acrylic paints, enamels, graphite, powdered pigments, wax and gold leaf. Subsequent and ongoing research with slips, glazes and firing techniques followed, aimed at producing fired surfaces similarly rich in texture and character. The unanticipated physical and visual qualities of clay in these varied physical states was transformative for me, setting in motion multiple series of paintings and vessels that continue to the present—and serving as a compelling reminder of the elemental character and almost limitless expressive potential of clay. Even as the work has become quieter in recent years, this notion of the elemental character of clay continues to be the animating force behind much of my work to this day.

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1. “Space that has been seized upon by the imagination cannot remain indifferent space…” The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard, 1958, pg. xxxii.

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John Beckelman is an explorer. Not exactly the kind with a pith helmet and a machete cutting his way through a jungle, but an explorer nonetheless. He takes a material as old as the earth itself—literally and figuratively—and fashions something new, and different, and exciting from it. When one hears that John is a potter, it may call up the image of a man seated at a wheel, turning out functional pots for everyday use. John does make functional pots, but he also experiments with what the clay actually is and what it can do when applied to a wide variety of ends.

John first began exploring while obtaining his MFA. Tentative wall pieces of fired ceramics found their way into his oeuvre. Then a child, and John’s perspective shifted. More sculptural pieces began to appear and they possessed a certain playfulness. These early pieces are vibrant, joyous, experimental, and toy-like. These toys, mostly composed of ceramic cones and cylinders, are brightly colored and very evocative of the toys his son was playing with at the time. These shapes and colors intrigued John and he translated their fundamental—almost primal—forms into fired ceramic pieces.

Related to this series of early toy-like pieces were larger, bolder, and bulkier works. They were clay, but often times so much more: wood, nuts, bolts, and found objects. To these accumulated sculptures, glazes and paints were added in a seemingly arbitrary manner. However, they were not arbitrary at all. Many of the designs and patterns were inspired by his child’s drawings. He was attracted to them because of their simplicity and immediacy. His wife’s involvement in African art also influenced him, and tribal marks began to appear at this same time. In fact, mark-making has been a constant in John’s work from the 1980s to the present, to one degree or another.

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John Beckelman: Explorerby Sean Ulmer Executive Director, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art

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Eventually, in the 1990s, John returned to making wall pieces, but his experience of larger sculptural pieces shifted his vision. These new wall pieces were larger—much larger—and on a very grand scale. They were, in many ways, sculptures on the wall. Clay was still his base, but he continued to build up his surfaces with a wide variety of materials—wood, found metal objects, debris—and then coated the surfaces with a variety of pictographic and symbolic motifs that continued his interest in mark making. There is a certain primal quality about these works—due in part to their immediacy and in part to the marks he was making both into the surface as well as onto it. In addition to their pictorial qualities, each of these large wall pieces function topographically as well. They are maps, other-worldly surfaces ready for exploration. Surface treatment was something that would fascinate John throughout his career, from his early sculptural pieces, to these large wall pieces, to the more functional looking pots.

While John was working on the larger wall pieces, he was continuing to explore. He created a series of clay on paper pieces, using oil binders. He also explored a different approach to his clay on wood works. These new pieces are much more subtle. They are quieter, the colors less brash, the mood softer. Elements are allowed to run. Chance enters the equation. John lets go. These larger meditative pieces are evocative of large color field paintings of Jules Olitski or the stained paintings of Helen Frankenthaler or Morris Louis. But John used clay as his vehicle.

