by Carole Epp | Oct 18, 2022 | exhibition, workshops
We are pleased to announce “Commonly Uncommon: Selections from the Museum of Contemporary Craft Collection”, a three-part exhibition of objects and archives on view November 3 – December 10, 2022.
Co-curated by Hannah Bakken Morris, Sara Huston and Abby McGehee.
Please join us for a public reception on Thursday, November 3 from 5-8-pm and return in the following weeks of November for a panel discussion and film viewing.
The Museum of Contemporary Craft served as a vital nexus for the consideration of art, craft and design in Portland from its founding in 1937 to its dissolution in 2016. The permanent collection and the institutional archives, under the stewardship of PNCA and Willamette University, remain important resources for these continued and ever-shifting conversations. This exhibition presents objects that illuminate issues of function, use, the nature of labor, and methods of production. Viewers can engage with both objects and archives to understand the way in which they inform one another as well as the multiple ways makers, curators and audiences appreciate and define an institution and its place in a regional artistic ecology.
A complimentary panel discussion about the collection, craft, and community-building will take place on Thursday, November 17, 2022 from 6:30-8pm at the Lemelson Design and Innovation Studio on the 1st Floor of PNCA. This discussion will be moderated by Namita Gupta Wiggers (past Curator for the Museum of Contemporary Craft) and will include exhibiting artists Hilary Pfiefer, Joe Feddersen, Charissa Brock and other exhibiting artists. This event is open to the public, free of charge.
Additionally, please join us a week earlier to attend a screening of “Handmade Nation: The Rise of D.I.Y. Craft, Art and Design”, a film made by exhibiting artist Faythe Levine, in the PNCA Mediateque on Thursday, November 10th at 5pm. This film is the culmination of nationwide research and interviews for which its archive will be displayed in the Dane Nelson and Ed Cauduro Collection Studies Lab at PNCA, as part of the Commonly Uncommon exhibition. This event is open to the public, free of charge.
by Carole Epp | May 31, 2019 | Uncategorized
Exhibition organized and circulated by the MacKenzie Art Gallery. This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada.
L’exposition est organisée et diffusée par le Musée d’art MacKenzie. Ce projet a été rendu possible en partie grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Opening Reception on June 7
Panel Discussion on June 8
Victor Cicansky: The Gardener’s Universe
The artistic universe of Regina artist Victor Cicansky is firmly rooted in his garden. For over fifty years, ideas for sculptures in ceramics and bronze have grown out of his intimate relationship with the plants and trees of his back yard. His approach embraces both the immigrant knowledge of his Romanian-Canadian family and more contemporary concerns around urban ecology and environmental sustainability. Rooted in local realities, his work speaks to the wider world of the joys and trials of supporting life in an urban prairie space.
This retrospective exhibition brings together over 100 ceramic and bronze works that present a richly layered picture of Cicansky’s career. Drawn from 39 public and private collections in Canada and the United States, the selections embody the energy of Cicansky’s varied production. Challenging craft expectations of pottery and furniture, Cicansky engages the language of making to celebrate “hand smarts,” as his blacksmith father called them. From the iconoclastic experimentation of his student days in California, to the recognition of his prairie immigrant roots, to his celebration of shovel to plate gardening — Cicansky has unearthed a politics of place using humour, play, and provocation.
The work of Victor Cicansky asserts that history and locality are vital sources for healthy creative expression, just as gardens are essential for the health of our bodies and the planet. This exhibition celebrates a “garden universe” — as Regina writer Trevor Herriot calls it — and marks Cicansky’s lasting contributions to Canadian art and craft history.
Timothy Long, Head Curator, MacKenzie Art Gallery
Julia Krueger, Curator and Craft Historian, Calgary
www.mackenzieartgallery.ca/engage/exhibitions/victor-cicansky-the-gardener-s-universe
by Carole Epp | Nov 7, 2018 | Uncategorized, workshops
Full details are found on their site, but basically it’s going to be a three-day long conference with demos by Naomi Clement, Jason Burnett and Carole Epp, alongside panel discussions, artists talks, exhibitions and social events!
Follow them on Facebook, Instagram and at their website for more details and updates leading up to the event.
Also there is a call for you to get involved with a conference studio tour and exhibitions:
Conference Tour
“One of the goals to the New Clay Conference is to strengthen our clay community and highlight all of the great clay going on already.
We are inviting local studios, galleries and artists to get involved by adding yourselves to our tour. Leading up to and during the weekend we are encouraging our participants to tour all of the great clay in Ottawa. We are partnering with a variety of galleries and studios that are going to host exhibitions in cooperation with the New Clay Conference. If you have a studio or gallery in Ottawa and surrounding area and there are ceramic artists involved we want to hear from you. You do not need to host a special exhibition, if you already have something in your gallery let us know and we can share that here. No gallery space but you have a studio that is open to the public? Let us know that too. We really want to create the ultimate list of studios and galleries in Ottawa that are opening their doors to visitors during the New Clay Conference. Saturday and Sunday we are going to keep our participants pretty busy so we hope that your study/galleries are open leading up to the weekend as well.”
