Martha Grover

 Martha Grover's radiant porcelain is a splendid garden of shape, color, and movement. Her wheel-thrown and ingeniously altered forms evoke things organic and wonderful in nature from elaborate flowers to dancers twirling in billowing dresses to anemones and fishes dancing on a coral reef. This collection has gives us the impression of an orchard filled with juicy summer fruits. Her subtle surfaces bring intriguing texture to slick glaze surfaces that feel immaculately smooth in the hands. Fresh color fields interact with one another to make the pots shapes pop, and constellations of little dots punctuate and anchor form. Buttery bare clay delights the hands as these functional but magnificently elegant pots bring their vernal jubilance to your day-to-day.

Shop Martha Grover's pottery here.

Gallery Address:
2040 NW 6th St
Gainesville, FL 32609
352-810-0171

I know I'd visit this gallery if I lived in Gainesville still!

About Martha

Martha Grover is a functional potter, living in Bethel, Maine, creating thrown and altered porcelain pieces. She attended Bennington College in Vermont, where she received her undergraduate degree in Architecture. After going to Syracuse University in New York as a fifth year student in Ceramics, she decided to pursue a graduate degree in clay. In 2007, Martha received her MFA in ceramics from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Since then she was awarded the Fogelberg Fellowship for a residency at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Sage Scholarship for a summer residency at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. Martha completed a year long residency at Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, Montana in August 2009. She received the Taunt Fellowship at the Archie Bray Foundation in 2010. Her work can be found at the Red Lodge Clay Center, the Archie Bray Foundation, the Clay Studio of Missoula, Schaller Gallery, 18 Hands Gallery, Crimson Laurel Gallery, Charlie Cummings Gallery, and Cedar Creek Gallery. Her work has been published in Ceramics Monthly, Pottery Making Illustrated, Clay Times, 500 Pitchers, 500 Platters and Chargers, and 500 Vases. Martha's work was featured on the cover of Ceramic Monthly’s May 2010 issue.

Artist Statement

I seek to enhance the experience of interacting with functional objects. I work toward creating a sense of elegance for the user while in contact with each porcelain piece. Reminiscent of orchids, flowing dresses, and the body, the work has a sense of familiarity and preciousness.

Direct curves are taken from the female figure, as well as the fluidity of a dancer moving weightlessly across the floor. The space between elements is electrified with anticipation and tension. I think of the fluid visual movement around a piece, as a choreographer would move dancers across a stage. Transmitting desire - there is a sense of revealing and concealing, a layering of details that serves to catch our attention immediately and then the details draw us in, to make a closer inspection.

In our lives, we often move past the objects surrounding us at a very quick pace. My work generates a moment to pause. My goal is create an undeniable presence, one that acts as an invitation to explore the work thoroughly, taking time to know all of its many facets. Only through sustained interaction we can truly know and appreciate someone or something.

From Gainesville FL...actually from all over!

 

David Parry New Work David Parry inspires with a new collection of his arresting white stoneware pottery, decorated in colors influenced by his Pacific Northwest home. Stately forms catch the eye as much as captivate the hands. Colorful dots play on surfaces that take advantage of the flowing qualities and variable translucency or opacity of glaze. Lovely ripples in the clay surfaces of his vessels speak of the artist's hands at work and the currents of nature. His forms are beautifully made and soothing to touch and use. These are pots you'll find yourself frequently choosing from the cupboard or keeping at the table to be enjoyed with each meal. Originally from Stoke-on-Trent, England (commonly known as The Potteries), David earned a BA with Honors in Ceramics at the University of West England in Bristol, UK. Since 2009 David has made Oregon his home, where he established his studio, Whistle Post Pottery, and shows up and down the west coast. Artist Statement and Bio Living in the foothills of the Oregon Coast mountain range I can’t help but be influenced by the evergreen woods that surround me. On daily dog walks I venture into these wild places and take in the conifers, the mosses, the lichens and creeks. I feel blissfully isolated and there’s no sign of civilization for miles. Then I’m hit with a flash of color, a yellow gate closing off a logging track, a bright red 4x4 truck distant on the horizon. Or even the unnatural patchwork of forestry clear-cuts scarred across a valley. I recognize these color and pattern juxtapositions as major themes in my work. Shop David Parry's pottery here. Charlie Cummings Gallery | Website

Betsy Morningstar

 Charlie Cumming's Gallery (Gainesville FL) has wonderful ceramic art displayed, and I'm fortunate that they send me an email of art. Here are a few pics of Betsy Morningstar's work.

Mug, "May 5 Capture that rage and turn it into action," $95

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Betsy Morningstar

Featured Artist

Betsy Morningstar makes memorable porcelain pottery not quite like anyone else's. In the fineness of porcelain she masterfully crafts crumpled, folded, stained, and scribbled-on pieces of notebook paper. Frayed edges of porcelain seemingly torn from a notebook or binder become exquisite details. Doodles, dates, and notes become archival and indelible. Stains from tea or coffee and those familiar blue and red printed lines become delicate surface decorations that make the surfaces of these seemingly weightless forms sing. Some of the written notes are poignant, some humorous, some meditative. All are compelling, making us think of mundane, yet powerful moments when we are left to our own thoughts. These humble notes capture snapshots of life and affirm our humanity as they simultaneously serve as eye-catching vessels and light-as-a-feather companions at the table.

Betsy Morningstar earned an MA in Ceramics at Hood College in Frederick, MD as well as an MA in Curriculum and Teaching at Fresno Pacific University in Fresno, CA. She earned a BA in Art Education with a K-12 Certification at Mercyhurst University in Mercy, PA. She is a High School Art Teacher in the Howard County Public School System in Columbia, MD and shows her beautiful porcelain nationally.

Artist Statement

Lined paper has been in my life for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I drew all over it. I scrawled lists and scribbles. I have carefully folded it into love letters, wrinkled it with use, and torn bits for silly notes and gum wrappers. I use it to organize life and store memories in journals. Lined paper is familiar, nostalgic, and comfortable, but it is often unacknowledged in day-to-day life.

I enjoy the magic of trompe l'oeil as I manipulate porcelain to mimic the normalcy of notebook paper, creating the comfort of blue and red lines, the placement of binder holes, and the inevitable frayed edge. I find beauty in the folds, wrinkles, and waviness of used paper. I started creating porcelain notebook papers out of a need to find and see importance in each day and communicate outside of myself in a physical way. Each porcelain paper features journaled notes and fleeting moments from a day in my life, now forever special and permanent. The notes vary on the emotional spectrum of life, but all are significant moments I never want to forget. They are my brain and my heart in physical form.

Shop Betsy Morningstar's pottery here.

I actually have a friend and a granddaughter who live in Gainesville. I wonder if either has ever heard of this gallery, or visited it! Must ask.

Anna Leal

 A ceramic artist from Brazil who lives and teaches in Georgia now.

Look at the link for Charlie Cummings Gallery (in Gainesville FL if you're lucky enough to live near there!) 

I just learned about the technique of  “Cuerda Seca” or Dry Cord.