Show: Suzanne Sidebottom - April 15 to March 23

Minutes: LOUISVILLE CLAY MEETING: March 22, 2011

LOCATION: University of Louisville Ceramic Studio

AGENDA:  'The Artist's Critique' - a discussion by Pam Korte and Gwen Heffner

MEETINGS:  We now have only 4 meetings a year. The remainder for the year are:

Thursday, June 16, 7:00 pm - Experienced jurors will discuss what goes on behind the scenes when assessing submissions and we hope to also get a someone to discuss taking photographs of your own work.

Wednesday, Sept. 16, 7:00 pm - 7-8 of our professional potters in the group will demonstrate their particular approach to the bottle form.

Tuesday, Dec. 6, 7:00 pm - Christmas Party

All of our meetings are in preparation for a Bourbon Bottle Show in 2012.

WORKSHOPS:

SEBASTIAN MOH will be giving a workshop at University of Louisville on Sunday, March 27th from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (free)

WAYNE FERGUSON will give his Whistle Workshop on Saturday, April 2nd, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.  Cost is $25/member, $30/non-member.  All proceeds will benefit the Louisville Clay Scholarship Fund.

 

HOME THROWN/HOME GROWN:  There are a few spaces left so we are still taking participation forms.  This year Linda and Janet have planned music for Friday evening and Linda is currently talking to a few farmers from the Farmers' Market to see if they would like to set up a food booth.  This year our sale will coincide not just with the Saturday Farmers' Market, but with the Bardstown Bound celebration on Friday.

LOUISVILLE CLAY SCHOLARSHIP FUND:  So far we have approximately $100 in our fund but there will be proceeds added very soon from the Whistle Workshop.  We have an application form ready to load onto the blog as soon as we reach $500.

THE ARTIST'S CRITIQUE:  It would be very difficult for relay all the information that was given to us at the meeting.  Each person in that room took away something different.  We are all at different levels, at different stages of our work.  We all have different goals.  Both women want us to, above all else, approach our work with a personal honesty and, from that point, make relevant choices.
What I have done below is to make available to you the handouts that were given to us.  This was one of those meetings where 'ya just had to be there'!

PAM KORTE:
Handouts(click to read):
Jennifer Lee, The Circumnavigation of Form by David Whiting
Jack Troy, 20 Questions 

Bibliography




GWEN HEFFNER:
The Artist Critique-lecture notes

  

Lana Wilson-Pursue a Personal Form

Wayne Ferguson's Whistle Workshop

WHERE:  Payne St. Pottery
                 531 North Hite Ave.
                 Louisville, KY 40206
                 (Tonya Johnson's Studio)
WHEN:  Saturday, April 2nd, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.

              

COST: $25/member or $30/non-member. Please mail checks directly to J-D Schall, 1365 Ouerbacker Ct., Louisville, KY 40208.
Wayne has requested that all proceeds be donated to Louisville Clay's Scholarship Fund so please make out your check to Louisville Clay.

Wayne will provide the clay and the slip for joining parts.  You will be making some simple tools needed for making the whistles work. He   will provide one whistle body for each student but the participants will also make their own as well. He will have several leather hard   examples that show various approaches and styles. A handout with drawings and information will be provided.

A huge thank you goes out to Tonya Johnson for allowing us to use her studio. She has been a great supporter of our group and very generous with the use of her space.

Be sure to sign up right away as Wayne needs a headcount.

MEETING: THE ARTIST'S CRITIQUE - March 22

Hello Everyone,

Next week Louisville Clay will be hosting the first of four meetings for the year. We are calling it "The Artist's Critique".

A "self critique" is one of the hardest and most challenging parts of being an artist. To help us with the process we have two talented ceramic artists and speakers, Gwen Heffner and Pam Korte. They will be giving a presentation that will include, among many things, what is a critique, how to identify elements that create a strong design regardless of the medium and, most importantly, some models/techniques with which we can begin examining our own work.

This is a very daunting topic and we are excited to find not one but two people willing take it on. We hope you all can make it.

WHERE:  University of Louisville
                   HPES Building – Room 136
                   Corner of Floyd and Warnock
                   (parking is free at UofL after 7:00pm)

WHEN:  Tuesday, March 22, 7:00 p.m.

AGENDA:  This is a first in a series of meetings for this year that will prepare us for the bourbon bottle show in 2012.  Pam Corte and Gwen Heffner will discuss the important aspects of critiques, composition and aesthetics.

Members are welcome and encouraged to bring their own work to include in the discussion.

About the guest speakers:

Over the years Gwen Heffner, marketed her own line of wholesale pots, as well as participating in retail and gallery shows. For thirteen years she owned and operated her own gallery, Contemporary Artifacts in Berea, KY. Currently, besides her own studio work, she works at the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea and directs the PR, programs and exhibitions.

Since 1984, Pam Korte, has been teaching ceramics at the College of Mt. St. Joseph, where she was named Outstanding Art Alumna in 1987, Outstanding Adjunct Professor in 1993, and recipient of the 2007 John Nartker Medal in recognition of commitment to teaching and creative excellence. In 2004 she was promoted to Assistant Professor. Her work has been published in Ceramics Monthly, Functional Ceramics and Contemporary Porcelain.

PLEASE NOTE: We are no longer doing potluck dinners.  If you would like to bring something to snack on, please feel free to do so.

The following has been added to give you a little more information on our guest speakers.

Gwen - in her own words:

I come from a family of musicians and grew up in an environment rich in the arts as well as the vibrant natural world that is the blessing of rural living.

I have marketed my pots via both wholesale and retail shows, and I owned and operated my own gallery, Contemporary Artifacts in Berea, KY for 13 years, marketing my work alongside that of over 300 artists. I now sell to a limited number of galleries nationwide and also from my studio. I work at the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea and direct the PR, programming and exhibitions.