Please email us:
Studio/Gallery name
Address
Hours
What is going on that weekend: Do you already have scheduled exhibition we can promote? Would you like to do something special for The New Clay Conference? Perhaps this would be a great opportunity to do that ceramics show you have been thinking about for years.
Don’t have a studio or gallery but have a great idea for a themed or group exhibition? Please get in touch with us, we would love to help you find a venue to make your exhibition happen.
Don’t have an idea for an exhibition but have a space you would like to offer up for the weekend? Please contact us and we will match you up with some great art! Does not need to be a conventional gallery space, coffee shops, restaurants, retail stores and more can make the perfect exhibition space.
Full details about participating here.
by Carole Epp | Mar 8, 2018 | Uncategorized
(in)Visible is a show by the group “We Are Not Invisible,” a community of artists hoping to break the silence within our world, in particular the clay community, and engage in honest discussions and education about sensitive and often taboo topics, beginning with an exhibition during the 2018 NCECA (National Council on Education in Ceramic Arts) conference in Pittsburgh PA.
Our Statement – As the 2016 election year and beyond have highlighted, deep currents of belief, experience, and culture divide our world. This exhibition highlights female and gender non-binary artists working in ceramics, who in some way feel invisible to the dominant culture. These artists represent a marginalized group in the field, often unrecognized and belonging to specific groups of race, gender, culture, religion, and/or physical and mental illnesses (commonly termed as “invisible”). For each of us, art is our voice and our way to make seen and heard what we are all too often told to keep silent about.
What We’re Doing – (in)Visible is not simply a show. As part of NCECA 2018 we will be represented on two panel discussions, and have both Facebook and Instagram pages that feature artists from all media and genres beyond the original group in an effort to bring even more voices to the conversation.
The Show: NCECA 2018 Concurrent Exhibition: (in)Visible
Location: Braddock Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
February 2- March 17, 2018
reception March 16, 5-9pm
Braddock Carnegie Library 419 Library St, Braddock PA
hours: T — Th 11-8, M, F 10-5, Sat 9-4
The Panels: NCECA 2018
Thursday March 15, 1:15pm-2:45pm Spirit of Pittsburgh Ballroom A. PANEL: THE ART OF OTHERNESS, Moderaator: Courtney Leonard Panelists: Habiba El-Sayed, Mac McCusker, Raven Halfmoon. The Art of Otherness features the experiences of ceramic artists who face challenges of belonging to a marginalized culture through ethnicity, religion and gender identity. This panel seeks to challenge diversity, and offer real solutions in tackling cultural invisibility in the ceramic community.
Thursday March 15, 4:00pm-5:00pm 301-303. PANEL: UNSPOKEN, UNSEEN: INVISIBLE, Moderator: Sarah Jewell Olsen Panelists: Sara Morales-Morgan, Jamie Bates Slone, Ashleigh Christelis. Being a working artist is difficult enough without facing the social and personal obstacles of a mental or physical illness. This panel aims to end the stigma and silence and start a conversation about mental and physical health with the artistic community, out of the shadows of invisibility.
T-shirt’s! We have T-shirt’s! Thingsmadegood.threadless.com is helping us out with the design (above) and the shop.
Website: www.wearentinvisible.org
Instagram: @wearentinvisible
by Carole Epp | Oct 11, 2016 | Uncategorized
October 13, 2016 to January 8, 2017
Produced by the Gardiner Museum and curated by Rachel Gotlieb and Michael Prokopow
Exhibition design by Andrew Jones Design / Graphic design by q30 design inc.
This landmark exhibition explores more
than seven decades of Nordic aesthetic influence in Canadian design.
Examining the ways that modern Scandinavian design was introduced to
Canada and how its aesthetic principles and material forms were adopted
and adapted by Canadian artisans and designers, True Nordic will present a comprehensive, critical survey of Canadian furniture, ceramics, textiles, metalwork, and glassware.
Scandinavian design initially reached
Canada’s elite consumers and style-makers via museum and gallery
exhibitions, showrooms, small retail shops and articles and
advertisements in popular decorator magazines. However, it was the
dynamic influx of émigré craftspeople from Scandinavia who both affirmed
and vernacularized the aesthetic in Canada and who shaped profoundly
the country’s design and craft movement from the 1930s onward. What was
broadly known as “Danish modern” became synonymous with ideas about good
design, and “comfortable and gracious living.” Capitalizing on the
market opportunities presented, Canadian manufacturers added
Scandinavian design to their conservative repertoire of colonial and
historicist offerings and called these lines, Helsinki, Stanvanger,
Scanda and so on. The culminating section of the exhibition will ask why
Scandinavian and Nordic aesthetics continue to resonate with so many
contemporary Canadian designers and artisans at work today.
Featured artisans include: Carl Poul
Petersen, Ernst and Alma Lorenzen, Janis Kravis, John Stene, Karen
Bulow, Kjeld and Erica Deichmann, Lotte Bostlund, Thor Hansen, Rudolph
Renzius, Sigrun Bulow-Hube, Ruth Gowdy McKinley, Niels Bendtsen, Sean
Place, Mjolk, Stephanie Forsythe, and Todd MacAllen.
