Closing Reception
Craft Garden, Saturday, March 11, 3:00 PM

For the second year in a row, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft is pleased to collaborate with the MFAH Glassell School of Art’s “Ceramics in the Environment” class to present ceramic work by Mary Aldrich, Renée LeBlanc, Anne Steacy, and Vivian Pastor. As part of the course, students learned how to create a site-specific proposal for a public space. The exhibition celebrates the culmination of their semester-long projects, created exclusively for HCCC’s Craft Garden, exploring rich historical ties to natural resources and encouraging a dialogue about the craft-based materials that are grown in the garden.

The “Ceramics in the Environment” course was led in partnership with Jeff Forster, Ceramics Area Coordinator at the MFAH Glassell School of Art, and HCCC Curator Kathryn Hall.

Image credits: (1-10) “Ceramics in the Environment” class meets with Ceramics Area Coordinator Jeff Forster and HCCC Curator Kathryn Hall to review their projects. Photo courtesy of the Glassell School of Art students.

Opening Reception & Artist Talk with Celia Butler
Saturday, September 10, 3:00 – 5:00 PM

Reception & Artist Talk with Kazuki Guzmán
Saturday, October 8, 3:00 – 5:00 PM

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) is pleased to present BEST IF USED BY, a group exhibition organized by HCCC Curatorial Fellow, Sarah Darro, that investigates the dynamic intersection of craft and food in contemporary culture. Featuring six U.S. and international artists, Celia Butler, Kazuki Guzmán, Joshua Kosker, Aurélie Mathigot, Yuka Otani, and Rachel Shimpock, this show aims to probe the very definitions of craft by staging critical comparisons among works that are moving at varying rates of consumption and deterioration. The works range in material from wool, ceramic, and electroformed metal to cast sugar, cured tangelo peels, and needle-worked bananas.

The fields of craft and artisanal food are simultaneously experiencing revitalization amid a renewed embrace of handmade culture. The term craft is often invoked in culinary and consumer contexts to denote quality and handmade production. The works in BEST IF USED BY investigate the entanglement of these worlds. Viewers are invited to examine the intersecting and diverging qualities of the displayed pieces, all of which possess a complex embodiment of tradition, specialized knowledge, process, culture, and artistry.

Otani and Guzmán both harness the fluidity and instability of organic material in their works, which investigate concepts of earthly delights and consumerism. Tokyo-based Otani is an esteemed glass artist who has incorporated working with melted sugar into her practice. She presents a new installation of cast-sugar Buddha figures that will slowly transcend their forms and melt over the course of the exhibition. Guzmán creates whimsical sculptural works that are activated by everyday materials, which range from embroidered meat to sculpted chewing gum. In BEST IF USED BY, he presents Vuitton Nana, a banana that he needle worked with the logo of the illustrious high-fashion brand.

Shimpock and Mathigot, on the other hand, suspend time. By rendering meals and place settings in traditional craft media, they capture the temporary nature of food and the communal moments garnered by sharing it. Shimpock is a metalsmith who fuses a history of ornamentation and personal adornment with foods that are meant to be consumed quickly and socially. Her electroformed french-fry bangles, gem-encrusted half-eaten donut, and brooches–inspired by what is left on the plate after eating–all make precious and lasting the fleeting, yet universal, act of eating. Mathigot is a Paris-based fiber artist whose crocheted installation works cast moments of everyday life, particularly those conducted in a domestic space, in a new, textile materiality. The artist presents four crocheted meals for this exhibition. Her meatloaf, birthday cake, sandwich, and burger with fries render not only the food items in fiber but also the disposable napkins, cups, and service ware associated with eating those foods.

Both Kosker’s and Butler’s works subvert the material construct of the cultural artifact by transforming and re-contextualizing everyday objects. Kosker is a metalsmith and jeweler whose works incorporate unexpected, found, half-used materials, from shoe soles to used bars of soap. The show will feature his Tangents series, a collection of stark, geometric jewelry forms veneered with Minneola tangelo rinds that he has cured, some even retaining their grocery stickers. His transformation of this organic, disposable material into precious bodily adornment marks the material itself as an artifact deemed worthy of preservation and contemplation. Butler is a mixed-media artist whose works in sugar explore notions of preservation and cultural consumption. For BEST IF USED BY, she presents a site-specific, sugar-encrusted installation that she conceives of as an unearthed artifact. The translucent, pristine candy coats a bucket, held by ropes, and transforms over time, crystallizing, becoming opaque, and, finally, melting.

Consumption is the overarching theme for the inquiries posed by this exhibition. Associated with the food industry, transience, and cultural value, this concept acts as a launching point for discourse about the interconnected nature of food and craft. Exhibiting works that exist on a spectrum of temporality, BEST IF USED BY allows for an exploration of the significance of the ephemeral in a field largely rooted in tangibility.