In John’s exploration of the limits of clay—or the limitless nature of clay—and the variety of shapes and forms to which it could be used, he never abandoned his interest in surfaces and textures. Clay is, by its very nature, a tactile medium. While not all of his works were designed to be touched or held, surfaces remained an all-important aspect to his work. Whether it was the slick and shiny surfaces of his “toys,” or the topographical textures of his large wall pieces, the surface remained supreme. This is true of his more “functional” pieces as well. While many of John’s pots appear functional they often times are not. They possess the elements of a vase, or a bottle, or a vessel, but here too, he pushed himself and his medium. Large-scaled bottles and vases appeared at the same time as his large-scaled wall pieces. Scale, like texture, offered John ample room to explore. In these pots, John was able to realize an amazing range of surfaces. From the plain, unadorned stoneware or earthenware tall bottles and urns to the extraordinary fractured and encrusted surfaces of his large lidded pots and conical bottles, John’s surface treatments are mesmerizing. The encrusted surfaces are especially entrancing. They encourage the viewer to touch them, and to contemplate them. They are a terrain, a landscape to be explored both visually and tactilely.

John Beckelman has spent his career exploring. He is an explorer. He has pushed the limits of his chosen medium, redefining its potential with each exploration. Challenging himself to go even further, to explore new territories, create new work that exists in its own newly-defined dimension. Maybe the image of John Beckelman in a pith helmet with a machete is not so far off after all.

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The rhythms of academic life are natural for professors and students. We often forget that others do not follow a calendar that begins in August and ends in May, with an extra summer season of recovery, discovery and creation. Of course, professors celebrate New Year’s Day on January 1st with the rest of the world. But we also believe that the real new year begins when we walk into our classrooms and studios on the first day of every fall semester.

In many ways, John Beckelman’s creative life has followed the rhythms of the academic year. John creates powerful, thoughtful work not in spite of the demands of this idiosyncratic calendar, but perhaps because its sequences have become deeply engrained in his process. His work is acutely in tune with the flow of academic life, embedded inextricably with its ebbs, currents, unities and disjunctures.

Just as academic life seeks to balance the analytical and the creative, John’s work often explores the reconciliation of the antithetical. We see this in his fascination with innocent creativity and its loss, his engagement with the intersection of two- and three-dimensional worlds, and his ability to find resolution between his active mind and the stillness of contemplation. Viewing John’s work is reminiscent of unexpectedly encountering a good friend you have not seen for many years—tangible familiarity threaded with new discovery and delight. Such intersections inspire this retrospective exhibit with its visual conversations between his creations past and present.

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Recovery, Discovery and Creationby Andrea Kann, Associate Professor of Art History, Coe College

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In many ways, these non-linear groupings allow us to consider John’s work as a new academic year with its endless possibilities grounded in the roots of experience. The exhibit becomes less a retrospective than an opportunity to begin to see these works as new again. Wandering through the galleries alters our perspective on John’s approach to art-making as a series of visual problems to be solved, revisited and resolved.

There are constants in John’s life—his professional dedication to Coe College, his personal devotion to his family and friends, and his deep intuition and curiosity paired with a keen intellect and desire to create. But lingering in and among these constants, shaped by their contexts and moved by time, we find John returning to questions of space, play, contemplation and, of course, meaning.

These re-solutions and intersections are perhaps more obvious when John revisits a title or subject as he does in Celestial Navigation 1 (1990) and Celestial Navigation 2 (2010). 1990’s massive rectangle decomposes or perhaps recomposes as wide and narrow wooden blocks and strips on the left, flowing right as softly bristled blendings of uneven shadow. In this earlier work, John deftly negotiates the intersections between three-dimensional components and their absorption into newly bound texture.

Twenty years later, Celestial Navigation 2 seems to experiment with similar juxtapositions of surface entities. The object here is more resolved, however, as the freehanded circle and line coexist with textural earthiness and engage the sharpness of rectangular interposition on the right. This more mature work addresses the same visual problem as the earlier one, but here we have a more contemplative, fully absorbed and subtly integrated vision of resolution.

Other visual conversations in the show are perhaps not as literal, but no less rich. The slender outthrust arm that joyfully beckons in the Bowl of Delight: Wanting (1983) buoyantly signals to the more sober and thoughtfully quiet texture of a tall lidded storage jar from 2000, while the richly rippling turquoise neck of Floor Vase, Handled (1985) flirts with the dark and earthy craquelature of 2000’s Black Platter. Similarly, the simultaneous dissolution and regeneration of the Shards series (2013) may be John’s latest exploration of color, surface, texture and form, but it engages many of the same concerns of the interpenetrating smooth planes and irregular blocks of the 1980s tables.

