Alleghany Meadows is a studio
potter in Carbondale, Colorado. He received his M.F.A. from New York State
College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He apprenticed with Takashi Nakazato,
Karatsu, Japan, received a Watson Foundation Fellowship for field study
of potters in Nepal, and was an artist in residence at Anderson Ranch Arts
Center. Alleghany has presented lectures and workshops at various venues
around the country, including classes at Penland School of Crafts, Mendocino
Art Center, and Oregon College of Arts and Crafts. He has shown widely
in such venues as Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts, Ashville; Baltimore
Clayworks, Baltimore; Lill Street, Chicago; Chester Springs Studio, Chester
Springs, PA; Santa Fe Clay, Santa Fe; and Artstream, a nomadic gallery.
Showing with Lisa Orr
George Bowes
6007 Tarrytown Terrace #5107
Dallas, Texas 75205
phone (214) 750-1507
georgebowes@earthlink.net
George
Bowes is a studio artist and educator currently living in Dallas, Texas.
He has a BFA from the Cleveland Instate of Art and an MFA from the University
of California Davis. He has received 4 Individual Artist Fellowships from
the Ohio Arts Council and an Arts Midwest/ NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship
Award. He has lectured and taught through out the US and Canada including
Southern Methodist University, The Nova Scotia College of Art and Design,
The University of Florida Gainesville, Penland School of Crafts, Arrowmount
School of Arts and Crafts and the Southwest Craft Center among many others.
His work is included in the collections of the Renwick Gallery, The Schein
Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art, The Minneapolis Institute of
Art and the Charles A. Wasturm Museum of Fine Arts as well as numerous
other public
and private collections.
1997 Ohio Arts Council Professional Development Award
1995 Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship
1993 Arts Midwest/ N.E.A. Regional Visual Arts Fellowship Award
1992 Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship
1990 Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship
COLLECTIONS
Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Renwick Gallery, Washington DC
The Schein-Joseph International
Museum of Ceramic Art
New York College of Ceramics at
Alfred University, Alfred, New York
Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine Wisconsin
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN
Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, OH
Richard L. Nelson Fine Arts Collection, University of California Davis, Davis, CA
Kristen Kieffer is a full-time studio potter at The Fire Works Clay Studios and a Ceramics Instructor at the Worcester Center for Crafts both in Worcester, MA. She received her BFA from the N.Y.S.C.C. at Alfred University and MFA from Ohio University, Athens both in ceramics. She has been a studio assistant to John Glick and an Artist-in-Residence at Arrowmont and the Worcester Center for Crafts, as well as a pottery intern at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Dearborn, MI. She has exhibited her work around the country in juried and invitational exhibitions and received published mention most recently in The Art of Contemporary Pottery and 500 Teapots books.
I
am curious about our culture’s conceptions of the “everyday object” and
find myself wanting to playfully challenge those notions within the parameters
of pottery. While my work aligns itself with the detail, sophistication
and beauty of a bygone era, my desire is to evoke an air of 21st century,
daily extravagance (like a silk bra). I question the parallel that
seems to exist in our current consciousness between function and adornment,
and challenge myself to make the connection.
My latest curiosity in the reciprocation between function and decoration is based in the idea of beauty, a banal subject until teased open and questioned. The intrigue of unending layers comprising beauty (layers I wish for my own work) has lead my influence of clothing toward the suggestive. Clothing and fabric—Elizabethan to contemporary evening wear—with their contours and patterns have long been underlying allusions for my work. My latest forms reveal my forays into more intimate layers of beauty—the sensuousness underneath.
I have begun to subvert the ostensible beauty of my own work through implied denotations of lingerie. These ideas have only begun to manifest and are translated through form and surface texture with ornamentation signifying buttons, clasps and boning. The slip-trailed “buttons,” stamped undulations and sprigging lend the forms to be held and caressed, as sensuality is obviously not only visual, but tactile.
Form, function and ornamentation are of equal importance to me as a potter. My hope is that the forms will invite closer inspection revealing the surfaces, which in turn entice the viewer to fondle the pieces with desire to use them. There is something intriguing about an object at first glance exuding sheer beauty, but on closer inspection translating a hint of eroticism…an idea I still find humorous to insinuate through pots.
Born in San Antonio, Texas December
23,1946,1 lived all over the world including Japan as a young child, after
finishing high school I attended The Corcoran School of Art in Washington
DC for a year and then returned to Texas and apprenticed with Ishmael Soto
in Austin and with Forrest Gist in Temple, Texas. Returning to the east
coast I worked with Mary Nyburg in Baltimore, Maryland for four years where
my work began to mature and I started to show nationally. After that very
rich period I returned to Texas where I have worked since 1973. My carreer
has included teaching many short classes and workshops held at Haystack
and Penland as well as starting a pottery program at the Alabama Coushatta
Indian reservation in Livingston, Texas. For the past 5 years I have managed
The Blue Heron Gallery in Deer Isle, Maine for four months in the summer
but the constant in my life has been my work as a studio potter.
I feel that my work has been greatly influenced by Japanese ceramics as well as Mexican and Pre-Columbian work. I seem to always refer to the funtional even in my more scuptural work The interaction of the maker and the user in utilitarian work is something that continues to intrigue me and I cherish the idea of putting something of beauty in the hands of someone on a daily basis. The integrity of a simple mug makes me smile. Currently my work is fired in wood where the touch if the flame and ash enrich each piece and the process of firing is a ritual that enriches us.