Image credits: (1) Celia Butler, “Sugar Gazing,” (installation), 2011. Sugar encrusted rope, bucket, and armature. Photo by P.D. Rearick. (2) Kazuki Guzmán, “Vuitton Nana,” 2008. Needlework on banana, 6 x 5  x 7 inches. Photo by Kazuki Guzmán. (3) Kazuki Guzmán, “Vuitton Nana” (detail), 2008. Needlework on banana, 6 x 5  x 7 inches. Photo by Kazuki Guzmán. (4) Joshua Kosker, “Cubic Tangelo Cluster” (pendant), 2016. Tangelo peel, plywood, sterling silver.  17 x 4 x 2 inches. Photo by Joshua Kosker. (5) Joshua Kosker, “Tips & Corners” (brooch), 2015. Laser cut 4384 minneola, .925 sterling silver, 304 stainless steel, faceted stone. 1 1/2 x 3 x 1/2 inches. Photo by Joshua Kosker. (6) Aurélie Mathigot, “J’aime pas la viande, ni les dimanches,” 2004. Crochet, wool thread, cotton, wrex. 17 x 30 cm. Photo by Aurélie Mathigot. (7) Aurélie Mathigot, “Pic-Nic,” 2006. Crochet, wool thread, cotton, wrex. 28 x 42 cm. Photo by Aurélie Mathigot.

Opening Reception
Friday, May 27, 5:30 – 8:00 PM
The evening also features the opening of A View Within in the Main Gallery, Charlotte Potter: Glass Armory in the Front Gallery, and open studios by HCCC’s current resident artists.

Conversations on Craft with Clara Hoag & Sarah Darro
Saturday, July 9, 3:00 PM

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) is delighted to present In Residence, an exhibition displaying works produced by seven artists who began their residencies at HCCC in 2014: Clara Hoag, Natasha Hovey, Jera Rose Petal Lodge, Sarah Mizer, Alexis Myre, Collette Spears, and Rena Wood. This annual exhibition of clay, fiber, glass, metal, and mixed media celebrates HCCC’s Artist Residency Program, which has supported makers and their ingenuity in the field of craft for the past 15 years.

The Artist Residency Program at HCCC provides a space for creative exploration, exchange, and collaboration with artists, professionals in the field, and the public. In their open studios, resident artists are able to engage with visitors as they work and explain the processes behind their craft. This experience incorporates enriching group activities and professional development, along with opportunities to display in Asher Gallery, the sales gallery within HCCC, and in the Project Space. Though they develop individual bodies of work during their tenure, the collegiality of the program encourages lines of collective inspiration between their works.

Clara Hoag’s sculptural ceramic works cobble figurative elements with architectural forms that inspire a critical comparison between building infrastructure and the human body. Hoag’s work reflects on the human condition and a transforming urban experience. Limbs reach outward, beckoning the viewer, while scaffolding and soaring skyscrapers act as supports. Individual elements are assembled to comprise her works. Further informed by her process, Hoag explores the ambiguous boundaries between fragility and stability, construction and decomposition.

Natasha Hovey uses her medium of clay to examine unknown frontiers of human physiology and disease at a microscopic and genetic level. She is inspired by processes of genetic mapping that interpret and reduce complex bodily systems into more easily comprehensible, two-dimensional representations. Hovey transforms genetic diagrams into large-scale ceramic installations that play across the gallery wall. Her ceramic forms are replicated through slip-casting, and, when arranged, their use of space and scale allows viewers to come into contact with these complex biological functions made tangible.

Forging dynamic works through lines of steel and precious metals, Jera Rose Petal Lodge creates fluid objects that function as jewelry pieces as well as interactive sculptures. Inspired by architecture and geometric forms, her jewelry is made up of shapes and kinetic patterns that become activated through interaction and play. Drawing from architectural principles, Lodge’s jewelry pieces are as much about the space within the delicate wire chambers she creates as the strength of their overall structure.

Sarah Mizer’s work ranges, in medium, from glass installations to billboards and 3-D prints. She takes inspiration from natural surroundings and distilled depictions of nature throughout art history. She is particularly interested in the way in which 16^th– and 17^th-century vanitas still-life paintings explore themes of transience and decay, reminding viewers of the fragility of their own lives. The verdant gardens and flourishing weeds she encountered during her time in Houston became her subjects—refined, and in some cases elevated, by the fragile glass blossoms she creates. She continues to develop this work in self-contained pieces that render nature in both glass and 3-D printing, speaking to themes of time and fragility through material and display.

Alexis Myre builds microcosmic mixed-media works that apply material in intricate and symbolic ways. Plexiglas serves as the base for thread that is both embroidered and held carefully taught over the surface with pins, defining and mapping the space. Additionally, lines of graphite, paint, and found objects feature in her work. Referencing her background in mathematics, industrial design, and metalsmithing, each material thoughtfully serves within the confines of her work. Plexiglas brings rigidity to its structure, while pencil markings reference underlying logic, and the tension of the thread holds kinetic potential in an interconnected universe.

The double-walled ceramic vessels created by Collette Spears are made with incredible precision. The elaborate interconnected carvings of the outer walls overlay the vessels in a way that feels as balanced and naturally rendered as ribs encasing organs. She explores the therapeutic potential of her artistic process by paying particular attention to vulnerability, pattern, and connection.

Fiber artist Rena Wood’s sinuous wall pieces make manifest processes of memory. Each stitch and knot traces the passage of time and the construction of memory—in her mind, as well as in her hands—through skilled, repetitive action. She forms and breaks down materials within the same piece to evoke the ambiguous and volatile nature of memory, which constantly retains and forgets, constructs and deconstructs. Applying her fiber techniques to metal wire during her residency, she was able to explore the memory and movement held in different materials.

In Residence was curated by Sarah Darro, HCCC Curatorial Fellow. To learn more about Houston Center for Contemporary Craft’s Residency Program, please visit: https://crafthouston.org/artists/residents/.

