Miguel Abugattas

In the series “Suenos” (“Dreams”), I try to give form to the many hopes, based on past glories, that descendants of pre-Columbian societies bring with them to their encounters with present day reality. In these encounters, reality often demonstrates that their expectations are nothing more than fantasies. While ancient pre-Columbian ceramics varied in color from black to polychromatic, I am fascinated by the interaction between my simple ceramic forms and the unpredictable effects that occur during the firing process. It is both exciting and frustrating never knowing what I will find when the kiln is unloaded.

Jake Allee

I employ the ideas of the Gestaltist to arrange and rearrange the vocabulary of formal elements I have developed over the years. I view my forms and textures as a bit of a scrabble game, arrangement and order create meaning; the possibilities are infinite. The only trick to the game is spelling out the concept of utility. Oncethis is achieved I use the object for experimentation in the finished surface through firing. I am constantly referencing the formal attributes of historical movements in Fine Art and Craft to give my work a context for understanding by the viewer or user. My work is always a record of where I’m at in time and an expression of livinglife as an adventure!
Drawing  Statement
The act of drawing is important to me because I am not always able to work in clay. The spontaneous nature of how I come to ideas relies on drawing. The immediate nature of executing a drawing creates a balance in my art making activities. Making art can’t wait for specialized facilities or time structures and the media of ceramic is very process oriented. I value quick and direct methods as much as methodical execution of steps because inhibition is not conducive to my work ethic.
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Steve  Allen

I create to satisfy a deep inner force. I feel most alive in the studio while giving shape to clay to speak my mind and signify my emotion.

My past work has followed two paths. The psyche-centric works are small to medium sculptures constructed from wheel thrown and hand built components assembled to make social commentary. The mood-centric works are large wheel-thrown pieces pushing the limits of the wheel and kiln and have simple organic volumes evoking purely an emotional response.

In both cases, my concern for the environment can be found. I begin with shredded recycled newspapers and magazines mixed with a slurry of reclaimed clay.  This is my medium of choice to recontextualize contemporary issues inspired by articles in the same printed media being recycled. My thoughts and feelings are brought to enduring form by turning these media into works of art.

My current work is an amalgamation of mentality and heart. A fusion of mostly thrown elements that are cut, pierced, punched, ripped, slashed and combined into a final towering sculpture, containing simple curved volumes interrupted by complex textures and hard edged components. Neither the social commentary nor the emotional effect is lost. They now compliment each other in on piece, allowing the clay to speak my mind with greater emotion impact.

Crista Ann Ames

My interests lie in human behaviors and the duality of emotions existing in a single moment. The idea that sentiment such as fear and trust are so closely related and cannot be defined without reference to the other, illustrates how such feelings can exist simultaneously in a single moment. Our interactions with one another are based on how we portray these conflicting ideas and their relation to the human desire of feeling connected to someone. This idea is shown in my own work through the use of implied body language either painted on the surface of the piece or depicted through the gesture of the three demential form.

Nicholas Bernard

This body of work deals with classical forms and their manipulation. Special attention is paid to proportion. The length and thickness of the neck and the diameter of the foot are very important. The placement , size and negative space generated by the handles and flourishes are also of great concern for the eventual success of the piece. Form is everything, I stretch clay to make canvases for decoration. Texture, pattern and color are successful additions when the shapes are impeccable.
Technical Description
These pieces are thrown with a heavily groged white earthenware clay. The pieces are sometimes stretched, cut, reassembled and altered further while wet. Handles and additions are added after trimming. Most pieces require a drying time between one and two weeks as the handles will crack if dried too quickly.
Decoration sometimes begins in the leather hard state with the application of slips using ceramic stains or oxides as colorants. Other pieces are bisque fired and then decorated.
Layers of colored slips and oxides are added and manipulated through several firings to achieve color and texture. All pieces are fired in oxidation to Cone 03 or 2000 degrees F.

