Scholarship & Research
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Item Strength in fragility(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2023) Ahn, Myung; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Jeremy HatchCeramic vessels often have humanlike aspects to them. People are drawn to these anthropomorphic qualities because they live in a human body. Clay contains both a strength and a fragility that correlates to the physical and psychological experiences people have as human beings. Physically, bodies came from the earth/clay, and if thoughts and emotions emerged out of matter, the clay form and the human form share both origin and experience. Psychologically, people redefine what is considered failure, and turn a perceived broken experience into a great gift. My ceramic work is mostly made out of paper clay that appears to be fragile, but is very resilient. The idea of success and failure as a visual art is explored in this paper. Collapses, warpages, accidents, and fusions that occur in the kiln are rearranged and reevaluated by the artist to challenge the audience's preconceived notion of beauty and success. These expected and unexpected changes in the process of making directly reflect what we face in life that is full of surprises. Accepting 'what is' in life and the outcome in the kiln helps me to be present and develop skills to see things from various angles and find beauty in it.Item Contemporary maiolica(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1992) Salisbury, Mary ElisabethThe functional aspect of a vessel is vitally important to me. I have altered the maiolica glaze I use so that it does not contain lead which is toxic. This affords greater functionality of my ware and still provides for a broad range of color that lies within the earthenware temperature range. I continue to expand my personal vocabulary of form and ornamentation within the boundaries of functional ware. When my pots are wet I push them around to alter the surface profiles. Sometimes I add clay leaves or branch forms or carve into the surface to accentuate specific shapes. These manipulations, illustrated in the series of platters, allow me to integrate the form of the pot with the painted glaze surface. This integration of form and surface is far more interesting to me than throwing production ware covered with stagnant decoration. As I work with clay I think of the clay surface as skin. The surface stretches as my fingers poke and prod the clay to define the growing internal volume. The parts of the vessel, the handles, lips and feet, are exaggerated to animate the forms. Bulging bellies and jaunty spouts characterize the teapot series. I see these pots as individual personalities, yet united in their themes and functions.Item Monuments(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1986) Busch, Gail MaryMy work with pottery as subject matter has led me to become involved with placing pots in visual, historical, and architectural contexts. The tall, slender stacks of pottery forms put pots into an architectural context by implication. The work refers to towers, columns, pilasters. By most ceramic standards, these towers are quite large, stacking to heights between six and twelve feet. The significance of scale and the emphasis of repetition make this work a monument to pottery. The repetition of forms within each column encourages manipulation of the perception of those forms. The pot forms may be individually examined, compound forms created by the interact ion of parts of two or more units may be discovered, and the silhouette of the combined forms may be read as a single shape. Some of the compound forms were deliberately pursued. I searched for a vase shape that when repeated yielded a compound form like the body of a violin . Many of the towers are banded with colored slips and glazes. The stripes are an articulate way to describe the real or iIlusionistic volume of the forms without unduly distracting at tent ion from those forms. These horizontal bands also assist in further segmentation of the columns. The stripes are stacked, too. The color of the bands may be used to stress different ways of perceiving the units which compose the columns, Or facilitate blending those units into one flowing shape. For me, color has content. Some surfaces refer to water, or a certain quality of light.Item Functional pottery(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1986) Fabens, Frank BevisMy pottery contains harmony which arises out of contradiction. The pieces do not appear to be traditionally functional, yet they are. The surface is both rigid and soft. The apparent heaviness of the forms is different from the actual weight. These contradictions create a pottery which is intriguing and is not understood at first glance. An initial visual impression of my sake’ bottle contradicts common ideas of a functional pot. If something feels good or works well, it may change one’s idea of the pot; consequently, these pots are to be explored with fingers. The eye and mind accept limited standards of function and nonfunction, while touch is accountable only to itself. A cup that can be held in one hand can be explored three-dimensionally through touch as well as through sight. The viewer using both touch and sight will gain a more complete understanding of my pot’s complex planes and surfaces.Item Functional forms(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1986) Katz, Louis HowardDuring the development of this body of work, I have begun to clarify my concept of Beauty, and its relationship to Nature. Nature as I see it is beautiful, and I believe my esteem is due to comprehension of natural order. Nature does not exhibit total control. Nature only sets the parameters within which random variation will occur. Nature does not determine where the wind will carry a leaf, only the means of its transport and the limits on its final location. I feel myself a part of this order. As Nature's pawn, I set some of the parameters. I am as much a part of my work as it is a part of me. I have chosen terracotta clay and salt firing for most of this body of work. This combination of material and process most