Above: (1) Clara Hoag, “She Was Gone,” 2015. Stoneware, Porcelain, Mortar, Epoxy. 9 x 13 x 41 inches. Photo by Clara Hoag. (2) Clara Hoag, “Reach,” 2016. Stoneware. 7 x 5 x 20 inches. Photo by Clara Hoag. (3) Natasha Hovey, “Positioning,” 2015. Glazed ceramic and matte medium. Size variable. Photo by Natasha Hovey. (4) Natasha Hovey, “Positioning” (detail), 2015. Glazed ceramic and matte medium. Size variable. Photo by Natasha Hovey. (5) Alexis Myre, “Beauty of Wounds,” 2015. Silk thread, pencil, paint on plexiglas. 12.25 x 29.25 inches. Photo by Luis Corzo. (6) Alexis Myre, “Beauty of Wounds” (detail), 2015. Silk thread, pencil, paint on plexiglas. 12.25 x 29.25 inches. Photo by Luis Corzo. (7) Alexis Myre, “Directions of Change,” 2014. Silk thread, pencil, peach pit, and paint on plexiglas. 12.25 x 18.25 inches. Photo by Kevin Noble. (8) Alexis Myre, “Directions of Change” (detail), 2014. Silk thread, pencil, peach pit, and paint on plexiglas. 12.25 x 18.25 inches. Photo by Kevin Noble. (9) Collette Spears, “Binaries,” 2015. White and stained stoneware. 6 x 6 x 6  inches (each). Photo by Collette Spears.

Opening Reception
Friday, May 27, 5:30 – 8:00 PM
The evening also features the opening of A View Within in the Main Gallery, In Residence in the Artist Hall, and open studios by HCCC’s current resident artists.

Closing Reception & Artist Talk by Charlotte Potter
Saturday, September 3, 3:30 PM

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) is pleased to present Charlotte Potter: Glass Armory. This solo exhibition investigates the physical manifestation of identity through the intersection of glass and the body’s largest organ and protective barrier, the skin. While reflecting on the intertwined history of glass, medicine, and anatomy, artist Charlotte Potter states, “the fates of lives are cast with these small transparent pieces of glass.” Using microscope slides, along with lenses and window glass, Potter constructs a series of glass armor pieces that provide a frame into the psyche, allowing the viewer to explore how skin—with all of its blemishes, scars, and imperfections—is fundamental to one’s sense of self.

The foundational piece in this series, Armor (2014), is a cascading glass garment with photo decals of every inch of the artist’s skin transferred onto microscope slides. Like chainmail, glass pieces are linked by an underlying structure of sterling silver. Potter’s choice of the precious metal is a nod to ceremonial armor and the decorative arts, such as jewelry. This piece shrouds the body, while the transposed nude form and transparency of the glass exposes it. The artist’s anatomy is articulated in an almost impressionistic style. The layered swatches of skin abstract her form at close proximity and are brought into focus from a distance. This piece makes manifest the universal desire to understand how it feels to be in someone else’s skin, which is both inviting and haunting.

In the new works created for this exhibit, Potter uses skin as a metaphor to discuss how one’s identity is affected through relationships. Employing traditional elements of armor, such as the chest plate, she overlays the physical characteristics of different people to create ambiguous bodily forms that border on the uncanny.

Her armor investigates the skin as both a barrier and entryway, bringing the viewer into an intimate, yet universal, conversation about the fluidity of human bodies, identities, and the material world that surrounds them.

About the Artist

Charlotte Potter is the Glass Studio Manager and Programming Director at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, where she has developed an internationally acclaimed performance-art series. She also serves as the lead mentor in the Chrysler Museum Assistantship Program and teaches glass and new media courses at Old Dominion University and Virginia Wesleyan College. She received her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2010 and a BFA from Alfred University in 2003. Potter has made great contributions to the field of glass and its development as a performance and conceptual medium. She co-founded the performance glass troupes, Cirque de Verre and the Glass Theater, which have performed at institutions, including the Corning Museum of Glass and the Toledo Museum of Art. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues, including S12 in Bergen, Norway; the Shelburne Museum in Vermont; the Oklahoma City Museum of Art; and the Boston Museum of Fine Art. Her artwork is also included in the following permanent collections: the American Museum of Glass, the Chrysler Museum of Art, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, and the Henry J. Neils Frank Lloyd Wright House.

For more information about Charlotte, visit: https://www.charlottepotter.com.

Image credits: (1) Exhibition view of “Charlotte Potter: Glass Armory.” On view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX, May 27 – September 3, 2016. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (2) Exhibition view of “Charlotte Potter: Glass Armory.” On view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX, May 27 – September 3, 2016. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (3) Charlotte Potter, “Large Breastplate and Small Breastplate,” 2016. Microscope slides, photographic decals, urethane, steel, silver. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (4) Charlotte Potter, “Armor,” 2014. Microscope slides, urethane, sterling silver. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (5) Charlotte Potter, “Armor,” 2014. Microscope slides, urethane, sterling silver. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (6) Charlotte Potter, “Siblinghood,” 2016. Hand-ground glass, photographic decals, urethane, glue, steel. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (7) Charlotte Potter, “Siblinghood,” 2016. Hand-ground glass, photographic decals, urethane, glue, steel. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (8) Charlotte Potter, “Siblinghood,” 2016. Hand-ground glass, photographic decals, urethane, glue, steel. Photo by Scott Cartwright.  (9) Charlotte Potter, “Gut Feeling I and Gut Feeling II,” 2016. Hand-ground glass, decals, aluminum, gold, wood. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (10) Charlotte Potter, “Together in Arms,” 2016. Hand-ground glass, decals, aluminum, gold, wood. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (11) Charlotte Potter, “Together in Arms,” 2016. Hand-ground glass, decals, aluminum, gold, wood. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (12) Exhibition view of “Charlotte Potter: Glass Armory.” On view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX, May 27 – September 3, 2016. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (13) Exhibition view of “Charlotte Potter: Glass Armory.” On view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX, May 27 – September 3, 2016. Photo by Scott Cartwright.

