2014– 2015 FELLOWSHIPS AT THE ARCHIE BRAY FOUNDATION

Heesoo LeeSpeyer Fellow

Brooks OliverMJD Fellow

Kyungmin ParkMatsutani Fellow

John SouterTaunt Fellow

Bill WilkeyJoan Lincoln Fellow

ceramic excellence

This publication is generously funded by the Joliet Foundation. 1 Held, Peter, Rick Newby, and Chere Jiusto. A Ceramic Continuum: Fifty Years of the Archie Bray Influence.Helena, MT: Holter Museum of Art, 2001. Print. p. 192 ibid, p. 22...

THE ARCHIE BRAY FOUNDATION FOR THE CERAMIC ARTShas always been an ongoing experiment, a place and experience with no artistic boundaries. The extensive facilities, the freedom to exploreand the creative exchange that occurs within the community of residentartists provide a profound opportunity for artistic growth, both forindividual artists and for the field of ceramics.

To further encourage the Bray “experiment,” Robert and Suzanne Tauntestablished the Taunt Fellowship in 1998. Inspired by the Taunts’ visionand generosity, others have since established additional awards,including the Myhre Fellowship in 1999 and 2000, the Lilian Fellowship in 2001, the Matsutani Fellowship in 2006, the MJD Fellowship in 2007,the Anonymous and Speyer Fellowships in 2011, the WindgateFellowships in 2012 and the Lillstreet Art Center Fellowship in 2014.Most recently, the Joan Lincoln Fellowship (awarded since 2004) wasfully endowed in 2014. Each fellowship provides $5,000 and a one-yearresidency to a ceramic artist who demonstrates exceptional merit and promise, allowing them to focus more completely on producing and exhibiting a significant body of work during their fellowship year.

Individuals wishing to establish a fellowship at the Archie BrayFoundation are encouraged to contact Resident Artist Director Steven Young Lee.

Annually, the Archie Bray Foundation invites a critic to spend time at the Bray—to meetwith the artists, experience the Bray’s unique environment and develop essays for thefellowship exhibition catalogue. This year, the residency was awarded to Jill Foote-Hutton. Foote-Hutton received her MFA in ceramics from the University of Mississippi,Oxford, in 2003 and her BFA in sculpture from Webster University, St. Louis, in 1994.She is actively engaged in critical dialogue and observations and her writings havebeen published in Ceramics Monthly and Studio Potter Magazine. Along with herwriting, Foote-Hutton continues to create and exhibit her own artwork nationally.

n a Saturday afternoon in early May, the wind pours over every plane, seeking nooks, crannies and holes

to whistle through. Although sometimes, it seems the wind screams more than itwhistles. A cargo train sounds off. It is apunctuated alto challenging the breathy voiceswirling over the grounds. I cannot help butdraw parallels, listening to the immediacy of nature and the distance of industry. The Bray is a place where industry has becomedeified. The beehive kilns are temples, butnature comes to take them back. The top ofthe gazebo echoes the tip of the old elevatortower. One structure is in disrepair, a sacredrelic. The other is maintained as a centerpoint of fellowship. The grounds resonatewith near and distant ghosts.

Isn’t it ironic that, according to legend, Archie Bray Sr. was harshly pressed into theprofession of ceramic engineer by his father,Charles Bray?1 Archie wasn’t allowed tofollow his inclinations toward medicine. Onegeneration enforced its will upon the other.

Contrary to that inauspicious beginning, the Bray is now known as a place wheremakers can rest assured they will besupported in the pursuit of their vision. This fine place to work persisted becauseArchie Sr. found a way, in spite of adversity,to honor his passion in service to art andfuture generations of makers. And he issuedit forth with a spirit of joy, “... may it alwaysbe a delight to turn to—to walk inside thePottery and leave outside somewhere—outside the big gate—uptown—anywhere—the cares of every day. Each time we walk in the door to walk into a place of art—ofsimple things not problems, good people,lovely people all tuned to the right spirit. That somewhere through it all will permeatea beautiful spirit. …”2

–Jill Foote-Huttonwww.whistlepigtales.com

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INTRODUCTION

pon the surface of an enclosedcylinder, a girl peeks out from behind a watchful aspen. The

forest is impossibly deep and theworld we observe invokes a feelingsimilar to the films of HayaoMiyazaki. Although, Heesoo Leedoesn’t intend to direct us as muchas the renowned animator. Hernarratives are exquisite suggestionsof a common experience. The girl is on the brink of coming out into the open or she is on the brink ofdisappearing into the forest.