These works inhabit different moments in the arc of John’s chronological life, but creatively they speak of his ability to follow the rhythms of regeneration by exploring similar concerns in diverse ways. John’s artistry and his teaching spring from his singular ability to remind us to look again as he reframes disparate elements in newly unified forms.

John Beckelman’s creations are forged from not a single question but a complex context of work, family, life, and mind. His visual conversations have been deeply entwined with his career at Coe because he approaches his practice knowing that there will always be a new year and another summer season of recovery, discovery and creation.

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“He makes pictures the way other men make maps— setting down a few fixed points that he knows, hoping they will guide him as he goes floating through this unfamiliar planet. He keeps his eyes on the horizon line while his hands work blind.”

—Celestial Navigation by Anne Tyler

The 1989 opening of the new Cedar Rapids Museum of Art was a watershed moment for our community, and it’s significant that this is the first time I remember viewing the work of John Beckelman. His show struck a vital, resonant chord. Twenty-five years later, it’s instructive to remember my thoughts about that first encounter with John’s work. Its commanding scale was intriguing. It was handsome, mysterious and important.

Abstraction has long been a convention in contemporary art, but it remains common that, when confronted with it, we lack the tools to respond to line, color, form and light when these same elements are not manipulated to depict a recognizable subject — a picture. So, despite the fact that visual art is wordless, finding precise words for knots of lines, gouged surfaces, passages of color, and incised marks can provide stepping stones to understanding. John’s work from that period is exuberant, animated by color and propulsive shapes on surfaces embedded with found objects, sticks, stones, grasses and clay. Wooden slats and scraps of metal line up in staccato, percussive rhythms, and darkness becomes an all-enveloping sanctuary for exploration—oh, except the darkness in Caiman. This piece seems to be an exception. It’s menacing. It invokes the magic of tribal masks. Crudely carved and bloodied, spear-like

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Studio Practiceby Priscilla Steele, Artist, Co-owner of Campbell Steele Gallery

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projections punctuate its rectangular silhouette. Its depths are shrouded in darkness, interrupted only by a slender strip of tribal decoration. Finally, like a yelled warning, a pictographic, spray-painted set of serrated teeth asserts the power of the panel’s forces.

In stark contrast, the panel, Celestial Navigation 1, invites the viewer in. Its idiosyncratic, sculptural form encompasses a night-scape through which a faint figure drifts, trailing bits of color. Nudged up against a painstakingly composed matrix of earth-colored tiles, it’s as if the figure has spent itself with work. Beside it, at the left margin, a shiny, black tile, with threads still hanging from wherever it was ripped, is carefully juxtaposed with a single, vividly red shard. Their deliberate placement suggests that affixing them was the final, perfect decision in a night of compulsive work. Surely, this panel is John’s most direct allusion to and acceptance of his role as an artist. It is a humble, poignant and consummate achievement.

This body of earlier work establishes fundamental components that re-appear in an array of forms. Sculptural tables of rough, glazed terra cotta topped by clear panes of glass are held in an elegant equilibrium by taut cables. Toys blossom with the advent of John and Marsha’s son, Tyler. Lovingly devised and refined, these contraptions drolly match a child’s (and father’s) playfulness. And, works on panel persist as a primary tool for visual and conceptual exploration. The “fixed points” from which they develop are more complex, radiating from detailed plans of sacred places; or suffused, again, in a nurturing darkness. Encrusted expanses of organic color document an awe in the face of natural phenomena and experience. Ego is stripped away. Discovering my own reflection gazing back at me from a mirror delicately poised at the center of

Stillness and Light, I marveled to find myself transported to the surface of a luminous sea. Again, Anne Tyler’s writing provided a textual bridge for me to grasp the intent of these pieces.