My work continues to get simpler and simpler. I am aware of volume, curves and inside space more, and my printmaking background is given free rein when I draw and carve low and high relief imagery on the altered and flattened surfaces of my pots - a reflection of the beauty I find around me on the ridge where I live in Kentucky.

For me, pots offer a uniquely human connection, for they are an inevitable extension of the potter’s hands, inner force, and sense of beauty. Their intimate use continues a long standing tradition and unspoken communication between maker and user.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a keen observer of nature and form. My work has always been balanced within an asymmetrical vein and intrinsic to nature.

The things I observe become ideas that are then either intentionally or unconsciously integrated int the work of my hands.

Her Agenda:

-The Creative Being
-What is a Critique?
-Cultural Blocks
-How and Why to do a Critique – Some Guidelines
-Evaluation – Success of Failure?
-The Self-Critique - Your Challenge as an Artist
 

Pam - in her own words:

Pam Korte is a graduate of the College Of Mt. St. Joseph and the University of Louisville, where she received her M.A. in Ceramics. For seventeen years she was the owner and potter at Stillpoint Pottery in Cincinnati. In 1996 she opened Madison Clayworks with Sandra Gantzer. 2001 marked the opening of a studio built at her home featuring a show room and a studio space. Her work is a combination of wheel thrown and handbuilt porcelain, oxidation fired at 2350°F.

Since 1984 she has been teaching ceramics at the College of Mt. St. Joseph, where she was named Outstanding Art Alumna in 1987, Outstanding Adjunct Professor in 1993, and recipient of the 2007 John Nartker Medal in recognition of commitment to teaching and creative excellence. In 2004 she was promoted to Assistant Professor. She has served as an Artist-in-Residence for three tile projects in  Cincinnati area schools.

Her work has been featured in Ceramics Monthly magazine and is included in Contemporary Porcelain (Lane, 1995), and Functional Ceramics (Hopper, 2000).

In addition to ceramics she is currently participating in classes in Metals at Middletown Fine Arts Center and Letterpress Printmaking at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Korte lives in Cincinnati with her husband, poet and essayist, Richard Hague. They garden and restore (constantly) a 120 yr. old Victorian house.

Her Agenda:

Intro -  topic – why I value seeing/writing process

·      why do we need words when we have our visual work

·      some uses of artist’s words

Critique – A framework for understanding choices

·      Sayre’s process: describe, analyze, interpret

·      Example: David Whiting’s Jennifer Lee review

·      Goldberg/Wilson process: what are you trying to say

 

Statements – The Artist’s connection to their work and concept

·      Fears to get over

·      Best practice

·      Exercise: imagine your work talking to you

 

Handouts:

Artist’s personal inventory

Whiting review

Bibliography – resources for the artist writer/thinker

Letter from the Board-Our Upcoming Year

March 3, 2011

Dear Louisville Clay Members,

As members of the executive board, we are honored that you have entrusted us at the “wheel” of this unique, talented and diverse organization.  Over the past several months we and the previous executive board members have met to discuss what the organization has offered its members, what has been successful, and most importantly what our goals are for this upcoming year and the future.

One of the most exciting and challenging elements of the group is its diversity. We have nationally recognized full-time artists, teachers, hobbyists, and people who have little time to touch clay but nevertheless love the medium. And intermixed with this is our members’ gambit of interests. Some of us hand build, some of us throw pots, some are mold makers, some do all three, and some have invented their own ways of construction that fall out of the reach of conventional labels. We won’t even mention all the ways we finish our work.

And thus, regardless of how we create our work, we share a passion for this material: a passion to create something beautiful, a passion to improve our skills and ourselves within clay. It is this common passion to grow as artists that this new executive board would like to harness and focus on.

With this in mind, we propose four elements for this year.

        

FIRST, we will have four meetings in 2011:

·      The first meeting will feature two guest speakers who will focus on composition and aesthetics, helping us to examine our own work alone in our studios.

·      At the second meeting we will have a small panel who will focus on how jurors chose work for weekend art fairs, art shows and galleries and how to prepare your work to be shown.

·      For the third meeting we will bring back the demo, having a number of our members demonstrating different techniques to create a “bottle.” Yes, we want to bring back the bourbon bottle and shot glass show (more on that later).

·      Finally, our traditional end-of-the-year holiday party!!

With the meetings, we are hoping to combine fun with meaning, substance, and purpose to the conversations around Louisville Clay.

           

SECOND, we want continue to provide workshops; for example we are having a whistle workshop with Wayne Ferguson next month. These will be in addition to the four meetings.

THIRD, we want to have an opportunity to show work.  Currently, our 3rd Home Grown, Home Thrown show is being put together; please see www.louisvilleclay.blogspot.com for more info. We are also in talks to bring back our successful “Bourbon Bottle” show from NCECA. We want to build this show in such a manner that we guarantee spots for many Louisville clay members. This will be a juried show open to all Louisville Clay members and the national clay community.

FOURTH, we all strive to move forward and to improve in our work. Thus another one of our goals is to help all members improve the quality of our work, resulting in personal growth and, for those who wish it, more gallery shows and better craft sales. This will also result a stronger reputation for Louisville Clay. Improving our own work is a long-term goal we all share; as for the short term, improving the quality of the club begins when each of us attends the meetings. We look forward to working with all of you and getting to know everyone better.

Please don’t let this club be a secret. Bring your passions and ideas to us at the next meeting!!

Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you,

Louisville Clay Executive Board

Matt  Gaddie (president)

Glen Asauskas (vice president)

Dolita Dohrman (secretary)

J-D Schall  (treasurer)

University of Louisville Workshop - Sebastian Moh