JULY 5 – 30
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Clarice Allgood, Joshua Paul Hebbert, Forrest Lesch-Middelton, Ian M. Petrie, Jewelry: Kate Marotz
Clarice Allgood, Joshua Paul Hebbert, Forrest Lesch-Middelton, Ian M. Petrie, Jewelry: Kate Marotz
About the Artists
Clarice Allgood
A somewhat unconventional ceramic history of workshops, open studios, and unofficial residencies led Clarice Allgood to Minnesota in 2018. In 2019, she graduated from the advanced certificate program MN NICE and as of 2020 she is a Fogelberg Fellow at Northern Clay Center. From a free spirited, traveling childhood and her academic education in philosophy come a perspective rooted in thoughtfulness and curiosity. Though Allgood’s ceramics are often grounded in practicality, they maintain a particular whimsy and environmental aesthetic. The forms and use of her pots and objects are meant to enrich what she calls “quiet acts of self-reliance”: they are watering cans for gardening, bowls for knitting, utensils for cooking, bookends to organize reading. Though Allgood is thoroughly involved in the making and conceptualizing processes, the magic, nature and mystery of relinquishing her work to the powers of the soda kiln is currently an important part of her practice.
Joshua Hebbert
Originally from rural western Nebraska, Joshua Hebbert now lives in Bornholm, Denmark, where he is the ceramic technician for the Royal Danish Academy (Copenhagen). Before relocating to Denmark, he spent six years in Philadelphia, where he was a resident at The Clay Studio and taught at a variety of institutions. Hebbert’s ceramic practice is centered on experimentation and mold making as a generative process to create slip cast vessels with organically mottled colors. His process includes using plaster molds to capture prototypes, then layering colored slips to reflect and play with different moments of interior and exterior space. After taking slip cast pots out of their molds, Hebbert carves off the outer layer, unearthing unpredictable shapes and patterns. He poetically likens this process to constellations becoming visible in the night sky—shapes shift and evolve and transform.
Forrest Lesch-Middelton
Forrest Lesch-Middelton earned his BFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and his MFA from Utah State University (Logan). In 2014, he was honored as Ceramicist of the Year by Ceramics Monthly and in 2017, Lesch-Middelton was awarded a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists from Northern Clay Center (Minneapolis, MN). His body of work, inspired by the traditions of Middle Eastern ceramics, is comprised of functional pottery that celebrates and contrasts the history of those ancient civilizations with the contemporary global political climate and its impact in the region. Lesch-Middelton’s work features image transfer, as well as a process he developed himself for transposing the image while the pot is still being thrown, which he calls “volumetric image transfer.” Since 2013, he has owned and operated his own company, Origins Tile, which makes tile for private and corporate locations internationally.
Kate Marotz
Kate Marotz received her BFA in ceramics and BS in art education from the University of Wisconsin-Stout (Menomonie, WI). Since 2015, she has been teaching high school art while simultaneously pursuing and exploring her own studio practice. Her current work bridges sculpture and functionality with pinched stoneware objects inspired by seed pods, chrysalides, shells and other vessels of natural origin. The surfaces of her objects are painted with terra sigillata in calm, muted versions of both earthy and jewel-toned colors. Marotz’s pieces are ridged, speckled, playful, and precarious. They emanate the energy of creatures from a biome at the junction of desert and ocean, at once feeling newborn and contemporary, treasured and ancient.
Ian M. Petrie
Ian Petrie received his BFA in ceramics from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 2013. He was awarded a Fogelberg Studio Fellowship at Northern Clay Center in 2013 and served as a resident artist at the Worcester Center for Crafts (MA) from 2016 – 2018. Petrie’s body of functional pottery devotedly references the comic book universe and celebrates the tradition of illustration. Using a quill pen to draw each comic frame and then screen-printing the narratives by hand, his pots reveal an intentionally imperfect style. The gold or silver luster on his pieces is designed to slowly wear off over time and reveal the image beneath. Petrie encourages the user to consider the presented single moment of the story, and learn to experience it from all angles.