He dreamed of cutting scraps of moonlight, strips of rain-spangled air, long threads of wind…aiming for some single solution, as in a mathematical problem. “Is this it? Is this it?”

Throughout his career, John has consistently created ceramic vessels. It’s easy to enjoy the artist’s implicit, egalitarian respect for these wheel-turned pieces. From small yunomis to near-human-sized bottles and jars, the ancient traditions informing their craftsmanship underscores the integrity of their enduring form and function. And, while invested with a similar aesthetic unique to the divergent directions of his work, these free-standing pieces offer the possibility of permanence in the face of the elusive occurrences probed in Beckelman’s two-dimensional work—an enticement to muse about the divide between timelessness and the fleeting moment. Maintaining the tension between these opposites has been John’s felicitous, life-long studio practice, and doubtless will stand him in good stead as his career continues to unfold.

“Maybe it is a good thing to keep a few dreams of a house that we shall live in later… so much later that we shall not have time to achieve it. It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.”

—The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

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Rolling Circus Bowl Earthenware, Mixed6” x 12” x 12”1980Collection: Artist

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Rolling Counter Earthenware, Mixed4” x 7” x 14”1980Collection: Artist

Circus Bowl 1 Earthenware6” x 14”1983Collection: Artist

Night Games Earthenware, Mixed9” x 5” x 5”1981Collection: Artist

Bowls of Delight: Wanting Earthenware13” x 12” x 8”1983Collection: Artist

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Serving Bowl Earthenware3 ½” x 14 ½ ”1984Collection: Robert and Barbara Drexler

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After Tyler: Places Terra Cotta18” x 24” 1985Collection: Artist

Floor Vase, Handled Earthenware33” x 12” x 12”1985Collection: George and Janelle McClain

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ResolutionTerra Cotta25” x 69” x ¾”1985Collection: Maureen and Edmund Burke

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Night Crossing 2 Clay, Mixed on Wood48” x 40” x 2” 1988Collection: Artist

Tracks Clay, Mixed on Wood48” x 40” x 2”1990Collection: Artist

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Celestial Navigation 1 Clay, Mixed on Wood48” x 108” x 2”1990Collection: Cedar Rapids Museum of Art

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Planter Stoneware (Residual Salt)13” x 14 ½”1994Collection: Artist

Air Tile on Wood50” x 24”1994Collection: Bruce and Darcy Aune

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Wide Bottle (Black)Stoneware (Residual Salt)22” x 14 ½”1998Collection: Artist

Tall Bottle 2 Stoneware (Residual Salt)36” x 9”1998Collection: Artist

Storage Jar with Lid, Tall Stoneware (Residual Salt)48” x 15” x 15”2000Collection: Jon and Mary Quass

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Tri-Lobed Vessel Stoneware (Redidual Salt)44” x 14” x 14”2000Collection: Carol and Steve Nordstrom

Six Lobed Form Stoneware (Residual Salt)41” x 11” x 11”2000Collection: Artist

Tall Brown Vessel Stoneware (Residual Salt)43” x 16” x 16”2000Collection: Jan and Mark Spielman

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Large Bowl Stoneware, (Residual Salt)7” x 14 ¾”2002Collection: Libby Gotschall Slappey ‘74

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Tall Open Vessel Stoneware (Residual Salt)31” x 18”2007Collection: James and Kristin Novak

Storage Jar with Lid, Medium Stoneware (Residual Salt)32” x 14”2008Collection: Artist

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Shadows and ReflectionsClay, Mixed on Wood67” x 42” x 2”2008Collection: Jan and Mark Spielman

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Stillness and Occurrence Clay, Mixed on Wood42” x 67” x 2” 2008Collection: Artist

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Celestial Navigation 2 Clay, Mixed on Paper22” x 30”2010Collection: Courtesy of Olson-Larsen Galleries

In the Body: Earth Clay, Mixed on Paper22” x 30”2010Collection: Courtesy of Olson-Larsen Galleries

