Linda Christianson - Host Potter
After 40 plus some years, I am still excited and troubled opening the studio door. The qualities that I search for in my work are fairly straight forward. I am interested in a pot that does its duty well yet can stand on its own as a visual object.
Trying to get the form right and then laying down a quiet surface with the woodkiln is always a challenge. My work hopefully acts like engaging tools in the life they carry forward.
35703 Vibo Trl, Lindstrom, MN 55045
linda@christiansonpottery.com
christiansonpottery.com
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Bandana Pottery
Michael Hunt & Naomi Dalglish
Bakersville, NC
We make our pots using primarily coarse, impure local materials. Our pots are thrown on a slow turning Korean-style kick wheel, and the large jars are made using a traditional Korean paddle and anvil technique. We then fire the pots in a large, Thai-shaped wood kiln. Through this collaboration with powerful materials and processes, we hope to create an environment in which pots can be born with a beauty beyond what is possible with our own hands. Beginning with the geologic processes that form the coarse red clay, passing through our hands and kiln, the life of these pots is continued through years of daily use.
huntdalglish@gmail.com
www.bandanapottery.com
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Lisa Buck, Afton, MN
Working from the long tradition of studio and folk potters, I passionately pursue the good individual pot that comes from working in a series of related forms over time.
My clay work is an endeavor of relationships and compositions, as I work to create a balance between the honest, sometimes unmannered lines of construction and the formal considerations of making functional pots.
Working with a limited palette of color and earthenware clay, I employ a range of construction techniques, including slab, coil, pinch and wheel-throwing, often combining them to help convey an idea in form.
I am inspired by extended time in nature, nearby in the hills of Afton State Park, as well as the distant landscape of Morocco where I lived for two years.
lisabuckpottery@gmail.com
www.lisabuckpottery.com
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Nancy Green, Watkinsville, GA
Although I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, OH, as a child I spent every possible moment in the country exploring woods and playing in creeks. The earthy tones and minimalism of my functional pots reflect the nature that surrounded me as a child. I gravitate towards a pot that is causal, quiet and appears to have grown right out of the spot it sits.
My aesthetic falls into a minimalist category, less is more for me. I am drawn to and hope to create tableware and vases that have an organic and natural quality to them. These are the pots that pull me in. Their irregularities give these pots a personality not unlike our own physical presence. I juxtapose minimal, simple clean lines, designs that are unadorned but have a strong presence with aspects that are loose, organic and casual.
nancygreenceramics@gmail.com
www.nancygreenceramics.com
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Mike Helke, Stillwater, MN
I want my pots to live among their users, revealing their identity—their story over time through use and contemplation. Ideally, my pots help the user think, feel, question, and wonder how things could be rather than how they should be. I hope the user’s understanding of the pot evolves along with their personal perception of things while it might also help them imagine or re-imagine their own hopeful future.
michael.helke@uwrf.edu
mikehelkepottery.com
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Tom Jaszczak, Shafer, MN
I seek a balance between tradition and modern. My pots have layers, first the decoration that is bright yet flat and in the foreground. My decoration is minimal or often a simple graphic, placement of this moment is essential to the focal point of each pot. Second the slip that is fluid and has a rich depth in surface. Finally, the ruggedness of the clay with scrapes and small pits. This cumulative journey of a pot tells a story. This story brings the user into the moment of making and firing. Slips, trimming lines, finger marks, edges, wad marks, drips, scratches and shadows capture a moment in time and tell more of the story. I react to every firing with new ideas and new information; this keeps the overall process fresh and exciting. A successful pot has depth through these processes, obtains humbleness through form and both a thoughtfulness and playfulness in function.
Randy Johnston, River Falls, WI
As an artist I am engaged in tracking down a primary moment, a moment that reveals vulnerability, emotion, intellect, the conscious and subconscious. Seeking to transform that moment into artistic creation compels me.
My work has specific modern connotations and addresses the development of abstraction within the aesthetic of utilitarian objects. My pursuit is to enlarge the boundaries of conventional perceptions and enable new methods of communication and combination. The work considers the relationship of architectural structure and spatial orientation. Many of the pieces suggest through their framework both an internal and external boundary system. Connecting these systems and identifying the dualities and the metaphoric potential of a form's austere directness, aggressiveness, and simplicity are challenges to be considered with each piece. Essential to a strong representation of each form is a feeling for its overall spatial structure. Moreover, the surface textures and marks are not an afterthought, but a tangible component of completion and fulfillment.
The use of proportion, texture, and gestural marks involves intense energy and instinctive levels of identification, which leads to an evocative spatial presence in the work. My desire to grant these pieces the aura of ritual objects is an attempt to reconcile objective reality with my own spiritual reality.
randy.johnston@uwrf.edu
www.mckeachiejohnstonstudios.com
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Jan McKeachie Johnston, River Falls, WI
I have worked as a studio potter/ceramic artist for more than 45years. My work grows out of a strong tradition of functional ceramics from England and Japan (Leach/Hamada). Over the years it has also been informed and inspired by the ancient Minoan pottery of Crete, Jomon pottery of Japan, American Indian and Japanese basket forms, Iranian pottery, and many aspects of African art including pottery and masks. My interest in these cultures and their art is the strong sense of form, rich surface pattern and texture, and a universally understood connection between humanity and art, elements which I am concerned with in my own work.
I fire much of my work in a Japanese style wood fired kiln. It is a sixty-hour firing process during which wood is continually stoked into the kiln. The accumulation of ash on the surface of the pieces enhances the surface textures and subtleties of form that I consider critical to the qualities I am trying to communicate.
Working within a traditional framework, it is important to me that my work moves beyond that framework to carry information personal to myself to the viewer/user. Each piece is considered as an individual. I approach my work intuitively, finding that while I have certain ideas or parameters about form and finished product it is essential to the vitality of the piece to remain open and maintain a dialogue during the creating process. Through this process I hope to reveal the unique, friendly, and responsive, and robust qualities of clay as a material.
My intent is that these pieces stand alone as visual objects. My hope is that they move beyond that to express emotional, sensual, tactile, spiritual, and ritual sensibilities—these sensibilities being enhanced by the communication and sharing that occurs through use.
janmckeachie@gmail.com
mckeachiejohnstonstudios.com
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Jane Shellenbarger, Mount Morris, NY
I am a studio potter and educator. An associate professor at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, I maintain a studio in Avon, NY.
My work combines historical and cultural references with domestic objects. The pieces are thrown and constructed with a variety of surface treatments. I explore the space between elegance and crude materiality, questioning conventional beauty within historical forms. I search for the tipping point where the familiar object becomes artifact.