What has been restricted to smallcylinders and vases now blooms outbeyond the surface of the vessel,spilling across the floor as a field of poppies. Lee’s illustrations areentering a new dimension. Literally.

This is what the time at the Bray has provided her. The residency isholding space for her to stretch a flat drawing of a stand of aspensbeyond the lip of the cylinder. It is holding space for her to push a cylinder beyond the wheel andbeyond the round, creating avoluminous mass of a wave. Herfingertips push the white clay withthe same immediacy she employs ina brushstroke, delivering an homageto the awesome feeling of naturetumbling over a population with rawforce. Within the creative space of

this fellowship, Lee is stretching outher illustrational prowess, but she isalso allowing herself to take morerisks in her collaborative relationshipwith clay.

She sits at the wheel throwing acylinder, trying to get her fingermuscles back in shape. This issomething she says she has to doafter spending an extended period of time handbuilding. “If I don’t, thenyou can see my hand shaking in the final form of the larger pieces.”

Lee talks about the gift of humilityclay delivers to a maker. Tounderstand what she means abouthumility, it is useful to know thecontrast of pride she guards against.Trained extensively as an illustratorat E Hwa University in Seoul, South

Korea, and then building on thoseskills, Lee learned to translate paintinto glaze as she worked throughthe night, apprenticing for JuliaKirillova. Kirillova creates ornateRussian tea sets, the perfectincubator to become familiar withsaturation levels and other potentialsof underglaze. The concentratedtime—her thousand hours ofrepetition—shows in her masterfulrendering of a densely populatedcityscape, a cherry blossom tree pushing forward throughsaturated color, and the expressiveanthropomorphism of the multipleeyes of an aspen. Illustration offersan opportunity to display dominationthrough skill. Conversely, theintrinsically ceramic materials shetraffics in require, at one time oranother, a release. She has toabandon any pride in favor of vitrifiedpermanence. Once an object isreleased into the kiln chamber, all ofher expertly rendered illustrations areat the mercy of the process. It is abalance she enjoys. It grounds her.

And, as balance and nature groundLee, she offers the same to us. Sheinvites us to walk among poppies.

Poppy Bowls, 2015, porcelain, underglaze,

sizes vary

Observe, 2015, porcelain, underglaze,

22" x 4"x 4"

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Heesoo Lee SPEYER FELLOW

e taught himself to use Rhino3D, a computer-aided design software application,

to explore the boundaries of form.The technology enables a maker totake a sketch out of their imaginationand turn it 360° on any axis. It allowsconsideration of an improbablecurve; and a curve, when repeated,becomes a volume.

Brooks Oliver is inspired by theredirection of magic. He enjoys thecomfort an audience finds when theyare presented with a familiar thing,as much as he enjoys blinding themwith an unexpected action.

Meanwhile, Oliver is motivated byGarth Clark, Ron Gilad and AnishKapoor, respectively, they are: aceramic collector and provocateur, a designer and a sculptor.

Oliver actively agrees with Clark—craft and design must evolve anequitable merger for future success.To wit, he is investing his time andenergy into the development of adesign firm that advocates for artists’vision in quality and commerce.With the mind of an engineer, Oliver is prime to take on the task.His current work has technicaltroubleshooting embedded in theprocess. He endeavors to refineproduction, developing the mostefficient and appropriate clay

bodies, glazes and casting methods.For his personal work, this couldmean refining a casting slip fleckedwith colorful bits of grog. If the flecksare too large, it mimics linoleum and this is undesirable to him; so he slowly grinds them to a smallergauge. It is a laborious process, the grinding, but this is just anotherpuzzle to solve.

In Gilad he found a model thatisolated the necessary componentsof containment and provided newdefinitions for vase and bowl:surface and borders. Looking atmaking through this lens seems toenhance his ability to push thedynamism of the vessel. If a bowlonly needs a surface and borders,does the maker have to provideboth? If the border is a visual andphysical line, what happens whenthe weight of that line is increased?We see the result in the substantialcorral provided by his “Fruit Loop.”