Kelly Berning

Residual damage is the root of my ceramic work. Involuntary interactions with predatory individuals may profoundly affect the life of an innocent person. Although the source of this terror may disappear physically, the anxiety still lingers and starts to be controlled by the unconscious. I use clay as a means to transport ideas from the inside of my mind into the outer world. I find great interest in the dynamic interactions of the unconscious and conscious forces in the mental life of a person. Sometimes psychological activity conjured by certain fears can take precedence in everyday life. This progression from a physical threat to a mental maelstrom of trying to regain a lost sense of balance stems a yearning for childhood innocence or for a sense of acceptance in a world of outcast. My animated figurative sculptures combine a literal and humorous approach to portray my ideas. The most recent series, “The Carnival Series” is a study on carnival lifestyles. The idea of blending in or becoming somebody else for a night intrigues me. Then off to a new town with a new audience that has never seen you before, and will never see you again. Who is the person behind the mask? What does that person become when the show is over? Have they found their place in the circus because what they see in the crowd is a predictable society painting upon basic self-indulgence, lethargy, and insensitivity? “In a circus you didn’t have to-weren’t supposed to avert your eyes, and that may have been its ultimate kick” (Edward Hoagland in Circus Music). Legs with tights, flying pigs, pitiful hands, puppet like arms and carnival balls, symbols provoked from my dreams and everyday life, are used in my work to create a feeling of going within the self, through the fragments of my memories. My prominent influence is Surrealism, in particular the work of painter Remedios Varo. Her blending of dissimilar elements and acknowledgement of the mind as an interior landscape fascinates me. Though the subject matter is not always funny, it metaphorically relates how we often use humor to cope with serious issues.

Trent Berning

My work is an autobiographical look into growth within a relationship.  In an attempt to understand this I use two opposites creating a partnership, working toward a common goal.  I depict a human emotional relationship building from the past, giving a glimpse of the present, and leading to the potential of the future.  The objects and situations illustrated in the clay talk about my life and who I am.      

Specific symbols suggest elements of time in my sculptures.  These symbols include blocks representing links to the past; circles and spheres used as metaphors for potential movement toward the future, and drawings, which signify past, present and future issues.  The conflicts created by some of these contrasting elements are used to show how counterparts can harmonize and reflect each other.  The blocks and spheres create halves of the complementary interaction that occur in these sculptures.  By placing a box beside a circle or sphere design differences are allowed to become more relevant with hard angles and round components more pronounced.  The opposites working together are stressed while exploring their partnership.  The cubes symbolize the foundation of the past, or a place to build from, which is contrasted by the circle or sphere that is representational of the future and forward momentum.         

The three dimensional ceramic reliefs are a direct autobiographical statement.  The loose, scratchy and gestural natures of the renderings are meant to release the energy of the marks from the clay, and give a sense of thoughts in process or traces of symbolic objects.  There is a playful randomness to the mark making which shows a visceral approach to the clay.  This relates to my love of the material by revealing the natural beauty of the clay, by giving hints to the construction of the pieces and working with the rough materialness of clay.  My multi-faceted sculptures and vessels symbolize my own complexity and my feelings toward the ceramic medium.

The material and scale of these works are important attributes of the overall premise of the work.  The ceramic medium relates to the theme of relationships on several levels from its flexibility and ability to grow and change to the emotional growth of a relationship.  I also consider the degree of the clay's fragility, in which if not treated properly can collapse, and the permanency of fired clay in comparison to the hopeful stability of the relationship.  The exaggerated scale of the work shows the importance of human relationships and how these situations can easily become bigger than a single person.

Such unique drinking vessels as champagne flutes, whiskey Jugs, martini and red wine glasses, inspire my functional work. The symbolic reference of this particular body of work speaks of the camaraderie that occurs while sharing time with friends and family.  This work is meant to be seen, felt, and assist in the reflections of the time (whether good or bad) spent with the people that are closest to you.

E. Tyler Burton

My work is about finding an inner wisdom and peace in this hectic, sometimes crazy world we live in. I am drawn to the figure, in it’s abstract form, representing all of humanity. I am interested in the mood and personality of the figure in its simplest form, featureless.

This piece, ‘A Silent Conversation’, reminds me to be still, and look within.