Opening Reception
Friday, May 27, 5:30 – 8:00 PM
The evening also features the opening of Charlotte Potter: Glass Armory in the Front Gallery, In Residence in the Artist Hall, and open studios by HCCC’s current resident artists.

Members-Only Tour & Reception with “A View Within” Artists
Thursday, June 9, 5:30 – 7:00 PM

Artist Talks + Yoga in the Gallery
Saturday, June 11, 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Yoga in the Gallery
Saturday, July 23, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM

The Power of Healing through Art with
Jennifer Mabus, Lynn Lane & Camilo Gonzalez
Thursday, August 11, 6:00 PM

The advent of sonograms, MRIs, and other advanced forms of body imaging have transformed modern medicine and the way in which people view their bodies. These non-invasive renderings provide doctors with critical information about personal health, and, yet, when faced with uncertainty about a diagnosis, these medical images can provoke fear and confusion. They give a powerful glimpse into the complex systems of the bodily existence, marking growth and deterioration.

This summer, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) presents A View Within, an exhibition of textiles by Karen Rips and Paula Chung inspired by body imaging from the artists’ friends, family members, and strangers. As a collaboration that began in 2009, Rips’ and Chung’s textiles illuminate the beauty, strength, and vulnerability of the human body, introducing emotion to these otherwise static images. Rips and Chung write in their artist statement, “As artists, we find these images compelling, since they can be seen simply as shapes and lines, dark and light spaces.”

Uniting layers of hand-dyed silk and cotton through a combination of stitches made both by hand and by a free-motion sewing machine, each artist interprets the same diagnostic image in her own distinctive voice. In Rips’ piece, Swayback, and in Chung’s piece, Crossed Arms, each artist responds very differently to an MRI of a torso in profile. Rips’ bold and expressive textiles translate emotion through line, color, and space, distilling each image into an abstract composition. In Swayback, Rips creates a gestural red stroke marked by cross-stitching to reflect the curve of a spine. Like ripples of water, fabric is gathered on either side of the spine, echoing the outline of the silhouette.

Alongside Rip’s abstract interpretation of the spine, in Crossed Arms, Chung’s beautifully detailed tapestry provides an intimate portrayal of the figure’s posture by using a free-motion sewing machine to create rich color gradations. Using this method, she is able to thread up to six different colors of thread at one time. This free-form technique allows her to exercise great control over the thread, which yields soft and subtle color changes in the textile. Chung’s impressionistic use of color evokes an intense emotional response while it is also a realistic study of an MRI.

The artists’ command of material and technique inspires an important dialogue about people’s interpretations, responses, and relationships to these medical images. HCCC Curator Kathryn Hall reflects on the positive connection between art and medicine that this exhibition illustrates: “Artists have made significant contributions to our understanding of the human body. Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of the mechanics of the heart’s arterial valves, as well as his drawings of the human skeleton and major organs, were critical in determining how our bodies function. This is no less true today. A View Within inspires us to open up about our own experiences with life and death, allowing us to discuss subjects—like illness and disease—that are otherwise unpalatable.” At the heart of this exhibition, Karen Rips’ and Paula Chung’s textiles expose viewers to the inner beauty found within their own bodies, challenging them to embrace change and find common ground.

About the Artists

Paula Chung lives in Zephyr Cove, Nevada, where she studies nature and maintains her fiber-art practice. Chung began her career in fiber art as a quilter. She has exhibited her work internationally and received several awards of merit, including the 2008 Silver and Bronze awards at the 9^th Quilt Nihon Exhibition in Tokyo, Japan. Chung has contributed to several publications, including the Surface Design Journal (Summer 2012) and Quilting Arts Magazine (April/May, Oct./Nov. 2011).

Living in Thousand Oaks, California, Karen Rips is pursuing a career as a fiber artist after retiring from neonatal nursing. With over 30 years of quilting experience, Rips continues to experiment with dye techniques and enjoys the process of “mark-making.” She has exhibited internationally in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia as part of the Twelve by Twelve International Exhibition. Her work can be found in the collections of the Kaiser Permanente Hospital, Panorama City Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA, and at the Providence St. Joseph’s Medical Center, in Burbank, CA.

Visit Paula Chung and Karen Rip’s blog at https://aviewwithin.wordpress.com/.