vividly shows variation in color and surface caused by the random effects of fire. If the distribution of color, from light to dark, in "Alike Jugs" were plotted on a graph, the data would assume a bell shaped curve. This form is common to many graphed natural phenomena. In "Sigma," the distribution of colors reminds one of rocks in a streambed. Other variables in my work such as glaze thickness, size, and shape, similarly graphed, also exhibit this distribution. When I was a child, a common thought of my peers was that the solar system was just an atom on a broader scale, its nucleus and electrons like the sun and the planets. Much of my interest in packing and stacking pots, both in and out of kilns, comes from my elementary knowledge of crystalline structure and its relation to efficient use of space. "Sigma" can be thought of as having a structure composed of multiples of a variation of an octahedron, a form coincidentalIy similar to that of many ceramic oxides. Likewise, the layering in "Out of Kiln" is similar to that in kaolinite, the mineralogical building block of clay. An extension of my concept of Beauty in natural order and the subjectiveness of truth is my feeling that there is beauty in all things. Natural order, and therefore Beauty, manifests itself in everything, and all artifacts of man illustrate the nature of their maker.Item Parallel realities(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1997) McDade, Karl VautrainBy combining reproductions of found industrial objects with ancient Greek pottery forms, I am attempting to build relationships with the past and the present. Ancient Greek vessels are a symbol of early industry and basic human needs to control and simplify life. Industrial objects are a metaphor for the advancement of our technology and the control we have gained over our environment. Combined, these objects symbolize a long history of technological advancement, attempts to control our environment, and ultimately, nature. In my eyes, true beauty is found only in nature, through natural processes of creation and destruction and no object contrived by human hands and logical thought can compete with natural phenomena. The man-made objects that I am most attracted to are those which are old and have been exposed to the elements for many years. With this exposure to the elements an object becomes subjected to the chaos and chance of nature which does not work in terms of logic and is ultimately a purely random process. In order to accomplish this quality, my work has become highly process oriented. Instead of precise manipulation, I set up events which allow for random and natural occurrences within certain parameters. This concurrently makes my work less concerned with the issue of traditional craftsmanship and more with the idea of emulating chaotic natural beauty in the form of an archetypal craft object; the pottery vessel.Item Personal hobby themes expressed in ceramic boxes adapted to high school art instruction(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1980) Martin, George EricItem The design and construction of a ceramics workshop and the utilization of local clays for ceramic use(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1949) Stablein, Charles A.Item Movement and energy(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1983) Ackerley, Lawrence MichaelMovement and energy are the heart of my work. Movement is created by the manipulation of form, line, and color. These three elements are essential and create the energy of the work. The form, line, and color of the work express movement by the fluid qualities they exhibit. Form and line occur as a spontaneous flow of action and awareness while creating the work on the potter's wheel. The color is added by allowing both my input and the input of the firing process. By carefully arranging the work with organic materials and allowing the fire to integrate them, earth colors are produced. These colors are subtle, yet they are a vital part of the works' movement and energy. It is then that form, line, and color interact with each other and vary as they move around the work, thus creating the feeling of movement when the viewer is looking at them. Originally the forms came from the idea of the hat. This idea gradually became more a symbol of man in combination with landscape. As the work progressed the forms became just a subtle symbol of landscape. Upon reflection, I can see better the relationship of man and landscape in the work. The natural materials in the making of the work - clay, water, straw and fire - are certainly parts of the earth and the simple handling of the materials allow them to be known. In addition the forms give the impression of landscape because of their organic qualities, their flow and uneven nature. This is very much like the earth. Man's relationship shown in the objects, can be seen in several ways. The first relationship is that of the hat, which I see as a symbol of man; second is the creation of lines and finger impressions that indicate man's presence; and third is the fact that they are made by man on one of man's inventions, the potter's wheel. This helps reveal the fact that they were manipulated by man. Making this work brings about an energy and excitement, that is very important to me. It is that movement and energy in the work that gives them spirit and life. And life with spirit is the most important thing to me.Item Forever more than once(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2013) Peters, David William; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Josh DeWeeseMy perpetual instinct is to return to the earliest principle of ceramics, the forming and heating of clay. For me this means clay mined directly from the earth and heat produced from burning wood. This is simple in idea, but not in application. Natural materials and their transformations are inexplicably complex. I welcome this character, for with chaos comes serendipity. I create conditions that I judge likely to cause the desirable to happen, and employ various types of technology to do so. My skill is to pay attention, to discover, to harvest the beautiful, and absorb the disappointment.