January 6 – February 1, 2026
Sales Gallery & Online
Karl Keel, Adam Gruetzmacher, Kurt Brian Webb
January Featured Artists: Karl Keel, Adam Gruetzmacher, Kurt Brian Webb
About the Artists
Karl Keel
Roseville, Minnesota
Karl Keel is an engineer and architect by training but has been “casually obsessed” with clay for years. Keel is currently a Studio Artist at NCC and has dropped the casual and embraced the obsessed. Working primarily with stoneware fired in atmospheric kilns, his functional pieces explore the tensions between a controlled architectural aesthetic and the spontaneity, gesture and serendipity naturally inherent to clay processes.
Adam Gruetzmacher
Shafer, Minnesota
Adam Gruetzmacher lives in Shafer, MN, where he maintains a studio. In 2010, Gruetzmacher earned a BFA in studio ceramics with a minor in digital arts from the University of Wisconsin–Stout (Menomonie). He was a 2010 Fogelberg Studio Fellow and a 2012 Anonymous Potter Studio Fellow at Northern Clay Center. He was also a 2015 recipient of a Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grant. Gruetzmacher’s work has been in exhibitions around the country including: Three Jerome Artists, Northern Clay Center; Clay Dwelling, Macalester College Gallery, St. Paul; and the National Juried Cup Exhibition, juried by Pete Pinnell, Lux Center for the Arts, Lincoln, Nebraska. Gruetzmacher’s work is featured in the Lark Crafts books 500 Teapots: Volume II (2013) and 500 Vases.
Kurt Brian Webb
McHenry, IL
Kurt Brian Webb’s goal to pursue ceramics, made over forty years ago, had nothing to do with sales, notoriety, or making work that followed the latest trends. His goal then and now, centers around education, experience, people, travel, and philanthropy. Webb’s eclectic unassuming art reflects the marriage and outcome of these lifelong pursuits. Webb, a fervent believer in public school education, attended kindergarten through university level in Illinois, Illinois State University (Normal), University of Delaware (Newark), and East Tennessee State University (Johnson City), culminating with BFA, BS, MEd, and MFA degrees. Webb’s artistic experiences include assistantships and residencies at the Archie Bray Foundation (Helena, MT), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Gaitlinburg, TN), Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Alberta, Canada), Northern Clay Center (Minneapolis), Penland School of Craft (NC), Ragdale Foundation (Lake Forest, IL), and universities in Australia. Webb has benefited greatly from meeting people through art-related travel, living abroad, and as an educator in public schools for over thirty years teaching mechanical drafting and art most notably for English learners and individuals with disabilities. Webb has traveled throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. He apprenticed in Japan to a traditional master craftsman of woodfired Oribe pottery. Knowing the power of philanthropy, even as a small gesture, Webb donates 100% of his profits from the sales of his ceramics to social justice centered non-profit organizations of his choice.