2015 Warren MacKenzie Award Process III: Stuart Gair

Throughout the final portion of my trip, I focused primarily on interviewing as many individuals who reside in Maine's mid-coast region as I could. The goal of these inquiries was to learn how unique each person's approach to making a living in the field of ceramics was. As a second-year graduate student, I have begun to think seriously about my future in the field after school and am open to all possibilities as long as it results in a continuation and growth of making work. It was extremely helpful to travel around the state and see first-hand how a wide variety of artists made a living. I came to a realization that there is NO SET PATH in this field and everyone's situation is unique and individualized to that person. Often times, it is necessary for artists to supplement their studio practice with additional means of income to enable themselves to keep making. Others are able to sustain a living by only making pots. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of meeting with so many different artists in so many different environments, which has led my view the field and my future in a much more open and exciting way!

Autumn Cipala's studio in Rockland, Maine. Autumn is a full-time studio potter who also teaches part-time at a nearby community college. This image was taken in her beautiful studio which is a stones throw away from the Atlantic Ocean.

Here is an image of Susan Dewsnap's classroom at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Susan is a professor at Bates and also has a personal studio in the building which allows her access to all of the facilities. I had the chance to have conversations with numerous individuals involved in the academic sphere throughout my time on the east coast and was able to learn about many of the circumstances that come with such as a position as well as what it takes to get to that point.

I was lucky enough to receive a tour of Edgecomb Pottery, which is a small-scale production facility that specializes in complex wheel thrown forms and crystalline glazes. There are numerous facilities such as these throughout Maine's mid-coast region that capitalize on tourism during Maine's peak season. Edgecomb Pottery was originated in 1977 by two men named Chris and Richard who purchased an old schoolhouse in Edgecomb, Maine, and opened the store for business that same year. Since then, Edgecomb Pottery has greatly expanded their facilities and has opened a second location on the waterfront in Portland, Maine.

I took a trek into the wilderness to visit the home, gallery, and studio of Rocky Mann. Rocky makes a living as a studio potter and is very experimental in his firing processes. The land he resides on is a quiet place which Rocky feels is an ideal environment that facilitates a creative process.

Here are a couple pieces that I have made since my travels.  I have begun to think about what I make in a different way and have been deeply influenced by the objects I saw, people I met, and places I visited.

Tea bowls made using a reduction cooling process in a soda kiln. This is a hybrid technique for a wood firing process which I learned from some very smart people I met at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts.

My wall of inspiration! These are all photos that I took during my trip to the east coast this past summer and are with me everyday in my studio in Lincoln, Nebraska.

2015 Warren Mackenzie Award Progress II: Stuart Gair

For the second leg of my trip on the east coast, The Warren Mackenzie Advancement Award enabled me to take a workshop with John Neely and David Peters at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine. Both John and David are well-versed in the process of reduction cooling, a technique that I have been interested in for a long time. The workshop gave me the chance to learn many of John and David's processes, which included throwing techniques, materials analysis, and kiln firing.

John Neely giving an incredible demonstration of some of the techniques he employs in order to produce highly considered and refined forms. Here, John is making a tea bowl. He rolls a textured pattern onto the exterior of the piece and proceeds to bow it out from the inside so that the form is accentuated by the texture.

Two teapots made and fired by John Neely in a reduction-cooled wood kiln. I enjoyed hearing John talk about the subtleties of a teapot as he was making them throughout the week. He also gave me great feedback on some teapots that I was working on in the studio.

David Peters loading the train kiln at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts.

Here is one of my wine bottles nestled inside a crucible made by David Peters.  Nesting objects inside of each other was a great technique I learned to gain variation on the surface of specific pieces.

These are some new jar forms that were fired inside of the reduction cooled wood kiln. I really enjoyed the subtle variation  in color that occurred throughout the kiln. The forms are my first attempt to convey my interest in similarly shaped Korean jars that I was able to see during my museum visits earlier in the summer.

2015 Warren MacKenzie Award Progress: Stuart Gair

I recently received the 2015 Warren MacKenzie Advancement Award through the Northern Clay Center which has allowed me to travel across the country in order to view collections of art that influence my own work. Seeing the pieces in person as opposed to on a computer screen or in a book has allowed me to engage with the work on a much more intimate level and has already begun to change the way that I view my own work. Additionally, I have been able to travel to a number of major cities along the east coast where I have come across many new and intriguing architectural lines and patterns that will inform new surface designs on my work. I look forward to the next couple of weeks in which time I will be taking a workshop at Watershed Center for the Arts with John Neely and David Peters; I will use an iron rich clay and learn about the reduction cooling process.

I have been looking at this particular Korean jar form for sometime now. Seeing one in person at the Philadelphia Museum of Art has sparked a renewed interest after being able to view subtle details in person such as lid fit, size, and treatment of the foot. I look forward to attempting my own rendition at Watershed Center for the Arts.

A detail shot of an intriguing architectural composition along the Highline Walkway in Chelsea, New York. These are the types of patterns that really catch my eye and inform the surface of my pots.

This Korean Buncheong wine bottle in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston was one of my favorite pieces of the trip. It is a form that I have been working on lately and seeing it in person helped me understand nuances of such a piece that required me to be in its presence. 

Pleased to come across this piece by Chuck Close at the new Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. 

The best collection of Korean ceramics I came across was at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Not only did it have the largest collection of wares, it included a series of informative videos that explained and demonstrates how the wares were produced and fired.