Studio Potter, Author and editor of “A Chosen Path” The Ceramic Art of Karen Karnes

Thursday, August 5
Reception 6:00 -7:00
…Conversation 7:00-8:00

Mark Shapiro will discuss how modern style design is referenced, integrated, and incorporated in his current work in “Bottles and Other Muses” at Ferrin Gallery and the book he edited on the life of Karen Karnes.

Join us for a reception prior to the conversation to hear more about 20/21 Modern Style and Studio Craft, the first in a series of exhibitions and programs in the Berkshires August – October 2010 organized by ART BERKSHIRES. Shapiro’s conversation is the first event in a weekend of related programs taking place August 5-8 in Lenox and Pittsfield.

In Mark Shapiro’s third solo exhibition “Bottles and Other Muses”, Shapiro continues an ongoing exploration of bottle forms with non-narrative, abstract, rhythmic line patterns. Like the artist Sol Lewitt, Shapiro uses the power of line on surface to explore gestural, expressive calligraphic fields of scratched lines that imply music, writing, and history. Unlike Lewitt, his medium is studio ceramics and his color palette is derived from the results of firing with wood fuel. Focusing on the bottle form he stretches the various parts—neck, handles, body—all of which are exaggerated by scale. The larger works range to five feet in height.

Mark Shapiro recently completed a three-year project The Chosen Path: The Ceramic Art of Karen Karnes, a book of essays and archival materials to accompany her traveling retrospective exhibition. The modernist Karnes (1925– ) made some of the most iconic pottery of the 20th century and continues to work into her eighties. “What’s also fascinating about Karnes,” says Shapiro, “is that her life intersects with many of the most important cultural movements of the postwar period. She helped invent studio ceramics as we know it today.”

Ferrin Gallery