Above: (1) Paula Chung, “Inner Ear I,” 2015. Silk, cotton, poly batting, thread. Photo by Paula Chung. (2) Karen Rips, “Listen Up,” 2015. Cotton, wool, thread. Photo by Theodore Rips. (3) Paula Chung, “Crossed Arms,” 2015. Silk, cotton, poly batting, thread. Photo by Paula Chung. (4) Karen Rips, “Swayback,” 2015. Cotton, wool, thread. Photo by Theodore Rips. (5) Paula Chung, “New Born,” 2015. Silk, cotton, poly batting, thread. Photo by Paula Chung. (6) Karen Rips, “Baby Blues,” 2015. Cotton, wool, thread. Photo by Theodore Rips. (7) Paula Chung, “Alzheimer’s Brain,” 2015. Silk, cotton, poly batting, thread. Photo by Paula Chung. (8) Karen Rips, “Letting Go,” 2014. Cotton, wool, thread. Photo by Theodore Rips. (9) Karen Rips, “Losing His Mind”, 2014. Cotton, wool, thread. Photo by Theodore Rips. (10) Exhibition view of “A View Within.” On view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX, May 27 – September 3, 2016. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (11) Left to right: Paula Chung, “Shoulder,” 2015. Silk, cotton, polybatting, thread. Karen Rips, “Cold Shoulder,” 2015. Cotton, wool, thread. Paula Chung, “Crossed Arms,” 2014. Silk, cotton, polybatting, thread. Karen Rips, “Swayback,” 2015. Cotton, wool, thread. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (12) Exhibition view of “A View Within.” On view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX, May 27 – September 3, 2016. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (13) Left to right: Paula Chung, “Alzheimer’s Brain,” 2013. Silk, cotton, polybatting, thread. Karen Rips, “Losing His Mind,” 2014. Cotton, wool, thread. Karen Rips, “Letting Go,” 2014. Cotton, wool, thread. Photo by Scott Cartwright.  (14) Exhibition view of “A View Within.” On view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX, May 27 – September 3, 2016. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (15) Left to right: Karen Rips, “Taking Root,” 2014. Cotton, wool, thread. Paula Chung, Implantation, 2014. Silk, cotton, polybatting, thread. Karen Rips, “Long Division,” 2014. Cotton, wool, thread. Paula Chung, “Ovary,” 2014. Silk, cotton, polybatting, thread. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (16) Left to right: Karen Rips, “Z3,” 2014. Cotton, wool, thread. Paual Chung, “Z12 Heartbeat,” 2014. Silk, cotton, polybatting, thread. Karen Rips, “Z6,” 2015. Cotton, wool, thread. Paula Chung, “Z27 Week Spine,” 2014. Silk, cotton ,polybatting, thread. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (17) Left to right: Paula Chung, “Newborn,” 2015. Silk, cotton, polybatting, thread. Karen Rips, “Baby Blues,” 2015. Cotton, wool, thread. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (18) Left to right: Paula Chung, “Inner Ear I,” 2014. Silk, cotton, polybatting, thread. Karen Rips, “Listen Up,” 2015. Cotton, wool, thread. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (18 – 22) Exhibition view of “A View Within.” On view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX, May 27 – September 3, 2016. Photo by Scott Cartwright.

Opening Reception
Friday, September 23, 5:30 – 8:00 PM
At 6:30 PM, three artists will be presented with the jurors’ Award of Merit prizes. The evening will also feature open studios by HCCC’s new resident artists.

 This fall, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) presents CraftTexas 2016, the ninth in a series of biennial juried exhibitions showcasing the best in Texas-made contemporary craft. Featuring 53 works by 38 artists, the exhibition includes everything from sculpture, jewelry, installation, and cut paper to works that explore diverse subject matter, including genetics, upcycling, and process.

The CraftTexas series provides a unique opportunity for Texas artists to have their work viewed by three established jurors and to display their work in an exhibition that strives to broaden the understanding of contemporary craft. The show features exceptional work in clay, fiber, glass, metal, wood and mixed media. HCCC Curator, Kathryn Hall, says, “This year’s selection of work pushes the boundaries of traditional craft media, placing craft as a field into a broader contemporary context. Displaying an impressive selection of forward-thinking makers residing in Texas, this exhibition is meant to provoke conversation and educate the public about media, technique, and skill.”

Hall finds that three pieces in the show exemplify a unique approach to craft practice and use of material. In Glaze Discard Trough, Jeff Forster uses a press mold from an old satellite dish, clay sludge, and discarded glaze found in the bucket of his shared studio to create a beautiful abstract composition. His process of experimentation and material exploration allows for surprising and unexpected results, as the combination of glazes reacts differently when fired in the kiln. By stretching animal intestine over a delicate metal framework to create insect-like forms, Masumi Kataoka breathes new life into the once-living material of her brooches. The use of this organic material teases out the metaphorical connection between one’s emotions and gut, while referencing a fascination with anthropomorphism. In Plastic Planet Raccoon, Calder Kamin exhibits a novel approach to traditional fiber techniques in her cartoonish sculpture of a raccoon made from recycled plastic bags. As a scavenger herself, Kamin collects a variety of colored plastic bags that she weaves together to inspire conversation about the role mankind plays in caring for the environment.

CraftTexas 2016 was juried by Paul Sacaridiz, Executive Director of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts; Nicole Burisch, Core Fellow Critic-in-Residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Glassell School of Art; and HCCC Texas Master, Sandie Zilker, Department Chair of Jewelry and Enamel and Three-Dimensional Design at the MFAH Glassell School of Art. The jurors were tasked with selecting the finest works from a pool of 210 applicants and 556 pieces.

Sacaridiz was impressed by the diversity in the work and by the many artists who used traditional craft processes in new and inventive ways:  “While the work of these artists is firmly rooted in the material specificity that has historically defined craft, they are also asking careful questions about the role of skill, beauty, materiality, and value in how they approach making work in a contemporary context.”  Zilker commented, “We were looking for, and found, fresh, exciting, stimulating, and unpredictable work that engages people visually and mentally. This show demonstrates that craft is energetically alive and flourishing and thriving in Texas.”