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Large Tapered Vessel, Black Stoneware, (Residual Salt)42” x 15”2011Collection: Campbell-Steele Gallery

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Shards 1 Mixed10” x 9” x 7”2013Collection: Artist

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Incised Bowl Stoneware8” x 13”1980Collection: Artist

T’s Train Leads the Parade Earthenware, Mixed36” x 6” x 6”1981Collection: Artist

Ring Toss Sailboat with Rudder Earthenware12” x 13” x 4”1981Collection: Jane Gilmor

Push Toy Earthenware, Mixed4 1/2” x 4 ½ ” x 16”1981Collection: Artist

Tyler’s Top Earthenware6 ” x 6” x 6”1980Collection: Artist

Tall Foot Bowl Earthenware12” ” x 15”1981Collection: Artist

Collaboration Bowl: Artist and Son White Earthenware2 ½” x 91983Collection: Artist

Circus Bowl 2 Earthenware4 ¼ ” x 12”1983Collection: Artist

Things That Go Earthenware21” x 32” x 24”1983Collection: Artist

Untitled Vase Earthenware11 ¾” ” x 6”1982Collection: Artist

Circus Bowl 3 Earthenware3 ½” ” x 10”1983Collection: Artist

Bowl Earthenware4 ½” x 11”1984Collection: Robert and Barbara Drexler

Bowls of Delight: Variation V Earthenware9” x 8” x 7”1983Collection: Artist

Reverie Revisited: Delight 1 Terra Cotta13” x 13” 1985Collection: Artist

Reverie Revisited: Delight 2 Terra Cotta13” x 13” 1985Collection: Artist

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Table 3 Terra Cotta, Glass, Mixed17” x 14” x 19”1988Collection: Artist

Wide Bottle 1 Stoneware (Residual Salt)26” x 141998Collection: Artist

Planter Earthenware13” x 17”1992Collection: Robert and Barbara Drexler

Table 2 Terra Cotta, Glass, Mixed17” x 20” x 20”1988Collection: Artist

Table 1 Terra Cotta, Glass, Mixed18” x 27” x 15”1988Collection: Artist

Antelope Field Clay, Mixed on Wood48” x 48” x 2” 1988Collection: Artist

Broken Heart Clay, Mixed on Wood48” x 45” x 2”1989Collection: Artist

Caiman Clay, Mixed on Wood48” x 47” x 2”1991Collection: Artist

Delicate Horizon: On the Wings of DragonfliesClay, Mixed on Wood8” x 72” x 4 ½”1993Collection: Artist

Light and Silence Clay, Mixed on Wood48” x 48 x 2”1995Collection: Cedar Rapids Museum of Art

Reverie Revisited: Delight 3 Terra Cotta13” x 13” 1985Collection: Artist

Remembrance Terra Cotta11” x 70” 1986Collection: Artist

Night CrossingClay, Mixed on Wood48” x 40” x 2”1987Collection: Artist

Mask Terra Cotta38” x 12” x 3”1985Collection: Artist

Tiger Terra Cotta41” x 24” 1985Collection: Artist

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Tall Bottle 1 Stoneware (Residual Salt)40” x 9 ½”1998Collection: Artist

Black Platter Stoneware, (Residual Salt)3” x 20”2000Collection: Artist

Bowl Stoneware, (Residual Salt)7 ¼” x 14”2002Collection: Artist

Large Oval Casserole Stoneware, (Residual Salt)2 ¾” x 12” x 9 ½”2003Collection: Libby Gotschall Slappey ‘74

Large Bowl (Black Interior) Stoneware (Residual Salt)13 ½” x 17”2003Collection: Jan and Mark Spielman

Low Black Bowl Stoneware (Residual Salt)4” x 18”ca. 2002Collection: James and Kristin Novak

Small Oval Casserole Stoneware, (Residual Salt)2 ½” x 8 ½” x 72003Collection: Libby Gotschall Slappey ‘74

