JANUARY 15 – FEBRUARY 21
Main Gallery & Galusha Gallery
Virtual Presentations: Friday, January 15, 4 pm
Northern Clay Center’s Emerging Artist Residency programs, the Anonymous Artist Studio Fellowship, the BISQUE residency program (Believe, Include, Sustain, Questions, Understand, and Evolve), and the Fogelberg Studio Fellowship, are designed to provide emerging ceramic artists an opportunity to be in residence for one year at NCC. Between September 1, 2019 and August 31, 2020, these residents took advantage of the opportunity to develop their work while exchanging ideas and knowledge with a dynamic network of ceramic artists.
The Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grant has supported emerging ceramic artists from Minnesota since 1990. With generous support made by the Jerome Foundation, this award has been presented annually to support specifically proposed projects, the grant provides resources, guidance, and a platform to complete their project and exhibit their work. The Red Wing Collectors Society Award recipient is presented to one maker in the local ceramics community as selected through a nominative process. Supporting their development and highlighting their achievements, this award aims to elevate the recognition of each recipient within the ceramics community.
Among national clay art centers, NCC offers an urban experience within a diverse and supportive community.
About the Artists
Nat Nicholson, Anonymous Artist Studio Fellowship
Nat Nicholson (Iowa City, IA) earned their BFA in ceramics at the University of Iowa. Their sculpture follows a process which allows structures to repeatedly rise, verge on collapse, and accumulate debris until they take on their final form. Nicholson says about their practice, “I observe new perspectives of artwork and conceptual endeavors to broaden my own way of thinking and dissect my own processes.”
Donna Ray, BISQUE Residency Program
Donna Ray (Bloomington, MN) has been exhibiting around the Twin Cities since 2010 and taking classes at the Bloomington Art Center since 2001. A 2019 recipient of a POCI Scholarship to attend the NCECA Conference, Ray commented, “Networking and meeting other emerging artists…at the NCECA conference helped me realize how much I would benefit from more education in my studio building practices.” Ray used her residency to holistically and professionally concentrate on developing her ceramic skills to create works related to social issues surrounding home.
Chris Singewald, Fogelberg Studio Fellowship
Chris Singewald (Minneapolis, MN) left his position as NCC’s Outreach Manager in 2017 to pursue his studio practice full-time. In the studio he seeks answers to form and surface through explorations in materials and firings that forge a path of expression, accomplishment, and understanding, “I desire to become more adventurous and intentional with my surfaces.” NCC was pleased to welcome him back in an artistic capacity and delighted the 2019 jury saw the potential in Singewald those at the Center have long admired. He was excited to establish a new type of rapport with staff at Northern Clay and to continue investing in his own professional development as a ceramic artist.
Casey Beck, Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grant
Casey Beck continued his exploration and development of materials science related to the soda-firing process. Expanding on research on both materials and down-firing that he conducted during the pursuit of his undergraduate degree, Beck hopes to develop new and richer surfaces for his pieces while creating a digital platform and resource for those seeking reference material on this under-documented topic. The jury found his work and proposal to be very cohesive and his aspirations to generate a firing-specific resource available to the public both refreshing and forward-thinking for the continued development and advancement of the soda-firing technique.
Rita Panton, Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grant
Rita Panton was one of many applicants looking to utilize funds from the Jerome Foundation to afford them the space and capacity to revitalize their studio practice through the investment of time and a committed space for the development of their work. Having spent the last several years focusing her time and efforts as a parent, Rita revisited her practice of exploring drawings in her works. She investigated new format with more developed surfaces and color palette as sculptural wall pieces. The panelists of the selection committee were invigorated by Panton’s bold and courageous embrace of unique forms and new method of working.
Ginny Sims-Burchard, Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grant
Ginny Sims-Burchard created a visual catalog that explores the “how” of what we take in through observation and interaction. From the most prosaic to the most profound, Sims-Burchard made a body of work that represents the complex questions and moments that we encounter on a daily basis. Reflective of many social and political questions of our time surrounding topical conversations of class, gender, race, domestic space, and displacement, Sims-Burchard aim was to create a piece a day over the project’s duration to serve as a sort of diary of her navigation through these increasingly important conversations and discussions. Collectively, the panelists felt that her work was pushing boundaries within the ceramic vocabulary and that the proposed risk of this project was both bold and future-looking.
Emily Price, Red Wing Collectors Society Award
This award is made possible by the Red Wing Collectors Society Foundation, and is presented by Northern Clay Center to a deserving individual pursuing a career in pottery, or studying or researching the historical aspects of the pottery industry. The Foundation endeavors to broaden appreciation of pottery, past and present, for the general public and maintains the Red Wing Pottery Museum in Red Wing, Minnesota. This is the twelfth year in which the Clay Center has awarded the grant.
Emily Price creates highly-decorated porcelain pieces, often with intricately detailed illustrations of fish, memento mori, and flowers. Her work has been exhibited around the country including in the 2019 Plate & Platter National at Carbondale Community Arts, Carbondale, IL. Price has also published an article on her decorating in Pottery Making Illustrated.
Related Events
Related Event
Emerging Artist Exhibition Virtual Presentations
Join us for a marathon of presentations by these seven emerging artists. A detailed schedule of talks will be available on our website.
X10R: Friday, January 15, 4pm