AUGUST 1 – 27
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Andy Bissonnette, Sarah Chenoweth Davis, Gruchalla Rosetti, Matthew Krousey, Jewelry: Bernadette Esperanza Torres
Andy Bissonnette, Sarah Chenoweth Davis, Gruchalla Rosetti, Matthew Krousey, Jewelry: Bernadette Esperanza Torres
The work of our August Featured Artists reminds us to observe and enjoy nature and the colors of summer. Andy Bissonnette creates surfaces that are rich in texture but also subtly beautiful in their simplicity. Bissonnette works with limited colors, choosing to emphasize form through carving. Sarah Chenoweth Davis loves patterns, graphic lines, and bold colors. Chenoweth Davis’s pieces will reel you in with her detailed brushwork, glaze dots, and tape-resist patterns. Richard Gruchalla and Carrin Rosetti’s raku creations are unmistakable in color, form, and texture. You’ll find nods to the rippling waters of Lake Superior and landscape patterns in Gruchalla Rosetti’s work. The aim of Matthew Krousey’s work is to create a historical record of the vanishing natural world around him. Krousey says, “I use imagery of Minnesota’s native flora and fauna on ceramics to bring awareness to the viewer of the environment I know and love.” Through her work, Bernadette Esperanza Torres transforms experiences and histories into new narratives and beings of empowerment. Flowers, birds, and the female figure are important in Torres’ worldbuilding.
About the Artists
Andy Bissonnette
Andy Bissonnette, a recent MFA graduate from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, is a potter and educator currently residing in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is acutely interested in the union of form, surface, utility, and the relationship between clay body and glaze. He is interested in historical uses of pottery, both narrative and utilitarian, and often looks to the past when conceiving his work. His influences are far and many, ranging from Northern Song Dynasty Celadons to the form language developed by the ancient Greeks, to the modernist aesthetic of the Bauhaus in Germany.
Prior to graduate school, Bissonnette spent over a decade as a designer in the Minneapolis advertising community where he developed and nourished his penchant for subtle details. He crafts his pots with this same care and rigor which can be seen in his precisely fitting lids, carefully sculpted handles, and elegant vessel forms.
Sarah Chenoweth Davis
Sarah Chenoweth Davis earned an MFA in applied craft and design from the Oregon College of Art and Craft (Portland) and the Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland), and a BA in biology from the College of Wooster (OH). She established her first studio in 2002, outside Hood River, Oregon, where she built her first kiln. Since then, her practice has brought her from forest, to farm, to urban jungle. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US and in Japan and has been featured in various publications including Ceramics Monthly, The Journal of Australian Ceramics, and the interactive e-book American i-Pottery.
Gruchalla Rosetti Pottery
Richard Gruchalla and Carrin Rosetti are a husband-and-wife collaborative team making wheel-thrown and handbuilt Raku fired pottery. Gruchalla is an accomplished clay worker with over 50 years of experience as a professional potter. Rosetti is a trained fiber artist. Over 30 years ago, she brought her vision as a colorist and her exceptional skill in the presentation of fine detail to the clay studio. Gruchalla is responsible for the wet-working of the pottery; wheel throwing, slab construction, burnishing, or the addition of extra texture and carving. He also does the actual firing of the pieces in the Raku kiln. Rosetti takes care of the detailed glazing of the carved surfaces and collaborates with Gruchalla on forms, glazes, studio output and marketing. Their pieces are intended to be decorative objects, but may be used with the understanding that they are softer than stoneware, thus more fragile. They are food-safe, but not necessarily watertight.
Matthew Krousey
Matthew Krousey received his BFA in ceramics from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He is a current host of the St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour. In 2018, he received both a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant and an Essential Artist Award through the East Central Regional Arts Council. Krousey also recently participated in a panel discussion with Craft in America at the Library of Congress as part of the Veterans History Project. Krousey says his aim is to create a historical record of the vanishing natural world around him. “I use imagery of Minnesota’s native flora and fauna on ceramics to bring awareness to the viewer of the environment I know and love.”
Bernadette Torres
The daughter of a florist, Bernadette Torres received her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute (MO) and her MFA from the University of Miami (FL). She is both a 2008 Charlotte Street Foundation and 2009 Creative Capital Inspiration Grant recipient. Since 2003, Torres has been teaching ceramics, drawing, and sculpture at the Penn Valley Metropolitan Community College in her home base of Kansas City. Torres refers to herself as a visual storyteller. Through her sculptural and figurative ceramic work, she transforms personal experiences and histories into new narratives and beings of empowerment. Flowers, birds and the female figure are important forms, imagery, and symbols in Torres’ worldbuilding.