Sources and Influences: Contemporary Clay Artists, Mentors and Students
March 10 - May 20, 2012
Opening reception begins at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 22, 2012, with Warren MacKenzie giving his Walter Gropius Master Artist Public Presentation followed by a reception. Admission to this opening reception is free.
Walter Gropius Master Artist Randy Johnston will present a demonstration-only workshop at HMA during this exhibit on April 20-22. Call (304) 529-2701 for workshop fee information.
Ceramic artist and teacher Kathleen Kneafsey has served as artist-in-residence at the Huntington Museum of Art for the past 10 years. She is responsible for selecting the country’s top ceramic artists to visit Huntington, WV, as part of the Walter Gropius Master Artist Workshop Series. Thanks to her ongoing efforts the museum’s small clay studio has grown, the workshop program has gained national stature, and HMA’s contemporary ceramics collection expands with each visiting artist. Kneafsey’s bold vision and commitment to ceramics education continues with Sources and Influences: Contemporary Clay Artists, Mentors and Students.
Sources and Influences explores the connections, tangible and intangible, between mentors and students within the current studio ceramics community in the U.S., beginning with a single, representative work by each of the 22 clay artists who have participated in the Walter Gropius Master Artist Workshop Series. In keeping with the theme, each of the artists has selected two additional ceramists to display work alongside their own: an artist they consider their mentor, and another whom they have mentored. The exhibit will present a total of 66 works, both functional and sculptural. Three generations of potters are represented, from early vanguards of the studio pottery movement to those just beginning their career in clay. Professional give-and-take remains, as it always has, an important vehicle to transmit ideas concerning technique and aesthetic; however, among these ceramic artists, camaraderie often extends beyond direct instruction in the studio. Sources and Influences is rooted in the power of these relationships to shape not only a career, but a life – in clay.
This exhibit is sponsored by The Herald-Dispatch, the Isabelle Gwynn and Robert Daine Exhibition Endowment, In Memory of Dr. Paul Ambrose, In Honor of Milton and Jane Herndon, In Memory of Mary Etta Hight, In Memory of James B. Hoey, In Honor of Helen and Bob Massullo, In Memory of See-More (English Bull Terrier 4/25/2005-11/9/2010), the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, and the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.
This program is presented with financial assistance from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.
