www.mbrickell.com

Meredith Brickell is a studio artist working in Raleigh, North Carolina. She received her Bachelor of Environmental Design from the School of Design at NC State University. After completing her undergraduate degree, she cultivated her interest in ceramics through the NC State Crafts Center. To further her education, she studied at Penland School of Crafts for two years as a Core Student. Meredith completed her Master of Fine Arts degree in 2005 from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is currently the Emerging Artist in Residence at Artspace in downtown Raleigh.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Tara Wilson
c/o Archy Bray Foundation
2915 Country Club Ave
Helena, MT 59602
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phone (352) 262-9885
wilsontaraa@yahoo.com
TaraWilsonPottery.com

Tara Wilson received a BFA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2000 and an MFA from the University of Florida in 2003.  In the fall of 2005 she began a residency at The Archie Bray Foundation.  Tara’s atmospheric fired vessels have been exhibited nationally in shows such as The NCECA Clay National, Strictly Functional, Feats of Clay, San Angelo National, and The Naked Truth: 2004 International Juried Wood Fire Exhibition.  In the fall, she will be returning to the Bray for a year round residency.

ARTIST STATEMENT

The rich surfaces of the vessels represent the natural world.  Nature also inspires form, in some cases quite literally, as river rocks become saucers.  Other pieces speak of this passion more subtly.  Bases reference the landscape, evoking a sense of space and awareness of the land.  Parallels can be drawn between geological processes and the atmospheric firing process.  Pots physically capture and record their firing process similar to the way sedimentary and metamorphic rocks speak of their history.

Pottery’s inherent relationship to the figure is accentuated in my gestural forms.  Anthropomorphic as well as zoomorphic vessels create a dialog between the forms that is continuously changing as the pieces are used.

myweb.stedwards.edu/stanleyi/index.htm

Stan set up the ceramics program at Laguna Gloria Art Museum in Austin, Texas in 1974 and taught ceramics courses there until 1976.  After receiving his M.F.A. in ceramics from the University of Texas at Austin he started the ceramics program at St. Edward’s University in 1976.  As Associate Professor of Art, Stan is the Art Area Coordinator and Director of the Fine Arts Exhibit Program at St. Edward’s. Stan has also taught numerous classes in wheel throwing, at the Daugherty Art Center in Austin and advanced classes in wheel throwing and glaze formulation at Hill Country Arts Foundation in Ingram, Texas, and at Clayways in Austin.

Maintaining his studio in central Austin, Stan focuses primarily on high temperature, single fire stoneware vessel forms.  He is a member of the National Council On Education For The Ceramic Arts, The Texas Association of Schools of Art, and is an active member of Greater Austin Clay Artists.

ARTIST STATEMENT

www.roseberrywinn.com

Bruce was born in 1959 at home in East Windsor and grew up in suburban Connecticut. He saw a pottery demonstration at the age of six, and decided on the spot to be a potter. Much to the dismay of his parents he never once wavered from that decision. In the years following his graduate studies at Cranbrook Academy of Art, his work has been shown widely and placed in many collections including The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and The Swedish Royal Palace in Stockholm.

He is a potter and ceramic designer, holding a MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, 1988 and a BFA from Boston University (Program in Artisanry), 1983. His work is in many collections including The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, The Royal Palace, Stockholm, Sweden, The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ and The University of Wales Museum of Ceramic Art, Aberyswyth, Wales. He has had many solo shows, they include The Garth Clark Gallery, NYC, Nancy Margolis Gallery, NYC, The Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA, Truro Center for the Arts, Truro, MA and The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ. He has taught at The Rhode Island School of Design, (RISD), Parsons School of Design, City College of NY and Bennigton College, VT among others. Currently he runs Roseberry-Winn with his partner Michael Roseberry, a production pottery and tile works, design house and retail store down on the coast of Rhode Island.

MFA Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI, 1988. Studied with Graham Marks.
BFA Program in Artisanry, Boston University, Boston, MA, 1983. Studied with Richard Hirsh and Christopher Gustin.

ARTIST STATEMENT

There is an ambiguity around the importance and function of intimate objects of use in our society. I enjoy producing work that relates to these issues and questions their boundaries. I have worked with an emphasis on the simple handleless cup for the last few years. I feel this basic form embodies the historical essence of use. It does not define specific uses as a teapot would, but through references that cross all cultures and history, it opens up the opportunity for personal interpretation. I find forms such as the teapot and vase as equally challenging as the cup form. To make a statement of my own using them, I must interject their strong historical contexts with my own personal experience and reference.

I strive to build up surface through levels of order and control. It is the balancing of strong design concerns such as color, line and repetition that forms the structure for the surface. It is, however, when the order placed upon these surfaces is struggling to stay in control that they are most successful. It is my intention to integrate this surface with the form beneath it. It is not my goal to assimilate form and surface into one entity, but to coordinate them as separate elements. I want to create a communication, a “conversation” between them. My approach to surface can be compared to clothing over a body, neither hiding the form nor revealing it completely, but playing with the interaction.