Black Neck Bottle Stoneware, (Residual Salt)40” x 12” x 12”2006Collection: Campbell-Steele Gallery

Tall White Vessel Stoneware (Residual Salt)42” x 15”2006Collection: Jan and Mark Spielman

Pillow Bowl Stoneware (Residual Salt)4” x 17”2006Collection: Artist

Storage Jar with Lid Stoneware (Residual Salt)24” x 15”2004Collection: Artist

Moment Clay, Mixed on Paper22” x 30”2001Collection: Bradley & Riley, PC

Between Water and Light Clay, Mixed on Wood48” x 48” x 2”2005Collection: Bruce and Darcy Aune

Navigating Silence Clay, Mixed on Wood48” x 66” x 2”2005Collection: Candace Wong and Richard Jensen

White Arc Stoneware (Residual Salt)8” x 29” 5”2007Collection: Courtesy of Olson-Larsen Galleries

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Vessel (Brown) Stoneware (Residual Salt)10” x 5 ¾”2008Collection: Artist

Vessel (Black) Stoneware (Residual Salt)11” x 7”2010Collection: Courtesy of Olson-Larsen Galleries

Vessel (White) Stoneware (Residual Salt)10” x 7”2010Collection: Courtesy of Olson-Larsen Galleries

Small Tapered Vessel Stoneware, (Wood Fired)8” X 6”2011Collection: Campbell-Steele Gallery

Yunomi 1 Stoneware (Wood Fired)4” x 4”2012Collection: Artist

Yunomi 3 Stoneware (Residual Salt)4 ½” x 4” 2012Collection: Artist

Yunomi 2 Stoneware (Residual Salt)4” x 3 ½”2012Collection: Artist

Oval Bowl Stoneware, (Residual Salt)3” x 9 ½” x 6 ½”2012Collection: Campbell-Steele Gallery

Yunomi 4 Stoneware (Residual Salt)4 ¼” x 4”2012Collection: Artist

Yunomi 5 Stoneware (Residual Salt)4” x 3 ¾”2012Collection: Artist

Clouds/No Clouds 42” x 63” x 2”Clay, Mixed on wood2008Collection: Richard and Kate Minette

Rich with Birds and Fruit Clay, Mixed on Wood42” x 63” x 2”2008Collection: Artist

Uncharted Territory Clay, Mixed on Wood48” x 48” x 2”2009Collection: Artist

Evening MeritClay, Mixed on Paper22” x 30”2010Collection: Courtesy of Olson-Larsen Galleries

Tapered Bottle Stoneware (Residual Salt)29 ½” x 10”2008Collection: Cedar Rapids Museum of Art

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Small Bottle 4 Stoneware (Residual Salt)9” x 5 ¾”2012Collection: Artist

Shards 2Mixed7” x 8” x 8”2013Collection: Artist

Shards 3 Mixed12” x 8” x 7”2013Collection: Artist

Small Bottle 5 Stoneware (Wood-fired)6 ½ ” x 4 ¾”2012Collection: Campbell-Steele Gallery

Small Bottle 1Stoneware (Wood-fired)5” x 5 ½”2012Collection: Artist

Small Bottle 3 Stoneware (Wood-fired)7” x 5”2012Collection: Artist

Small Bottle 2 Stoneware (Wood-fired)5 ½ ” x 4 ½” x 3 ½”2012Collection: Artist

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BORN 1949, Orange, New Jersey

EDUCATION

1978 MFA, Ceramics , Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois

1977 MS, Ceramics, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois

1974 Ceramics Apprentice, Thousand Islands Museum Craft School, Clayton, New York

1972 BA, English, Hobart College, Geneva, New York

TEACHING1989 - pres Robert O. Daniel Professor of Art, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1978 - pres Instructor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor of Art, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1982-2004 Chair, Art Department, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1975 Instructor, Campus Recreation Ceramics Program, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois

1974 Instructor, Children’s Ceramics Program, Thousand Islands Museum Craft School, Clayton, New York

SELECTED RECENT EXHIBITIONS

2014 4th ‘Central Time’ Ceramics Exhibition, Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois Juror: Don Pilcher

Some Assembly Required: Collage and Assemblage, Group Collection Exhibition, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

35th Anniversary Show, Group Exhibition, Olson-Larsen Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa

2013 Inspirations, Group Exhibition, The Ceramics Center, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Yunomi Invitational, Group Exhibition (also 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007), AKAR Gallery, Iowa City, Iowa

2012 Clay Colleagues, Group Exhibition, Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa

2011 The Shoulders We Stand On, Potter’s Council Exhibition, St. Pete Beach, Florida Juror: Bill Jones, Editor, Pottery Making Illustrated

Paintings on Paper and Wood, One-Person Exhibition, Olson-Larsen Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa

2010 Clay Vessels and Paintings, One-Person Exhibition, ICON Gallery, Fairfield, Iowa

Selected Work, Group Exhibition, CSPS, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Group Exhibition, Olson-Larsen Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa

2009 Ceramics: New Work, Olson-Larsen Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa

Anniversary Show, Group Exhibition, Olson-Larsen Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa

2008 New Work in Clay and Paint, Campbell-Steele Gallery, Marion, Iowa

2007 New Work, Five Person Exhibition, Olson-Larsen Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa

Vessels, Group Exhibition, Santa Fe Clay Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Grand Reopening, Part 1, Group Exhibition, ICON Gallery, Fairfield, Iowa

La Mesa, Group Exhibition (Santa Fe Clay), NCECA Conference, Louisville, Kentucky

2006 LaGrange National XXVIII Biennial Exhibition, Lamar Dodd Art Center, LaGrange, GA Juror: Pamela Franks, Curator, Yale University Art Gallery (Merit Award)

New Artist Exhibition, One-Person Exhibition, AKAR Gallery, Iowa City, Iowa

La Mesa, Group Exhibition (Santa Fe Clay), NCECA Conference, Portland, Oregon

30 x 5, Group Exhibition, AKAR Gallery, Iowa City, Iowa

2005 New Work in Clay, One-Person Exhibition, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

White, Group Exhibition, Santa Fe Clay Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico

New Work, Three-Person Exhibition, Olson-Larsen Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa

2004 Small Treasures, Group Exhibition, Lill Street Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

Recent Work, Two-Person Exhibition, Quad Cities Art Center, Rock Island, Illinois

Area 319+, Regional Ceramics Exhibition, CSPS Gallery, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Ceramics and Painting, Two-Person Exhibition, Gallery 51 East, Fairfield, Iowa

Winter Group Show, Olson-Larsen Galleries, Des Moines, Iowa

Eastern Iowa Ceramics Invitational, Iowa Artisan’s Gallery, Iowa City, Iowa

2003 Sculpture, Assemblage & Collage, Group Exhibition Olson-Larsen Galleries, Des Moines, Iowa

2002 Viewpoint Ceramics 2002, Hyde Gallery, Grossmont College, El Cajun, California Juror: David McFadden, Head Curator, American Crafts Museum

Iowa Artists 2002, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa Jurors: Jeff Fleming, Chris Gilbert, Susan Talbott, Amy Worthen

LaGrange National XXII Biennial Exhibition, Lamar Dodd Art Center, LaGrange, Georgia Juror: Robert Lyon (Merit Award)

November Invitational, Group Exhibition, Olson-Larsen Galleries, Des Moines, Iowa

2001 NCECA 2001 Clay National Exhibition, Winthrop College Gallery, Rock Hill, SC Jurors: Cynthia Bringle, Michael Lucero, James Melchert

Recent Works in Clay, One-Person Exhibition, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois

Area College Faculty, Group Exhibition, Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa

2000 Iowa Artists 2000, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa Juror: Jeff Fleming, Senior Curator, Des Moines Art Center

Faculty Exhibition 2000, Sinclair Galleries, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

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AWARDS / COMMISSIONS / GRANTS