CraftTexas 2016 Artists

Image credits: (1) George Bowes, “Altered and Carved Vase,” 2014. Wood fired cone 10 porcelain. Photo by George Bowes. (2) Jennifer Datchuck, “Blue and White: Delicate Diva,” 2014. Slip cast porcelain, blue cobalt from Jingdezhen. Photo by Mark Menjivar. (3) Kurt Dyrhaug, “Tonka Bus,” 2016. Cast iron and enamel paint. Photo by Kurt Dyrhaug. (4) Jeff Forster, “Glaze Discard Trough,” 2016. Ceramic. Photo by Jeff Forster. (5) Jeff Forster, “Abstract Form,” 2016. Ceramic. Photo by Jeff Forster. (6) Ronald Geibel, “Strike,” 2015. Porcelain, luster, wood. Photo by Peter Lee. (7) Clara Hoag, “Empire,” 2015. Stoneware, epoxy, steel. Photo by Clara Hoag. (8) Natasha Hovey, “Expressed Modification,” 2014. Glazed ceramic. Photo by Natasha Hovey. (9) Younha Jung, “Untitled 40,” 2014. Nickel, rubber, pins. Photo by Younha Jung. (10) Calder Kamin, “Plastic Planet Raccoon,” 2015. Recycled plastic bags, styrofoam. Photo by Philip Rogers. (11) Masumi Kataoka, “Untitled (Brooch),” 2014. Sterling silver, animal intestine, nickel, glue. Photo by Masumi Karaoke. (12) Lucia LaVilla-Havelin, “Tourism Series: Campsite,” 2016. Fiber, vintage postcard. Photo by Seale Studios. (13) Edward McCartney, “The City on the Hill, A Ritual of Making and Memorial,” 2016. Sterling, wood, copper, 12k and 22k gold, stones. Photo by Edward McCartney. (14) Angel Oloshove, “Activated Mandala,” 2016. Ceramic, gold luster, opal luster. Photo by Angel Oloshove. (15) Jillian Palone, “Birds of a Feather No. 2 (bracelet),” 2015. Wood, copper, monofilament, paint, colored pencil. Photo by Jillian Palone. (16) Jennifer Quarles, “Robot Bee Drones,” 2016. Ceramic. Photo by Jennifer Quarles. (17) Leslie Shershow, “Beachfront,” 2015. Silver, resin, rope, paint. Photo by Leslie Shershow. (18) Graciela Socorro, “Bindu Marine,” 2015. Clay, acrylic, resin. Photo by Carlos Ocando. (19) Katherine Taylor, “Doorstop 2,” 2015. Colored porcelain, glaze, gold luster. Photo by Harrison Evans. (20) Catherine Winkler Rayroud, “Woman on Strike,” 2015. Cut paper. Photo by Catherine Winkler Rayroud. (21) Merrie Wright, “Dazzle Rabbit (after Anni Albers with idiosyncrasies),” 2016. Stoneware. Photo by Merrie Wright.

Opening Reception
Friday, February 5, 5:30 – 8:00 PM
The evening will also feature the openings of At Your Service and Found Subjects: Works by Sondra Sherman, as well as open studios by HCCC’s current resident artists.

This spring, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) presents Mixed and Mastered: Turntable Kitsch, an exhibition featuring the works of mixed-media artist and ceramic restorer, Debra Broz, and fiber artist, Nick DeFord. Turntable Kitsch explores the alteration and customization of the sentimental trinkets in our everyday lives. By mixing, sampling, and adding layers, the artists rework found tchotchkes. Like mastering a record to produce a polished sound, Broz and DeFord fine-tune their kitsch mementos for an exciting final effect.

Debra Broz began falling in love with small, unusual things while growing up in rural central Missouri. In her practice, she breaks apart second-hand porcelain animal figurines, combining the pieces to create ceramic oddities. Broz uses her ceramics-restoration techniques to dismantle, dissect, and recompose the found kitsch figurines as a means of investigating the effect of altered objects, especially those that were once valued and later discarded. Her seamless surgeries create works that humorously reflect irregularities in society and nature. Broz offers considerations about the power of kitsch and sentimentality by redirecting emotion from the object to the subject, creating a fantasy of emotion and the reassurance it provides the viewer. Her modifications disrupt that fantasy, and instead ask viewers to question the world around them.

Naming, categorizing, and mapping are common methods of understanding not only personal location, but also personal identity. Fiber artist Nick DeFord’s work questions the efficacy of that process, as well as the delicacy of the known world. With the use of traditional embroidery and stitching techniques, DeFord explores the visual culture of cartography, occult imagery, and geographical souvenirs. By disrupting these established visual systems, DeFord reveals a thin boundary between the known and the unknown. As his embroidery needle pierces the surface of these familiar paper materials, he begins to physically alter the original understanding of the object. DeFord’s transformed game boards and maps deconstruct the objects’ initial interpretation of space and time and demonstrate the flexibility of an object’s meaning.

About the Artists
Debra Broz received her BFA from Maryville University, St. Louis, in 2003. She then moved to Austin, Texas, where she worked as a mixed-media artist, ceramics restorer, and visual-arts nonprofit director for eight years. In late 2013, she moved to Los Angeles, where she continues her artistic and restoration practices, and is an arts adviser and advocate.