I believe that some of the most
expressive objects in ceramics today are those which reveal the natural
qualities unique to the material and emphasize the powerful effects of
the passage through fire. By exploiting these traits, clay artists
offer a unique and vital contribution to the world of art, particularly
when the objects relate to the vessel form. Since pottery has been
an essential utilitarian item for thousands of years, it has a universal
identity and an instinctive appeal to all people. Therein lies its
power as a symbol.
I use the vessel form as a symbol
of mankind's Presence. I have constructed abstractions of the vessel
with only vestiges of the container identity remaining. Flattened,
with emphasis on an asymmetrical silhouette, they give form to a gestural
drawing of a classical vase shape. With these forms I hope to achieve
a metaphor for mankind and its dependent relationship with nature.
I also create classical vase forms
that are fired with the same terra sigilatta finish with sawdust.
The highly polished surface and the control I have been able to achieve
over the colors in the firings are unique and a signature style that I
will continue to produce in infinite variations. Each of my pieces
since 1976 have been dated and signed on the base.
Artist's
Statement
Sharon
Smith received her M.F.A. in Raku Ceramics from the University of Dallas
in Irving, Texas in 1979 and her B.F.A. from the University of Texas, Austin
in 1976.
After her studies Sharon was drawn to Europe where she lived and maintained studios first in Ibiza, Spain then Hamburg, Germany. She taught at the Hamburg International School for several years.
Her extensive travels in Europe,
Africa, Eastern Europe and South America greatly influence her ceramic
art. Sharon's eclectic vessels are embellished with spiritual symbols
found in cultures from around the world. The use of found objects
and her unexpected assemblage layer meaning and create visual poetry in
an exuberant balance. Joy and a zany optimism radiate from her work.
Mary
Louise Carter has been a potter for over twenty-five years. She is
a graduate of Kansas City Art Institute and received her MFA degree from
the New York State College of Ceramics. She currently teaches ceramics
and design at Louisiana Tech University where she holds the Lyles Endowed
Professorship in Ceramics. Carter served as the resident potter at
the Vermont State Craft Center in Middlebury, Vermont, and has taught at
Pennsylvania State University. She has exhibited her porcelain ceramics
in numerous juried and invitational shows throughout the U. S.
My work is about refinement.
It is about honing in on the essential. I look at the way that nature
creates---the connection between trunk and branch, stem and fruit, the
way the petals of a flower unfurl. Could there be a better way to
complete the hand than the precise fit between skin and nail?
In my quest for clear and elegant solutions to form and function, I try to override my intellection reaction: perfection is a trap I have encountered. Instead, I judge my work by my physical reaction. When someone I love walks into the room there is a bodily felt sensation. When the pot is right a sense of warmth and excitement comes through.
I want my work to offer a safe haven.
After a long and hectic day you finally arrive. Someone waits – attentive,
tending, considerate, concerned. There is a slow exhale. You’re
home.
Leah
Leitson received her BFA degree from the New York State College of Ceramics,
Alfred University and her MFA degree in ceramics from Louisiana State University.
She completed residencies at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT.
and Banff Center for the Arts in Alberta, CN. Leah is a member of
the Piedmont Craftsmen, Inc. and the Southern Highland Craft Guild.
She is a studio potter, has led many workshops through out the U.S., including
Concentration at Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC, Arrowmont School
of Crafts, Gatlinberg, TN and currently adjunct faculty at Warren Wilson
College in Asheville, NC, and UNCA of Asheville, NC.
Her work in the collections of the Schein-Joesph International Museum of Ceramic Arts ( NY ), Archie Bray Foundation ( MT), Louisiana state University Art Museum, Richard Belger, Kansas City (MS), and Gallery of Art & Design, North Carolina State University ( NC).
Leitson works with porcelain that she throws, alters, and assembles. “My forms are predominately inspired by the eighteenth and nineteenth century decorative arts, I am particularly influenced by utilitarian sliver tableware and Sevres porcelain. I am further inspired by plant forms found in nature and enjoy integrating these influences so they become one”.
Showing with Rebecca Roberts
Matt
Kelleher is currently a visiting assistant professor at Ohio University
in Athens, Ohio. In the summer of 2003, Matt was a resident artist
at the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Shigaraki, Japan. His fourth
trip to Japan, and his first opportunity to work there for an extended
period of time. Matt has also taught at Wichita State University
from 2001-2003, and he was a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation
for the Ceramic Arts from 1999-2001. Matt received an MFA from the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1999, an MA in Printmaking from the University of
Northern Iowa in 1997, and a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in
1995.
Form is developed by considering the requirements of utility. Then I challenge these assumptions, altering design to communicate gentle and self confident shapes. I often explore specific design by playing with the compositional elements. Volume, line, center of gravity, edges, spouts, handles, feet, lids, may all be altered in subtle degrees. Tactile elements like weight distribution, balance, and thickness are also fine tuned to explore the composition of a pot. The search is for a poised form that captures the essence of utility.
Surface is created for contemplation. Moods are suggested with warmth, fluidity, and translucency. Atmospheres are veiled with fog and cool mist. The vessels are covered with slip. Pouring and layering, I respond intuitively to the qualities of liquid. Glaze is applied over the slip to achieve two different results. On some forms, I choose to pour glaze to mimic the gesture of the slip. On other forms, I arrange glaze with controlled marks to punctuate the composition. The majority of work is fired in a soda kiln, a small number in a wood kiln. The firing atmosphere dampens the surface, the slip warms up and layering is revealed. The relationship between the form, the firing, and my hand is complete.
My work is built on consideration.
There is a subtle balance of geometry in form, a comparison of symmetry
and asymmetry in decoration, and a serene surface. Softly, the work
asks for the viewers’ attention. Each piece is ready for a conversation
and willing to be part of a greater surrounding.
Showing with Ryan McKerley 
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