Shuching Chen

My current work explores a variety of 2D and 3D forms incorporating screenprinted patterns, hand-built slabs, and wheel-thrown forms. I try to create interplay between negative and positive space, manipulating the way light filters through perforation that partially illuminates images. I use screenprinted images of natural life that carry their own innate repetitive structures to illustrate the relationships between simplicity, complexity, fragility, and robustness.

Nathan Craven

Through the act of arranging, stacking, balancing, and connecting porous ceramic units I invite the viewer to experience how a wall or floor might contain space and direct flow through space in new ways. The eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant described decoration as “enlivening the object for sensation.” In my work, extruded forms function both as decoration and as structure. Depending on their context, they become floors, window screens, and room dividers. This architecture is not merely decorated it actually grows from decoration.

Shenny Phillips Cruces

My current work is an expression of my love affair with fine porcelain. I refabricate pre-existing porcelain wares and layer them with feminine images and objects of the twenty-first century. I would like to push these forms beyond the floral patterns they are originally decorated with by adding images with which the contemporary woman is associated. These works are an exploration of the ideas of girlhood, motherhood, body image, femininity, sexuality and how images associated with these ideas can contradict while simultaneously complement one another. By bringing a modern edge to these forms, my sculptures act in two ways: first, as a mirror to modern women and society, and second, as a nostalgic evocation of the past.

Patricia Ferber

I am primarily a sculptor working in varied media. Encompassed are clay pieces, paintings, as well as large architectural/environmental landscape works. These are formed out of rock and metal, and often are megalithic in size. Ceramics involves me in a cathartic process tapping my creative potential to a greater extent than any other media utilized. During this process the clay serves as an extension of my imago mundi.

Dina Finzi

I have been inspired by organic forms and contour lines
throughout my artistic life.  I love their sensuality and femininity.  I
always return to these elements whenever I go off in other directions with
my clay work.  They are my roots in both two dimensional and three
dimensional forms.  My pots are three dimensional drawings whose subjects
are usually plants in my garden.  I have a strong connection to my garden as
I raise the plants, often from seeds, and care for them through the seasons
of their lives. I draw and photograph them at all stages of their growth.

I work in porcelain on the potter's wheel.  Its smooth skin and the forms I
throw lend themselves to the surfaces I favor.  I derive great satisfaction
from drawing onto and carving into a porcelain piece.  I can anticipate how
the glazes will help to enhance the surface by pooling and flowing over the
pot.  This anticipation is like a fluid dance in my mind.  I learn something
each time I throw, carve and fire.  It takes a lot of time and patience to

fully realize a piece but I can't wait to begin the process anew.

Karyn Gabriel

Our bodies bare little difference from the surrounding landscape. Deep beneath layers of vegetation and topsoil, exists a core of rocks and minerals. These same minerals create our own structure, the bones, giving us form, movement and protection. Yet, this most elemental relationship to the land cannot readily be seen. It is those mysteries hidden beneath the surface, both physically and spiritually, that inspire my life and art. My current work peels away our outer skin, in hopes to reveal our true form. What remains is simply our relationship to one another and our selves. Each form shares a similar lineage, derived from the same root, yet remains unique. Relationships are explored, some tenuous and some strong, through spatial groupings, surface and texture. Creating with clay links me to the land, and in turn, to myself. Art, for me, is about transformation - seeking questions, finding understanding, creating possibilities. My work is an expression of those elemental connections. We are all simply bones, manifested of the same material, interdependent upon one another and creating a whole.

Jon Gariepy

There is a kind of haunted feeling in quiet old boatyards with their rotting hulks. I have spent many magical hours exploring harbors and boatyards and am especially moved by aged and battered vessels.

Old, decaying objects seem to give off vibrations from all their years of life. I feel a kind of meditative energy emanating from them and imagine that our human energy is absorbed by the objects we love and spend a lot of time with, and as they decay, they release that energy into the atmosphere — the joy of a fair wind and a sunny day, the love of sailing, the love of making a living on the water. And there’s the sadness at the end of a day for the mortality of all things. I’m always looking for a way to make off-beat what may seem at first glance mundane subject matter. I work in a gestural manner, almost throwing each object together. The lines of my pieces aren’t straight and clay oozes out of joints. I love rough edges, ragged textures against smooth, flakes of clay clinging to the work. I want my material to retain its clayness. I also work very loosely with underglazes and cold finishes, brushing on the finish with wide brushes in thin washes, drawing on my background in watercolor. Through form, texture and finish I try to give voice to a simple part of our everyday existence.

