Biography

Bernadette Curran is a studio potter working in Pennsylvania. She received her BFA from Pennsylvania State University and completed an MFA in Ceramics at The Ohio State University. She was awarded fellowships from Baltimore Clayworks, Chester Springs Studio, and the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works. She has exhibited widely and taught numerous workshops throughout the country. Bernadette is currently teaching drawing and ceramic classes in the Philadelphia area.

Artist Statement

More often than not, I am an image thief, that is, of my own peripheral vision - responding to the crazy rhythms of the clay on the wheel, snapping away on impulse, and intuition. The animal has been written, then unwritten; but the two movements remain vaguely superimposed. My work derives not from one mark, but from the activity of marking; therefore, the speed and sequence with which I alter the clay and brush on slip and glaze is important. What is captured are the bleary bits and fragments, the chance events and partly registered perceptions of a story. The object of use becomes a channel for associations, memories, and traces of historical forms past. The object has a sense of pot and image as separate and yet the same. I welcome the possibility that something could represent both a sense of humility and of heroism simultaneously.



 

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