It is important for me that these issues both conceptual and physical are first viewed by my audience under the guise of simplicity, and with time reveal themselves slowly, creating a deeper content and extended context for my work.

www.roseberrywinn.com

Michael Roseberry comes from the plains of West Texas and started his academic career as a student of botany, studying the forms and patterns of nature. He then shifted his focus to the study of French and went on to complete Masters degrees in French language and French culture. As a constant, he studied ceramics in the background, developing skills and a sense of aesthetics, as well as learning the technical and chemical nature of ceramics. In art and in language, the opportunity of exposure is important. Postgraduate study in France allowed Michael to further synthesize a broad network of ideas and images into a personal esthetic that continues to resonate in the work he currently designs.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Ursula Hargens maintains a studio in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She received an MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2003 and an MA in Art & Art Education from Columbia University, Teachers College in 1999. Ursula also studied ceramics at Nova Scotia College of Art & Design. In addition to working as a studio potter, Ursula currently teaches at the Northern Clay Center and is an Adjunct Instructor at the University of Minnesota.

ARTIST STATEMENT

www

Michel L. Conroy is a Professor of Art at Texas State University. Prof. Conroy holds an MFA degree from Louisiana State University and a BFA degree from Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri.  Between her undergraduate and graduate work, she served an apprenticeship with Mr. Ryuichi Ogawa in Akashi, Japan.

Prof. Conroy has served as Director of the Texas Clay Symposia I and II , is founder of the Texas Clay Slide Archive and recently completed a seven-year appointment as Exhibitions Director for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA).  During her term, Prof. Conroy curated and organized 25 exhibitions for NCECA in 25 U.S. states and in Korea, China and Taiwan.  In October of 2000 she was one of five U.S. artists invited to participate in the Yeoju International Ceramics Workshop in Yeoju, Korea.  In July of 2005, she was a featured speaker at the North American Ceramic Art Symposium hosted by the Taipei County Yingee Ceramics Museum in Taiwan.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I began making pots seriously in 1971 at Castle Clay Co-op in Denver, Colorado.  There I encountered a number of potters who were making their living by selling their work.  Inspired by their motivation and commitment I moved to Grand Junction, Colorado, and set up my first studio.  I began to devote myself full-time to the art and craft of making pottery.  During this period I also began to teach a few courses in art history and ceramics at Mesa College and discovered my passion for teaching.  I then moved to Ft. Collins, Colorado, and earned an MFA in ceramics at Colorado State University.  Shortly thereafter I took a teaching position at Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas, where I continue to teach ceramics, drawing, and design.  In 1998 I established Georgetown TX Pottery and produce a full line of functional tableware and garden pots.

ARTIST STATEMENT

elizabethrobinson.com

Elizabeth Robinson is a full time Studio Artist and adjunct faculty at Colorado Northwestern Community College, in Rangely, an isolated town in the high desert mesa country of Northwestern Colorado. Elizabeth’s work is represented in galleries nationwide and  included in numerous juried and invitational exhibitions.

Bringing together influences as diverse as 18th century English transferware, Japanese Oribe pottery, contemporary painting and industrial ceramics, Elizabeth’s pottery embodies a broad  interest in the history of art and craft, ancient to industrial. She strives to make well formed, functional objects, with a sensuous surface, and relaxed posture, that record the transformation of material through process.  Often functioning as a display piece as well as a utilitarian vessel, her pieces take advantage of porcelain's affinity for both delicacy and density, and as a ground for luminous color.

Having discovered a passion for clay on the way to a degree in Botany, Elizabeth decided her interest in beauty, process and morphology was better served as a potter. After receiving her Bachelor’s degree in 1994, Elizabeth traveled widely seeking to expand her knowledge and skills.  She worked in studios across the country, from non-profit art centers, to academia to production studios, including the Mendocino Art Center (CA), Hoyman-Browe Studio (CA), CU Boulder (CO), Carbondale Clay Center (CO) and the Archie Bray Foundation (MT). Upon completing her Masters of Fine Arts degree at Ohio University in 2002, she returned to Colorado to work as Program Director for the Carbondale Clay Center, a non-profit community arts organization, while maintaining an active studio life and exhibition schedule. In 2004 Elizabeth made the transition into full time work as a self supporting studio potter, which included marriage, a move to the boondocks, and buying and renovating an old building into her studio. She welcomes any visitor willing to make the trek.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I use imagery in a manner both nostalgic and iconic. The patterns seem at once familiar and obscure, as fragments of wallpaper and textbook diagrams converse and instruct. Incised and drawn lines intersect and underlie the transfers- continuing the arc of a handle or emphasizing the awkwardness of a spout rammed against the body of a teapot.

The back of a platter, the bottom of the foot, contain as much, or more, detail and deliberation as the exposed surfaces. These hidden areas help build the  layers of information, not readily accessible, that must be discovered over time, through acts more intimate than merely gazing.

Thus, I find that something as straightforward as a cup can be a profound thing. Something simple and useful functions also as a record it its maker, an object of contemplation, of consumption, and an accessory to the rituals of both serving and dining.

www.risingmeadowpottery.com

Diane’s passion for making pots began in high school and as a result she found herself spending too much time in the “pot shop” while pursuing a science degree at Juniata College.  She transferred to The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University where she received a B.F.A. in 1992.  After graduating school Diane was able to develop her work and teaching skills while pursuing resident artist positions at well known facilities like; The Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and The Archie Bray Foundation.  It was a resident potter position at The Frog Hollow Craft Center in Manchester that brought her and her husband, Nick Seidner, to Vermont.  They settled in quiet Middletown Springs where they established Rising Meadow Pottery in 1998.  There they have studios, a gallery and a teaching facility.

ARTIST STATEMENT

www.risingmeadowpottery.com

Nick received a B.F.A. from the New York State School of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1992 and completed a variety of residency programs at institutions such as; The Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana and Pewabic Pottery in Detroit, Michigan.

ARTIST STATEMENT