Bryson Gerard

All my life I have been making things, and clay has always been for me the most direct, most intimate and responsive, most challenging, compelling, frustrating, and yet most permanent of all media. I depend upon it when all else seems irrelevant. In ceramics, the four ancient elements come together and are transformed, often as if by magic. My involvement is both active and passive, I work and watch, and no other path has so well kept me moving and learning. The container forms are 3D examples of ceramic printmaking, where "pots" or structures evolve from sheets of textured clay, becoming whatever they decide to be. The fire washes over them, enriching some and destroying others, playing tricks with color and texture as I wait. Some pieces emerge in need of extra parts, so I allow found objects to enter the mix; it's like trying to write a poem in two languages, neither of which I completely understand.

Steve Hilton

As a geologist and a clay artist, I have developed an appreciation for the anomalies in the many forms of life, clay, rock, and soil covering the Earth’s landscape. I am intrigued by the way plants, animals and weather influence the Earth’s surface, by both erosional and depositional means. This fascination has become an integral part of my art. I am currently thinking about these iterations as I work. Looking at nature as a fragmented or geometric shape that is repeatedly subdivided into parts, each a smaller copy of the whole. The use of self-similarity in art allows me to interpret nature for the viewer and myself: hopefully, with both of us seeing the natural world differently after spending time with my art.

John Hopkins

I tend to work in cycles of making sculptural pieces or functional pots. Recently I’ve returned to the type of work I did fifteen years ago using low fire and bright colors. I have once again become intrigued by the relationship of the sculptural form and textural surfaces. My plate designs evolve around a single image. It is important to me that this image is three dimensionally complete. Complete in the since that I see it as a sculptural form floating or sailing in open space. I use sand blasting techniques before and after firing to achieve my textures. I use under glazes for base color and luster’s to achieve the pastel glass like quality. I complete the work with over glazes and additional sand blasting. The entire process takes five to six firings between 04 and 019.

Steve Horn

In 1974, one of my professors at Cal State Fullerton required those of us in his graduate seminar to write a personal statement about their artistic philosophy. I did not keep a copy of mine, and all that I can remember is my last line, a quotation from Dante: “Do as the Divine: create.” At the time I was not conscious of what I (or Dante) meant by that, but it was an urge that I deeply felt. Forty years later, the meaning is clearer. It’s about doing what comes naturally, about playing, about potential—following thoughts and impulses, seeing what happens if I try this or that, and taking a ride to somewhere unknown. It’s about learning how to stand out of the way and let the process take over. It’s a journey with no destination that brings the soul near. I would never have imagined that I would be making the things that I make. George Ohr, the Biloxi potter, wrote at the turn of the century: “Clay follows the fingers and the fingers follow the mind.” I’m happy that I have worked and lived long enough to develop the skills needed to create these objects. And the neurons are still firing too.

David Kiddie

Recently I have been making sculpture by combining wheel-thrown orb shapes. I construct sculptures from the basic orb form because of the voluptuous qualities that are possible when juxtaposed in compositions that utilize interplay of positive and negative space. The ambiguousness of the orb allows me to assemble works with a variety of implications from anthropomorphic to landscape. Many of my works are inspired by the clustered arrangements of cells, bacteria and viruses found at the microscopic level. I prefer to use glazes and firing methods that encourage surprising variations by the running and bleeding of color in ways that are directed by the fire and their form.

