In- Print

Here are a few shots from a printmaking show I was involved in. We put together this show in March to showcase the work from the graduate printmaking show with mark St. Pierre. Sometimes Gallery 244 aka the student gallery can be used as more of a project space than an actual gallery. This show came out looking really professional. I'm not sure if it was just the tasty snacks we provided at the opening or the actual work but the show seemed to be enjoyed by all the visitors. 

Umass MFA Ceramics Show Hunter College NYC

The Umass Dartmouth graduate ceramic department just had a show at hunter college in mid town Manhattan. The show was up for two weeks in Hunter's project space. The closing reception was well attended, no critics though. Had some good feedback on my work from some of the visitors. Karrie and I spent the weekend with Erik and Sarah at the Crown Plaza on Time Square. The Museum of Art and Design, (MAD), is a must see. "Swept away", one of their current exhibitions, features artists woking with dust and dirt as a main medium. The projects ranged from soil samples taken around the city and presented in plexiglass boxes corresponding with their relative locations to paintings in smog. The best restaurant we went to was Meskerem. I've never tried Etheopian food before. As a bit of a foodie it's nice to think there are still new things out there to try. Our visit to the Manhattan Anthropology store sparked a great debate as to the authenticity of objects in relation to their cultural roots and modern reproduction of faux historical object. All in all a great trip.

Here are some shots from the Umass Dartmouth show On the Wall:

Thomas Claud Myers

Claudia Mastrobuono

Leslie Macklin

Alia Pialtos

Amy Uthus

Erik Wilhelmsen

James Mitschmyer

Allie Elia

Ryan Blackwell

On Material

My materials primarily come from the earth but I rarely mine them. They come from diverse places all uniquely rich in specific minerals, ores, and elements. Some are as precious as gold and platinum but most of the materials I use are essentially dirt. Mud, changed by fire becomes like stone, glass, and metal.

Ceramic.

The initial attraction to clay and subsequently ceramics, lies in the visceral nature of forming and its almost magical transformation from a plastic, temporal material, to a permanent object. The objects I make will endure for centuries beyond my generation, and perhaps my culture. It fosters a sense of immortal of voice.

Most of my life has not been lived in an urban environment. I spent my child hood growing up in the rural town of Greenville, New Hampshire. This defunct mill town was at one time directly connected with Boston and Maine. The mills constructed of fire brick still dominate the landscape framing the Souhegan river that for years powered the mills and the economy of the town. The powerful buildings sit empty, but the bricks and mortar tell a story of times passed. Like the clay that is found on the banks of the Souhegan, I feel a connection to the bricks that form the old mills. I am too young to remember the prosperous days of the textile mills, but the buildings tell stories of power and money that has surrendered to sloth and poverty.

Clays seduction lies in its archetypal nature. As God fashioned Adam out of clay to breath life into the first human so to does the potter to sustain life with the first cup. It’s inorganic nature, in a way contradicts it’s function to sustain life. With clay man is created, creates volumes to contain sustenance, and temples to worship the god whose image they reflect. In clay man is god and god man, it’s an equality unwritten but understood through generations of skilled hands and quiet minds.

Whether exploited or neglected, clay surrounds the world in which we live, since the beginning of civilization it has played a reticent roll in the lives of humans. It surrounds us, adorning the buildings we inhabit, the coffee we drink, and the teeth we neglect. Virtuous in nature, clay and man are inseparable.

I want to create and document my culture for the future. I find solace in the objects of the past. Reinterpreted through the glass of a museum case, the creations of past cultures speak volumes of the present, and occasionally allude to the future. We enshrine these objects to link ourselves together through time and space. The meaning and purpose for which they were made, re-contextualized and interpreted to fit our new global culture, exposing for the spectator a discreet global culture of the past. Within this warp and weft I weave messages for the future while recording my perceptions of the present; working in traditional materials with skills passed up through millennia and employing cutting edge technology that will someday be as common place as the wheel. The story starts with the clay that still lays under our feet, at the banks of rivers and the tops of mountains, the same clay that structures the buildings of prophets and martyrs, bankers and the homeless. It is the same clay that forms the Hitler’s plate and Gandhi's bowl.  

In my urban and rural life clay is ever present.

I am a potter, and potters like clay take many forms.