2006 Merit Award, LaGrange National XXVIII Biennial Exhibition, LaGrange, Georgia Juror: Pamela Franks, Curator, Yale University Art Gallery

2002 Merit Award, LaGrange National XXIV Biennial Exhibition, LaGrange, Georgia Juror: David McFadden, Head Curator, American Crafts Museum

1999 Permanent Exhibit Commission: Faux Palisades Rock Formation, Cedar Rapids History Center, Linn County Historical Society, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1998 Community Service Award: Empty Bowls Project, Linn Community Food Bank, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1997 C.J. Lynch Outstanding Teacher Award, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1994 Community Service Award, Cedar Rapids Community School District, Cedar Rapids, IA

1992 Bronze Block Commission: Five 16”x 16” Bronze plaques inlaid in downtown sidewalk areas; commissioned by the Cedar Rapids Metropolitan Arts Council, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1990 Private Commission, 200 hand-painted ceramic tile, Santa Fe, New Mexico

1989 Award of Excellence, Clay U.S.A. Exhibition, Radford, Virginia Jurors: Donna Polseno, Richard Hensley

Private Commission, 30 sq. ft. Ceramic Tile Mural, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Permanent Site Commission: Ceramic Tile Mural, Children’s Home of Cedar Rapids, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1988 Certificate of Merit, 1988 International Art Competition, Eastchester, New York Jurors: Lisa Messinger, Janet Satz, Susie Peifer, Carl Little

Permanent Site Commission: Ceramic Tile Mural (2’ x 70’), Friley Hall, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa

1987 Faculty Research Grant: Non-Fired Clay Paintings, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Purchase Award, Showcase Exhibition, Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1985 Clay Artists: America’s Best, a visual/sound production at the Identité Céramique Conference, Auxerres, France

Purchase Award, 14th Annual Invitational Crafts Exhibition, Norfolk, Virginia

1982 Mellon Foundation Interdisciplinary Summer Study Grant: “The Nature of Glass and Ceramic Materials: Art, Chemistry, Physics”, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

PRESENTATIONS / PUBLICATIONS / SERVICE

2009 - pres Board of Directors, The Ceramics Center, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

2013 Jury Panel Member, Cedar Rapids Public Library Sculpture Commission, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

2010-2013 Fine Arts Advisory Committee, Cedar Rapids Community School District, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

2011 Gallery Talk, Olson-Larsen Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa

2010 Gallery Talk, ICON Gallery, Fairfield, Iowa

2004 On-Site Coordinator, 2004 International Woodfire Conference, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

2001 Gallery Talk: Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois

1999 Workshop: “Teaching The Potter’s Wheel”, Art Educators of Iowa Annual Conference, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1997 Advisory Committee, GTC Plaza Sculpture Commission, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1996 Juror: “Sculpture on 2nd”, Outdoor Downtown Sculpture Competition, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Juror: “Marion Public Library Sculpture Commission”, Marion, Iowa

1995 Panelist: “The Role of Artists in the Community”, Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1990-1993 Task Force: “Excellence in Arts Education”, Iowa Department of Education & the Iowa Arts Council, Des Moines, Iowa

1989-1993 Instructional Advisory Committee, Cedar Rapids Community School District, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1986-1989 Fine Arts Curriculum Advisory Committee, Cedar Rapids Community School District, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1990 Exhibition Lecture, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Lecture :”Visual Thinking”, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Lecture: “Visual Thinking and the Development of Artwork”, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois

1986 Keynote Speaker, 4th Annual Symposium on Arts Education: “Visual Thinking”, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

1979 Articles, NCECA Newsletter, January Issue “Stephan De Staebler: Excerpts” “Transition from School to Studio: Review”

1976 Article: “Electroforming Copper Onto Clay”, Studio Potter Magazine, Summer Issue

GALLERY REPRESENTATION

Campbell Steele Gallery, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Olson-Larson Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa

AKAR Gallery, Iowa City, Iowa

Santa Fe Clay Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico

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