He saw a lodestar of joyous,mesmerizing ambiguity in Kapoor’s“Cloud Gate,” a monumentalstainless-steel sculpture in the

heart of downtown Chicago. Thehighly reflective form, inspired bymercury, runs parallel to intentionsOliver holds for his own work. And itis evident in the forms he creates—there is zero malice in his magicalsubterfuge. Rather, he delights in thepositive redirection of perceptionsmomentary confusion can elicit. A vessel wobbling without a stablefoot, a fruit bowl without a floor, andthe flower vase with implied walls are all meant to comfort us with thefamiliar as much as they delight us in their improbability.

Oliver relates his personal experiencestanding in front of “Cloud Gate,”“Every single person I’ve seenlooking into the reflective surface is happy and smiling.” When oneobserves Oliver’s work one shouldunderstand showmanship andhumor are as essential to him as borders are to a bowl––astechnology is to design.

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Stem Vase, 2015,cast porcelain,10" x 6" x 6"

Fruit Loop, 2015,cast and altered porcelain,

4" x 24" x 5"

Brooks Oliver MJD FELLOW

here is a window display in Helena’s downtown walking mall Kyungmin Park likes to

frequent. It is filled with myriaddioramas populated by curiousfigurines and it changes regularly.The window is not too far away from another of her favorite, colorfullocations: the local, independent toy store. Both locations call to her love of all things cute and tiny. She combs through bins filled withcolorful plastic bunnies, delighting in their accuracy.

But, it’s not all French fries andrainbows. “I don’t want to just makecutesy work. I want people to think.” Her formal training and work ethicbegan early at a fine art academy inSeoul where her day began at 6 AM

and didn’t end until well after 10 PM.She was exposed to the rigors ofevery medium. She still holds themerits of such rigor close in herpractice. The challenge of conjuringa dutifully rendered figure from an

amorphous cloud causes her to feelalive. Make no mistake, attending toaccuracy in the human form takesprecedence over everything else in her work. She believes fully in astrong formal foundation before onecan begin to explore ideas or toywith composition.

At this point in her evolution, we are seeing formalist and minimalistconcerns pushing a figurative artistto focus her attentions. Park hasparsed the figure and found the face is currently her essential muse.Using all 43 facial muscles, sherepeatedly levels her gaze at theexperiences of life. She presents a visual bridge for the viewer,capturing the emotional stream of consciousness in works withmultiple figures vying for attentionfrom the same organic mound. She records the inconstancy of thehuman condition, “In five minutes wefeel one way, the next five minuteswe feel another way, and the next

five minutes? Again,a new emotion.”

Even though shedoesn’t want to make “cutesy”work, sheunderstands thepower of cute to lure an audienceinto these emotionalcacophonies.Intuitively, she

employs the vibrant colors oftraditional Korean costumes inpatterns that dance about her forms, collapsing the volumes shehas so diligently coaxed out of theclay. While color is the first strike,cuteness grabs our line of sight from a distance and draws usacross the room toward unexpectedemotional encounters. On somelevel, everything she is showing us is autobiographical. The momentsshe chooses to portray are notalways earth-shattering. Often thework is born from simple, subtlemoments that have become lodgedin her imagination. But the momentsmust always have some sort ofuniversal recognition.

As we bear witness to her evolution,we also see the development of an iconography. Words are likenedto fish coming out of a mouth—sometimes slippery and distasteful.Ladybugs are a commentary on the perplexing dualities of life. Oneladybug is cute and the subject oftraditionally cute, if morbid, rhymingsongs. “Ladybug, ladybug, fly awayhome. …” En masse, ladybugstransform into a plague ofpestilence.

Park is questioning the frailty of our perceptions.

Kyungmin Park MATSUTANI FELLOW

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I Fish You, 2013,porcelain, underglaze, glaze, resin,19" x 15" x 9"

No means No!, 2014, porcelain, underglaze, glaze, resin,

13" x 14" x 23"

ohn Souter loves color and light. He is excited about it. His compositions are chromatic

test strips of his examinationspresented for our pleasure. He ispushed by the same quest as the impressionists: how can light be captured? And if it can’t becaptured, can he at least draw our attention to it?

Many of Souter’s compositionalinquiries were born from a seminalexperience inside the ChartresCathedral. Outside, he found thearchitecture stale. He was, however,mesmerized by the light and air ofthe interior, “What happens when I put a plastic mirror next to glaze?How does color open visual space?How does the Chartres experiencetranslate into fabric?”