Una Mjurka

Growing up in Latvia during the Soviet era was a unique experience that has influenced my creative work and outlook on life. In recent years I have focused on exploration of human nature and conditioning through the prism of Maslow’s pyramid of psychological needs, categorized in two distinguished groups such as “basic” and “being” needs. Through my work I celebrate the beauty of simplicity in mundane rituals fulfilling our basic human needs. These rituals award us with a sense of security and purpose, whether it would be building one’s shelter, growing or preparing food for one’s sustenance or seeking meaningful interactions. Unfortunately though, it seems like today’s society, plagued with consumerism, has lost the longing for a higher fulfillment of being needs. Within the last year I have started a new series of wall pieces composed of numerous tiles. This new development was informed by moving from the Bay Area to the rapidly changing San Joaquin Valley in Central California. I grew up on a small farm in Latvia. The landscape there, even though it was used for agricultural purposes, maintained its natural characteristics. It felt appropriate to human scale, comfortable to live in, familiar and personal. The environment and landscape of the Central Valley has been completely transformed by large scale commercial farming. The layout of the land has become grid-like, controlled, organized and de-personalized. Today this already altered landscape is going through its next transformation; it is becoming an enclave of urban sprawl and endless subdivisions. The disconnect I harbor towards this artificially created landscape is at the root of my current work. My creative process is mirroring the emotional discontent. Instead of employing direct hand-building techniques, now I am utilizing plaster press-molds to produce the work. Unlike my still lives, where form dominates, here the development of surface treatments has taken center stage. In addition to painted and mono-printed application of engobes, I also have begun experimenting with line drawing and silk-screening directly on tiles. The employment of various printing methods as a part of surface treatment reflects the character of my somewhat distant and strained relationship with the landscape I occupy.

Dennis Olsen

Over the past several years my interest in archaic documents and the metaphorical implications of palimpsests, codes, and languages has resulted in ceramic pieces that give tangibility to the images portrayed in my monoprints. Beginning in 2006 I made tablets and other small objects in porcelain that referenced jade, marble, and ivory and which seem to be artifacts whose meaning and purpose have been lost over time. The illuminated diptych in this exhibition is of bone china and its translucency reveals both overlapping details and the nuance of latent images.

Kathleen Owings

Working with clay arouses dormant instincts, sparks spontaneity, and transports the maker into a distilled state of being. I resonate with many aspects that clay innately offers - texture, dimension, volume, motion - and its natural ability to respond to as well as resist human intention. The nature of clay could be seen as a microcosm of life, fraught with tantalizing contradictions: compliant or contrary, vivid or serene, rock-solid or fragile, irremediable or forgiving. The magic lies somewhere in between.

Beth Ozarow

Several years ago, I began working primarily with the figure, mostly in the form of busts and heads. The early series has a particular personal energy: as a body of work, it feels quiet; there is a sense of stilled breath. Recently, various birds and other allegorical images are finding their way into the figurative pieces. The quiet of earlier work has returned. I have been using subtle gestures, specifically hand positions of holding and grasping, to explore the relationship of the body to hidden, inner aspects of self. Some of the figures have become quite understated; they take on a quality I think of as shadow, or ghost. The birds themselves, starting as only delicately visible, have begun taking flight away from the human form altogether, to stand on their own. The work is built from the bottom up, using flattened coils. By pushing from the inside out, I develop the overall form as I go, leaving working marks of joinery, fingers and hands visible on the surface. The pieces are fired from green ware to cone 4 in a single oxidation firing. I began using acrylic paints to finish the surfaces of my sculpture some time ago, taking great pleasure in the immediacy and flow that this medium allows.

Nancy Pene

With much trial and error over the past 30 plus years, in life and in the studio, I still find that the quick firing and post reduction of the Raku process holds my interest to date. The challenge for me now is the search to develop lasting details and memorable Raku glazes that will endure the test of time.

Heather Rosenman

The human form, one of the most easily reducible to a recognizable symbol, is also one of the most difficult to distill in art. It is one thing to make a simple recognizable human image, and quite another to convey a human presence in the purist, most essential, and elemental of forms — to make that leap to significant form from merely symbolic image. My recent body of work is inspired by the ancient figurative art of the Cyclades, whose sculpture comes as close to distilling the human presence as any representational art has before or since.