Nick DeFord is an artist, art educator, and arts administrator. DeFord got his MFA in fibers from Arizona State University in 2008 and his BFA in drawing from the University of Tennessee in 2004. He has taught at both universities and is currently Program Director at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

Mixed and Mastered: Turntable Kitsch was curated by Hayley McSwain. McSwain began interning for the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft in the fall of 2014 and is currently the Programs Assistant. A Houston native, she received her BFA in Studio Art from The University of Texas at Austin in 2012, and spent several months travelling and working in Europe following commencement. McSwain previously worked as the Design Fellow for Project Row Houses and as the Visual Arts Assistant at Art League Houston.

Photo credits: (1) Debra Broz, Double-Tail Dolphin, 2011. Secondhand ceramics, sculpting compound, paint on wooden stand. Photo by Rebecca Marino. (2) Debra Broz, Dressage Horse I, 2015. Secondhand ceramics, sculpting compound, paint. Photo by Debra Broz. (3) Debra Broz, Octo-dachshund, 2011. Secondhand ceramics, sculpting compound, paint. Photo by Rebecca Marino. (4) Debra Broz, Twin Persians, 2013. Secondhand ceramics, sculpting compound, paint. Photo by Rebecca Marino. (5) Debra Broz, Vestigal Twin Ducks, 2009. Secondhand ceramics, sculpting compound, paint. Photo by Rebecca Marino. (6) Debra Broz, Woodland Creature I, 2010. Secondhand ceramics, sculpting compound, paint. Photo by Rebecca Marino. (7) Debra Broz, Woodland Creature III, 2015. Secondhand ceramics, sculpting compound, paint. Photo by Debra Broz. (8) Nick DeFord, Bermuda Triangle, 2015. Hand-sewn sequins on game board. Photo by Nick DeFord. (9) Nick DeFord, Every Fold, 2011. Hand-embroidery on found map. Photo by Nick DeFord. (10) Nick DeFord, Found, 2008. Hand-embroidery on digitally printed map. Photo by Nick DeFord. (11) Nick DeFord, The Hunt I, 2014. Hand-embroidery on found paper. Photo by Nick DeFord. (12) Nick DeFord, Make New Friends, 2015. Hand-sewn sequins on game board. Photo by Nick DeFord. (13) Nick DeFord, Trade Routes, 2015. Hand-sewn beads on game board. Photo by Nick DeFord.

Opening Reception
Friday, February 5, 5:30 – 8:00 PM
The evening will also feature the opening of At Your Service in the Main Gallery, Mixed and Mastered: Turntable Kitsch in the Artist Hall, and open studios by HCCC’s current resident artists.

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) is pleased to present Found Subjects, an exhibition of work by jeweler Sondra Sherman. In this body of work, Sherman creates unique brooches and necklaces prompted by the individual books she has collected over many years. Sherman cuts into the pages of each book, giving them new life as they house the jewelry they inspired.

Intrigued by the poetry of the titles and bindings of vintage books, Sherman built a personal library in her home. Though these texts occupied her shelves, they were never read and, ultimately, she started organizing her collection by color. Sherman writes in her artist statement, “Its ‘Pantone-ian’ organization was a late-night inspiration, as I observed the visual noise of the bookshelves might be quieted down if color order ruled over subject or title.” Sherman delighted in challenging visitors’ initial associations with the book covers through her method of cataloging, noticing that her visitors paid more attention to the titles arranged by color field.

The idea for Found Subjects came to Sherman as she was packing boxes of books for a final cross-country move. Like the organization of her own library, Found Subjects encourages viewers to use their imagination as they reflect on the relationship of the jewelry to the color, images, and title of the open book that frames it. In the exhibition, the books are presented on white-washed, plywood library-style lecterns, tailored to their individual sizes and haphazardly arranged in the space. Surprise narratives reveal themselves as one makes sense of the relationship between text and form. The pages become the viewers’ imagined stories, and the jewelry reflects their voices, giving each book a new life “off the shelf.”

About the Artist
Sondra Sherman is Associate Professor of Art and Head of Jewelry and Metalwork at San Diego State University in California. She received her MFA from the Academy of Fine Art in Munich, Germany, and her BFA from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. She has been the recipient of many awards including the Rhode Island Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Emerging Artists Fellowship, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship, the Mid-Atlantic Regional National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, as well as a Fulbright Scholarship for Study Abroad. Sherman’s artwork is included in the following public collections: the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; the Racine Art Museum; the Smithsonian Institution’s Renwick Gallery; the Rhode Island School of Design Museum; and the City Museum of Turnov, Czech Republic.

Photo credits: (1 – 3) Sondra Sherman, Art in Every Day Life Brooch, 2010. Steel, silver, nail polish. Photo courtesy Sienna Patti Contemporary. (4 – 5) Sondra Sherman, Great Ideas of Science Pendant, 2010. Sterling silver (hollow construction), marcasite, silk thread. Photo courtesy Sienna Patti Contemporary. (6 – 7) Sondra Sherman, Julia Newberry’s Diary Brooch, 2010. Steel, sterling silver, nail polish. Photo courtesy Sienna Patti Contemporary. (8 – 9) Sondra Sherman, Listen the Wind Necklace, 2010. Sterling silver (hollow construction). Photo courtesy Sienna Patti Contemporary. (10) Sondra Sherman, Singvögel Ring, 2011. Sterling silver. Photo courtesy Sienna Patti Contemporary. (11) Sondra Sherman, Waldblumen und Farne Pendant, 2010. Sterling silver, 18kt gold, copper. Photo courtesy Sienna Patti Contemporary. (12) Sondra Sherman, Woman’s Home Companion Brooch, 2010. Steel, tourmaline, gold. Photo courtesy Sienna Patti Contemporary. (13 – 14) Sondra Sherman, Woman’s Home Companion Brooch, 2013. Steel, tourmaline, gold. Photo courtesy Sienna Patti Contemporary.