Somehow, Souter is exploiting themateriality of glaze separate from the chemistry. His ideas of colorinteraction are on par with ceramicgiants Ken Price and Ron Nagle.However, beyond Price, Souter

extends the inquiry through hisdemocratic inclusion of materials.You are not just going to see illusionsof space and density of patternrendered in paint here, you areexposed to a velveteen ribbonembedded in all its light-trappingmass within the limpid layers of fluxand silica. And in contrast to Nagle,Souter is not a wizard of alchemy;although he does share the samelevel of curiosity. It drives him to useglazes beyond their limits, layeringmaterials against suggestedapplication directives.

Souter’s inquisitions and obsessionsguide his observations. He looks atmatte black glaze and instead ofdiving into the chemical analysis inorder to subtly tweak the attributesthis way or that, he looks around the environment for materials thatabsorb light in the same way. And sohe wraps a cone of red underglaze(with a hole in the top, allowing us topeer into a dark void) in black yarn.He delights in the blackness withinthat is an actual absence of light

and the yarn’s ability to relate to that absence in its presence. Thenhe wraps the whole caboodle in a bright lime-green sweater—strengthening the drama in blackwith contrasting brightness. He is throwing off presumptions bystimulating the cones and rods in our eyes. He is capitalizing on the age-old war between thecomplements of red and green.

He transmutes ephemeral light into a tactile experience.

He builds a false corner to bepresented upon the flat plane of agallery wall and fills the angle with adeep shag of red fiber. Then, leapingacross the color wheel, he puncturesthat shag with a turquoise-blue lineof yarn. The line drapes downward(we recollect Eva Hesse) as hedefines an organic shape across the infinite limit the corner creates.Souter wants us to see the densityof the red and he wants to draw ourattention to that density, exploding in contrast to the turquoise line. He revels in the blue penumbralshadow falling on the white wall.

Souter celebrates the absurdity ofthe world. In doing so, he elevatesour senses.

John Souter TAUNT FELLOW

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Sketch #4, 2015,felt, velvet, string, resin, lacquer,mounted to paper, 14" x 18"

Sketch #5, 2015,felt, plastic, wood, resin, velvet,mounted to paper, 16" x 20"

Untitled, 2015,clay, glaze, yarn, plastic, enamel, table,dimensions variable

Amanda

Wilkey

Amanda

Wilkey

eramics is an inescapable, if transitional, family tree. It’s almost a habit, but it’s a

habit evolved from a rich tradition ofapprenticeships. Bill Wilkey is one of the new standard-bearers in thelineage of studio pottery. In 2015, he has a hard row to hoe and heknows it, but he is obsessed withpreserving craft traditions. He admitsthe allure of the village potter motif isa romantic one, conceding he neverexpects to capture the romance fully,because his ego gets in the way, “A cup has to have the sameamount of time as a vase.” Wilkeybelieves all pots, great and small,merit equal attention. Just look atthe surface detail and you’ll begin to get a sense about his stubborncommitment to quality.

He continues to feed his craftobsession each time he sits at thewheel or stokes a kiln, conjuring upmore layers on the surface planes of platter and vase, and bowl. Hiscraft compulsions were encouragedearly and often by the constant

stream of makers coming throughthe Great Smoky Mountains, just astone’s throw from his home base.So much exposure, so early, canmake it difficult for a maker to heartheir own voice.

Can we draw comparisons between Wilkey’s work and othercontemporary potters? Yes, we can,and we like it that way. There issomething grounding us when wecall out the lineage: Bill Wilkey, Bede Clarke, Joe Pintz, Don Davis,Kenyon Hansen, Ellen Shankin, NickJoerling, Charity Davis Woodard.

What you might not know is Wilkey’sformal influences go back much,much farther than the AmericanStudio Pottery Movement. They goback to 1436, thanks to a trip toSpannocchia, Italy, where he stoodin awe of Brunelleschi’s dome.

In Brunelleschi’s details andengineering, Wilkey saw biomimicrymade manifest. He recalled the poet Wendell Berry, “... And we pray,

not for new earth or heaven, but tobe quiet in heart, and in eye clear.What we need is here.”

We can see the experience ofBrunelleschi’s dome and the spirit of Berry’s decree—once we knowwhat to look for—in every functionalobject touched by Wilkey’s hand.The segmented planes of a pitcherare methodically built up with toolingtextures and atmospheric firing.These textures sit in contrast to eachother, bringing geometric asymmetryin concert with symmetry. Handlesand spouts follow nature’s divinemodel, adhering to the rule of thirds.But it is in the subtle areas, like theundercut of a foot or the strainerinside of a spout with a pattern cutto rhythmically repeat the largerelements of the form, where one candelight in Wilkey’s attention to detail.