Shana Salaff

I make useful ceramic vessels that are designed for aesthetic pleasure as well as utility. My work runs the gamut between traditional or historically significant forms and inspirations and a more postmodern pastiche of style, colors, and decorative patterns. Each piece is part of a conscious process of experimentation and elimination. Each vessel asserts its own individual needs or predilections. The particular shape, relative softness, or surface quality of the wet clay that I am working with continually demands a response and tends to derail any too-specific planning. I see the items that I make as being useful "jewels" - shiny, small in stature, and made with as much care as possible. Decoration versus content, beauty versus pragmatism; these are the dialectics that inform my work.

Adrian Sandstrom

Current work is all wheel thrown and altered, multi-fired stoneware. A typical pot is fired up to 4 times with a max temperate reaching cone 6 or 2195º F. Used in the process are multiple layers of sprayed and brushed slips and under glazes. My current work has brought me to a point where I feel that pots relate to life, in that one starts with a solid base and the bumps and curves along that way are part of the journey that leads us to a significant ending. The dark bases keep everything grounded; however I continually ask myself what they are grounded to? The thought that we are grounded to what we are supposed to be and how we are supposed to live, or grounded to the idea that everything starts off the same and we all have the ability to make the ending our very own. The circles represent life experiences and striving for perfection, knowing full well that we all get one chance at life and in reality each pot has its’ own story and life. Each line and larger circle are perfect on the outside, it is the circles on the inside that are being repeated over and over to make that perfect circle or action, word, thought, or experience.

Patricia Sannit

My work explores the visual language and motifs that are transmitted from culture to culture, and how these motifs provide evidence of our species’ long history. My work is influenced by archaeology, geology, and the commonality of human experience through time. The forms are drawn from elements of architecture, industrial sources, and geological formations. I use a variety of clays to refer directly to the Earth’s crust. I want the clay to show evidence of manipulation and the natural processes that affect the material. I attempt to express a sense of history of culture and material, and to create work that sketches our shared humanity across cultures and through time.

Keith Schneider

The ceramic figure, with its rich and varied history, has been a great source of inspiration for me. By taking liberties with abstracting, exaggerating, synthesizing and stylizing as I see necessary for each of my pieces, I attempt to create individual “characters” that, through gesture, facial expression, color, and texture, possess their own unusual personalities and evoke their own particular emotions. I like using the idea of the figure as a thematic point of departure because it allows for such a broad range of interpretation and can be approached from so many different directions. My pieces are constructed from earthenware clay and fired to cone 03. Surface color is developed with underglazes, glazes, and stains. I often begin my pieces with a wide variety of wheel thrown forms and put them together in combination with other elements; sometimes extruded pieces, sometimes press-molded or handbuilt. During this process, I try not to be too cerebral, but instead, attempt to react directly to what is visually in front of me and trust my instincts. Often, as I am working, these pieces take on a life of their own and it is interesting to me that some of my characters seem anxious and overwhelmed, some worried and perplexed, some quizzical and amused. As I live with these characters, I believe that they speak to me about myself.

Kelly Schnorr

My suburbia series combines mold made ceramics, repetitious imagery, and found objects. The resulting objects combine and layer my personal experience and my critique of the current suburban culture. These investigations cause me to question my own individuality and the quality of life in the postmodern suburban lifestyle. Much of my work is in a palatable aesthetic, one that allows me to slide my social political ideas under the guise of kitsch.

Sam Scott

I have been a ceramic artist in Seattle since 1968 and have worked predominately in porcelain on the potter’s wheel. My forms are defined by functional simplicity and the white surface of each piece is decorated with abstract brushwork in blues, browns and grays. I also utilize the contrast of the white porcelain surface with a black matte glaze. The development of this glaze has allowed me to employ new forms of decoration on the clay surface, juxtaposing biomorphic poured shapes in contrast to the dense white porcelain. These drips create a graphic tension that is enhanced by orienting the directional flow of the glaze from both rim and foot of the piece. The shape of the pot informs the pouring process creating overlapping patterns which integrate the form, surface, and decoration, unifying the overall design. The body of this piece is a closed thrown form which is put on its side and attached to a thrown pedestal. The neck is a hand built seamed shape that is then attached to the body. Along with the black and white contrast, I am investigating the difference between the crisp thrown form of the body and the skin like texture and folds of the loosely constructed neck. My goal is to blend technique and intuition in both form and surface treatment, while working in the vessel format.

