Artist Demonstration: Misty Gamble

Watch as A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats guest artist, Misty Gamble, demonstrates her techniques and creative process.

Friday, March 6, 2 – 4 pm CT, FREE
Teaching Studio C

Misty Gamble’s ceramic practice is inspired by the human figure and its infinite capacity for communication. This focus is rooted in her childhood, where she was immersed in her father’s world of puppetry and performing arts—an influence that continues to shape her sculptural narrative. In 1998 she received a historic invitation to be the first American to perform at the International Puppet Festival in Tehran, a testament to her lifelong commitment to global artistic exchange. Her current work, featuring life-size ceramic figurative sculptures and installations, draws attention to issues surrounding femininity while challenging conventional standards of morality and normalcy. Gamble is the co-founder of Studio Nong, an international sculpture collective that conducts residencies in China and Europe. She has been awarded prestigious fellowships at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts and C.R.E.T.A. Rome. She is the recipient of a number of honors including awards from the Martin Wong Foundation, National Conference for the Education of Ceramic Arts and the Ellice T. Johnston Foundation. Currently an Assistant Professor at the Kansas City Art Institute, Gamble’s work has been widely published in Ceramics Monthly and exhibited both nationally and internationally.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats recontextualizes a familiar adage to explore the vital intersections of community, climate, and the collective power of presence. In this exhibition, the phrase is reimagined as an ecological and social imperative: the belief that our resilience—and our visibility—is inextricably linked to the strength of the systems we cultivate together.

Working within the tactile, earth-bound medium of clay, these artists investigate the “tangled roots” of identity and eco-anxiety. Their works facilitate a dialogue between the individual and the aggregate, treating the human form and the natural landscape as a single, interdependent entity. By interweaving symbols of ritual, scientific rigor, and biological form, the collection moves away from extractive perspectives in favor of an undercurrent of mutual care.

In an era of shifting environmental and social protections, this exhibition asserts that no voice exists in isolation. A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats serves as a testament to the strength found in a shared ecosystem, suggesting that when we anchor ourselves in reverence for the earth and each other, we create a rising tide capable of elevating the whole.

Participating artists include: Katayoun Amjadi, Misty Gamble, and Claudia Poser.