September
Mea Rheee
Many of our members know Mea Rhee, who taught at Greenbelt for many years. She now has a thriving pottery business, Good Elephant Pottery, and a prolific blog where she shares the evolution of her business model, and the thought and planning which have led her to successfully earn her living as a full time potter.
Mea will talk about her work and her business.
October
Natalia Kormeluk
Natalia has been a potter and Field School Pottery and Sculpture Instructor for well over 35 years. Although her work has essentially been functional and thrown on the wheel, she has worked on commissions for indoor and outdoor installations. For the 40th Anniversary of the Founding of the Field School, Natalia and her students completed an outdoor project consisting of nine clay sculptural columns 5 to 6 feet tall and 9 inches in diameter. She will talk about the specifics of the project as well as the ins and outs of designing, developing and installing an outdoor clay sculpture. She will show us slides of the columns as well as images of the construction process. The title of her presentation is “Outdoor Clay Sculpture Installations: Field Totem Pole Project”.
November
Movie “Out of the Fire” – how Kevin Crowe does wood firing in central VA.
December
No meeting
January
Megan Van Wagoner
http://www.meganvanwagoner.com
Born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Megan grew up in a community filled with artists, musicians and lots of mid-west practicality. After starting out in engineering, she majored in Ceramics at the Cleveland Institute of Art and completed an MFA in the Mount Royal School at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her focus on mixed media sculpture and installation, along with her background in ceramics, forms the foundation of her current studio practice.
Megan has exhibited extensively in the Mid-Atlantic and Mid-west regions. She regularly gives workshops on ceramic studio techniques and presentations on professional practices for artists. She has also participated in a number of artist residencies around the country.
Megan is the recipient of a 2009 Maryland Arts Council Individual Artist Award. She lives and works in the Baltimore-Washington area. Her studio is in Hyattsville, Maryland at DC Glassworks and Sculpture Studios. She teaches art and design at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, Maryland.
February
Patty Bilbro
Bio:
Patty Bilbro began taking ceramic classes in high school in the late 80’s. Through various colleges, degrees and careers she always made her way back to clay. A graduate of Haywood Community College Craft School in 1997, Patty continued on to receive her BA in Psychology from University of North Carolina Asheville in 2003. After a short career in the mental health field Patty returned to clay as a studio Assistant at Odyssey Center for the Ceramic Arts. From there she became a resident artist and then continued on to be a studio potter in the mountains of North Carolina. She currently lives in Baltimore, MD and is a resident artist at Baltimore Clayworks.
Artist Statement:
Using Stream of consciousness illustration I create individual narratives on uncomplicated forms. Simplicity of brushstrokes and scenarios are combined to evoke curiosity, self reflection, imagination and emotion. Relying on unmanageable atmospheric patterns and colors created in the kiln I hope to reveal the often complex nature of those things that appear simple. My background in psychology combined with my love of illustration, subtlety and humor provides me with endless inspiration.
March
Jeremy Wallace
http://jeremywallaceceramics.com
Functional and sculptural wood-fired pottery. B.F.A. in Ceramics from University of Wisconsin-Superior. Currently the Artist-in-Residence at St. Pete Clay in St. Petersburg FL.
April
Yoshi Fujii
Yoshi Fujii is a resident artist, instructor, and gallery manager at Baltimore Clayworks in Maryland. Yoshi, from Fukuoka, Japan, moved to U.S. in 1996 and received a B.A. in Foreign Language and a B.A. in Anthropology in 2000 from the University of Southern Mississippi. In addition, he received a B.F.A. in Sculpture with an emphasis in Ceramics in 2002 and an M.A.T.L. in English as a Second Language in 2003. After a residency in Natchez, MS, he attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale where he earned his M.F.A. in Ceramics in 2008.
Yoshi was selected as a recipient of the 2008-09 Lormina Salter Fellowship and invited to become a resident artist at Baltimore Clayworks, and he also received 2010 Mary E. Nyburg Fund for Artist Development for his 10-week residency at Tainan National University for the Arts in Taiwan, ROC. In 2011, he won a b-Grant from Baker Artist Awards for his excellence in craft. He shows his work in national and international exhibitions and competitions, and won several awards. He is a fellow of the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi.
May
Annual potluck gathering