Julie Singer

My work focuses on elements that leave evidence of time’s passage. I am interested in fragments, weathered surfaces and lost details. I believe that objects have their own personal histories and in their broken, weathered, faded surfaces, a tension exists between what is absent and present. It is in these subtle details, which objects reveal glimpses of their story and therefore have the ability to tell us something about ourselves.

Jinsoo Song

Making art serves as a means of processing the raw emotions. I recollect, analyze, and contemplate throughout the act of art making. In the end, the work becomes a cryptic page in the visual diary of my life. Biblical parables and Confucian stories were the means of conveying complicated ideas in my childhood; It is no surprise my work is allegorical. Art making is how I confront my fear, struggle with desire, confess my sin, and reconcile myself.

Mandy Stigant

Right now, this very minute, there is a spot along the Oregon coast where a giant piece of driftwood sits alone in a field of tide-packed sand, waiting and bracing for the next attack by sea. It is, as objects go, a gnarled, dry, skeletal husk of a thing, sun-bleached white, twisting in and out on itself. Deep lines and cracks race around its contours, along old bony branches and through little caverns gaping like mouths and empty eye sockets in an old skull. Teenagers have carved graffiti and initials into the surface. Some of its clefts still hold water from the last time the tide paid a visit. It is the one object on the entire beach the water can’t just drag away all in one go, and so instead the tide and the wind come in daily to erode it away bit by bit, essentially whittling the driftwood to death with a sharp, patient blade made of a million grains of fine, white sand. When I build objects out of clay, I reflect on the stories of objects I have found, such as the stoic driftwood in Oregon. There is a narrative language found both in natural forms as well as in the man-made, and as often as not I find myself blurring the line between the two. The immensity of a story found in a particularly long-lived object brings to mind immediately my own small, finite place in its lifeline – I am a witness passing through, recording with my memory, and the object will continue its narrative long after I have gone. In my work I like to show the visceral, traceable lifeline of an object’s story: the memory and scars of its formation are evident and present right along with its current moment in an ongoing process of growth and destruction. Furthermore I want to make the viewer aware of the spirit of encountering and interacting with such an object, his own fleeting but significant moment of witness and presence in the object’s story.

Katherine Taylor

It is intriguing to watch how people communicate with each other in their home landscape versus an environment that is foreign to them. Our body movements change in order to accommodate the contours and textures of the place where we are. Even the rhythm of a conversation shared between two people changes in relation to their immediate environment. A specific landscape and the bodies within it begin to function together as a unit, creating a single form that represents an experience of that specific place. I am making sculptures that express this experience shared between our bodies and the landscape. I use porcelain because the smooth and subtle sheen of its fired surface relates to the soft and glowing appearance of skin. These sculptures are composed of contours that suggest the curves of the human body and also the curves that a mountainous landscape can mark on a horizon line. Curving surfaces are stacked against piled forms, compressed together creating the same dark lines, shadows, and cracks that our bodies can sense when moving across the earth. Glazed areas on these sculptures are like tattooed skin, clothing, or flowers that become the colorful jewels of the experiences of people and places. As we experience new places, our eyes change and grow much fuller. When we encounter a new landscape, we will experience it in the moment as well as through memory. Our perspective becomes a continuous collection of memory, time, and place.

Melissa Thomson

My work began with a finite set of materials and shapes, with the goal to create a depiction of order and chaos, through a Postmodern approach of Minimalism with ceramic geometric forms. I have learned that actual scientific and mathematical processes and theories may directly be applied. In the 1960’s, scientist Vladimir Arnold figured out a very specific subset of Chaos Theory utilizing a digital image. He took a photo of a cat and transformed the image 299 times. On the 300th iteration, he returned to the original image of the cat. We would assume that after the first 150 iterations, Arnold simply applied the reverse order of the first 150 steps to arrive back at the intact image of the cat on the 300th. The strange part was, he did not. The second 150 steps taken were merely similar to the first 150, not identical. Simple systems can produce chaos. This indicates the ability for reversal in chaotic behavior as illustrated by Vladimir Arnold’s Cat Map. (Wikipedia)