Opening Reception
Friday, February 5, 5:30 – 8:00 PM
The evening will also feature the opening of Found Subjects: Works by Sondra Sherman in the Front Gallery, Mixed and Mastered: Turntable Kitsch in the Artist Hall, and open studios by HCCC’s current resident artists.

Curators’ Talk
Saturday, February 6, 4:00 PM

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) is pleased to present At Your Service, an exhibition that examines the plate as a cultural touchstone beyond its everyday utility. Curators Amelia Toelke and Niki Johnson join their own works with pieces by an international selection of artists in this stunning exhibition. Whether serving as the canvas for a large-scale painting, cast into three-dimensional sculptures, or transformed into willow patterned jewelry, the plates of At Your Service are both alluring and thought provoking. They cause us to reflect, from anthropological and art historical perspectives, upon the social, cultural, and utilitarian significance of the dishes in our own cupboards. Whether decorative, commemorative, or kitsch, the plates in this exhibition are more than surfaces upon which we serve food. In material culture, plates are alternately status symbols, commemorative objects, and functional household items.

The artists in At Your Service employ the plate as a medium in their creative explorations. Gesine Hackenberg cuts blue and white patterned discs from antique china plates, stringing them into necklaces or setting them in silver to make jewelry. Others repurpose the function of the plate, such as ceramicist and designer Molly Hatch, who paints scenes appropriated from historic prints onto grids of ceramic dinner plates. By transforming these plates from domestic objects into a large-scale painting, in Rigaud, Hatch challenges our familiarity with the plate and the print, creating an experience that brings the two mediums together. Her plate installations touch on the relationship between craft, the decorative arts, and the fine arts.

Sue Johnson’s The Incredible Edibles Series embraces the Rococo tradition of forming platters, tea services, and other dinnerware into the vegetables or animals they are meant to contain. In a society in which we rarely know the origins of our dinner, Sue Johnson’s slip-cast Lamb Stew, a TV dinner featuring a miniature lamb staring back from atop a formless mound of meat, is both humorous and alarming. Ceramicist Emily Loehle, in her series The Four Food Groups, calls attention to the content of the plate in a different way. Much like the nutritional pyramid, each of Loehle’s plates contains clusters of grocery items from the American diet: fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy, and grains. Slip-cast and glazed a uniform white, these floating still-lives protrude from the plates as ghostly shells of the mass-produced food we buy, calling attention to our choices as consumers.

Artist and curator Niki Johnson, in her work God & Country, gives new life to vintage plates. She carefully sandblasts the churches and buildings from each work, leaving behind voids framed by cumulous clouds and idealized nature. These plates raise our awareness as we begin to question the motivations behind this gesture. Niki Johnson, in her artist statement, remarks that her work has “focused on issues of fragility and fortification, recasting objects associated with house and home as symbolic agents of crisis.” Rather than a place, the plates in God & Country commemorate displacement, stemming from our desire to belong.

In choosing a medium as universal and quotidian as the plate, At Your Service curators Niki Johnson and Amelia Toelke have created an exhibition as unique as each visitor. Viewers will bring with them their own emotions, experiences, and cultural traditions involving the plate, furthering the dialogues begun by the show.

Photo credits: (1) Gésine Hackenburg, Kitchen Necklace, 2006. Old and antique earthenware, thread. Photo by Corriette Schoenaerts. (2) Jeremy Hatch, Untitled (Haufbrau House), 2015. Porcelain. Photo by the artist. (3) Molly Hatch, After Rigaud:Versailles Orangerie (detail), 2013. 78 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze and glaze. Photo by John Polak. (4) Niki Johnson, God & Country, 2012. Altered commemorative plates. Photo by Jim Escalante. (5) Sue Johnson, Turtle Soup, from the Incredible Edibles, Black Set, 2007. Slip-cast vitreous china. Photo by JM Kohler Art Center/Arts Industry Program. (6) Sue Johnson, Lamb Stew, from the Incredible Edibles, Black Set, 2007. Slip-cast vitreous china. Photo by JM Kohler Art Center/Arts Industry Program. (7) Sue Johnson, Pork and Beans, from the Incredible Edibles, Black Set, 2007. Slip-cast vitreous china. Photo by JM Kohler Art Center/Arts Industry Program. (8) Sue Johnson, Blue Plate Special (Dory with Dirty Rice), from the Incredible Edibles, Black Set, 2007. Slip-cast vitreous china. Photo by JM Kohler Art Center/Arts Industry Program. (9) Sue Johnson, Mac & Cheese TV Dinner with Fawn, from the Incredible Edibles, Black Set, 2007. Slip-cast vitreous china. Photo by JM Kohler Art Center/Arts Industry Program. (10) Emily Loehle, Food Group Plates, 2013. Ceramic. Photo by the artist. (11) Beccy Ridsdel, Art or Craft? Dish with Bunnies, 2014. Porcelain. Photo by the artist. (12) Amelia Toelke, Light and Shadow (detail), 2012. Altered plates and faux gold leaf. Photo by Jim Escalante.