Wilkey is about to insert himself intoyour life. Get ready. His wares are a catalyst for interaction. “I don’t see my work solving the world’sproblems directly. Rather it’s moreabout being proud of what we make and seeing if we can make the best work possible.”

Bill Wilkey JOAN LINCOLN FELLOW

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Quadrant Pitcher, 2015,white stoneware,

13" x 7.5" x 6"

Small Serving Bowl Set, 2015,white stoneware,3" x 8" x 8"

1999Marc Digeros, Taunt Fellow Sharon Brush, Myhre Fellow

2000Eric Eley, Taunt Fellow John Byrd, Myhre Fellow

2001Jiman Choi, Taunt Fellow John Utgaard, Lilian Fellow

2002Jason Walker, Taunt Fellow Sandra Trujillo, Lilian Fellow

2003Jeremy Kane, Taunt Fellow Karen Swyler, Lilian Fellow

2004Trey Hill, Taunt Fellow Miranda Howe, Lilian Fellow Kowkie Durst, Lincoln Fellow

2005Koi Neng Liew, Taunt Fellow Deborah Schwartzkopf,

Lilian Fellow Melissa Mencini, Lincoln Fellow

2006Jennifer Allen, Taunt FellowChristina West, Lilian FellowJoseph Pintz, Lincoln Fellow

2007Jeremy Hatch, Taunt FellowBrian Rochefort, Lilian FellowRenee Audette, Lincoln FellowAnne Drew Potter,

Matsutani Fellow

2008Kevin Snipes, Taunt FellowDonna Flanery, Lilian FellowBirdie Boone, Lincoln FellowDavid Peters, Matsutani FellowNathan Craven, MJD Fellow

2009Martha Grover, Taunt FellowSean Irwin, Lilian FellowGwendolyn Yoppolo, Lincoln FellowKelly Garrett Rathbone,

Matsutani FellowKensuke Yamada, MJD Fellow

2010Jana Evans, Taunt FellowMathew McConnell, Lilian FellowCourtney Murphy, Lincoln FellowNicholas Bivins, Matsutani FellowAaron Benson, MJD Fellow

2011Lindsay Pichaske, Taunt FellowJonathan Read, Lilian FellowKenyon Hansen, Lincoln FellowSean O’Connell, Matsutani FellowAndrew Casto, MJD FellowAlanna DeRocchi, Speyer FellowJeff Campana, Anonymous Fellow

2012Mel Griffin, Taunt FellowGiselle Hicks, Lilian FellowSunshine Cobb, Lincoln FellowPeter Christian Johnson,

Matsutani FellowChris Pickett, MJD FellowAndrew Gilliatt, Speyer FellowJeff Campana, Windgate FellowAlanna DeRocchi, Windgate FellowSean O’Connell, Windgate FellowJonathan Read, Windgate Fellow

2013Zemer Peled, Taunt FellowSunshine Cobb, Lilian FellowTom Jaszczak, Lincoln FellowJoanna Powell, Matsutani FellowChris Dufala, MJD FellowAdam Field, Speyer FellowAndrew Gilliatt, Windgate FellowMel Griffin, Windgate FellowGiselle Hicks, Windgate FellowChris Pickett, Windgate Fellow

2014Adam Field, Lilian Fellow*Zemer Peled, Windgate Fellow*Joanna Powell, Windgate Fellow*Chris Dufala, Anonymous Fellow*Tom Jaszczak,

Lillstreet Art Center Fellow*

*Stories featured in previous year’s monograph.

PAST FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENTS

Board of DirectorsJon Satre,

PresidentSusan Ricklefs,

Vice PresidentTim Speyer,

SecretaryEmily Galusha,

TreasurerJohn BalistreriMike CaseyJosh DeWeeseJulia GallowayAndrea GillJan LombardiTony MarshAidan MyhreMark PharisPaul SacaridizDennis M. TaylorPatti WarashinaMartha Williams

Resident Artist DirectorSteven Young Lee

2915 Country Club Ave.Helena, MT 59602 406-443-3502

archiebray@archiebray.org www.archiebray.org@archie_bray#archiebray