Karen Tomfohr

This piece was inspired by the movie 300. While watching for the second time, I got a vivid picture of my husband and as I giggled to myself, I realized I had to sculpt “My Spartan”. As lovable and determined as the character is in this piece, he has his demons: the easy chair, the television, unfinished projects, and not fully understanding which weapons are best in this battle called life. My goal is to create a piece that will, quite literally, draw you in. I want to create conversation, provoke thought and generate a giggle or two. I hope “My Spartan” can serve as a reminder that our demons can take root, destroy our effectiveness and defeat our ambition.

Takao Tomono

The most important thing about creating art is to enjoy it. It is difficult to create without joy. I like to work freely, following my own ideas because I think that leads to creativity. Through my work, I want to communicate with people and make high quality pieces that they will want to live with.

Michelle Turner

The act of praying can feel like putting a message in a bottle and tossing it out to sea. How can you possibly ensure your message is received, and assuming it is received, by whom? These are questions of faith. My work is an intimate exploration of faith displayed though the act of prayer. I created this body of work in response to my interest in different religions and the people who follow them as well as my own struggles with my faith. The quest for knowledge can assault a person with an abundance of new ideas of science and theology; all of which can quickly deteriorate a person's religious foundation. However, knowledge can also fortify faith. While others follow blindly, never fully developing their individual beliefs. The prayers printed on these bottles were contributed from all kinds of people from all walks of life. My request for prayers was open to any form and I worked strictly from what I received. Though the act of prayer differs from person to person, the one thing they all have in common is the faith that someone will receive their prayers.

Craig Wood

My best guess is that the idea of self is a sham; time an illusion. We are in the current moment both less and more than we think we are. My art attempts to make sense of life, and to live it fully and meaningfully in the now.

Joni Younkins-Herzog

I developed a scientific fascination with biology as a young child. Thoroughly exploring the woods in my neighborhood, turning over rocks to reveal scorpions, salamanders, bones, lizards with blue tails and fantastic beetles. I wondered how to polish river rocks; how cicadas could produce so much noise; ….why did mosquitoes prefer to bite me? These early investigations and experiences lent to an obsession with beauty in nature and heavily influenced my aesthetics and choice of materials as a sculptor. I also read books voraciously. By indulging in science-fiction worlds and stories of mythological beings I perpetuated a sense of escapism. These fictional worlds permitted the opportunity to mentally modify my surroundings and enabled a feeling of belonging to something larger than myself. Vacillating between reality and fantasy allowed me to create a natural dialogue between unexpected items/ideas. Now I wonder how would the transition from human into goat, horse, wolf, bull etc., actually feel and look? What happens when I reconfigure and shift the scale of familiar body parts? Adopting the role of mad scientist, or geneticist given free reign, these “specimens” are hybrid characters, psychological mythologies, simultaneously grotesque, absurd and funny. The humor in my work initially diffuses the underlying anxiety, allowing one to laugh and take a moment to question “why?” Many of these reconfigurations are based on seeing unfamiliar and amazing forms during my travels in Central and South America. My current research include museums, zoos and botanical gardens that reinforce a primal draw to tropical flora and fauna that resurface in my work. I emulate their organic constructions, incorporating their amazing textures, junctures and growth mechanisms into my sculptures. Then I lure my viewers closer with luscious materials, and sensual forms, inviting them to take a closer look. I have a pre-occupation with beauty. Beauty in nature serves a purpose such as; attracting a mate, pollinator or prey. On the other hand it can draw our attention as an item to covet, valuing the parts as greater than the whole -as a person, an animal, or species driven to extinction due to the beauty of its parts. Contrasting my perceptions of beauty with absurdity, the unexpected and sometimes repulsive elements accentuate extremes and demonstrates a search for the sublime in unexpected contexts. Constant bombardment of beauty, sex and violence found in films and television has created a personal desensitization to provocative information. My sculptures are intended to evoke an emotional response and create a dialogue between the visceral and intellectual, questioning a modern tendency to “disconnect” our minds from our bodies.