Ceramics News
Arthur Gonzalez on the Art of Getting One's Hands Dirty
Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2011, by Simon Hodgson
When Ceramics professor Arthur Gonzalez was told about his upcoming retrospective at the CU Art Museum at the University of Colorado, Boulder, his first reaction was, "Wow, that's exciting!"
Then, his second thought: "Oh boy, am I really old enough for a retrospective?"
The exhibition will take place in 2015. "By the time the show opens, I'll be 60. We're planning it so far out because we have to locate a lot of the work. My pieces are spread across collections in the United States, Taiwan, Japan, Italy, Canada, Belgium, and Australia. It'll be a kind of detective-investigation situation. Each piece has its own history -- its provenance -- and some have changed hands two or three times. And then when I find out who owns an artwork, I have to ask them if they'd be willing to part with it for a while. A retrospective tells a story; you've got to have a beginning, a middle, and an end . . . although hopefully I've got a couple more decades to go before it's really The End!"
Gonzalez grew up in a rural neighborhood outside Sacramento. His mother was a seamstress, and his father was a carpenter. Both came from large families; his mother was one of seven, and his father was one of 23 (!) children born to a Nebraska sharecropper. "Since they both worked, I had to find ways as a child to keep myself occupied. I always loved to draw -- I can't remember a time when I didn't draw. My father was literally a Sunday painter. He would do an oil painting at the kitchen table on the weekends. One day, my mom enrolled herself and my dad in a night class in oil painting. He liked to paint, but only having a third-grade education, he was intimidated by the idea of doing it in a school-type situation. So I went with my mother in his place. I was seven years old. I still have a painting that I made in that class. Also, my uncle worked for the state printing plant and would bring home books that were stitched together, with no images, and they'd be my sketchbooks. I'd go through them like water, filling every corner with drawings and cartoons."
Read the rest >>>CCA in the Scene: Perspectives on Oakland's Art Murmur
Posted on Thursday, December 1, 2011, by Jim Norrena
This is the first installment in a series of artist profiles. All depicted artists share a connection to the Oakland Art Murmur -- in particular to 25th Street in downtown Oakland, where in almost any given gallery, shop, or studio, artists from California College of the Arts are making their living in the arts. Collectively, they are changing the cultural landscape of Oakland, elevating its reputation as one of today’s most talked-about art scenes.
About the Oakland Art Murmur
Read the rest >>>The Art of Food
Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2011, by Simon Hodgson
From painter to pastry chef, ceramicist to wine cellar owner, innovative CCA alumni are shaping creative niches across the world of food and drink.
Twenty people stand around a long butcher-block table. The lights above cast a pale glow on its surface, illuminating the ingredients piled in its recessed trough -- lemons, lettuce, flour, eggplants, bell peppers -- without lighting the faces of the diners. They are here for Hands On, a food-making experience in which they use their hands rather than utensils to create a three-course meal.
"Cooking is very much a form of art," says Lisa Mishima (Graphic Design 2005), who concocted Hands On together with her boss, Randall Stowell of the creative production company Autofuss, and friend Yvonne Mouser (Furniture 2006). "Both cooking and art involve concepting, crafting, and presenting a piece. But there is something about consuming one's creation that feels even more personal, immediate, and honest."
Initially, the guests are nervous, even clumsy. Flour falls to the floor. Slowly, the experimental chefs grow more confident. There are giggles around the room, then nods of approval as the dishes take shape. The menu features Caesar salad, handmade pasta with pesto sauce, and tiramisu. Some diners shape vegetables into utensils and use those instead of spoons or spatulas. Maybe there will be a meal at the end of this.
Read the rest >>>Hello Etsy! + CCA Partnership: Small Business, Local Economies & Sustainability
Posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2011, by Clay Walsh
Hello Etsy
On September 18, 2011, close to 200 people convened at CCA’s San Francisco campus to say “Hello!” to Etsy, the online marketplace where independent artists, craftspersons, and vintage sellers from around the world sell their wares directly to their customers. Visitors and locals came to CCA as part of a unique satellite conference that not only featured live streaming from the two-day Hello Etsy summit in Berlin (September 17¬-18), but also afforded the CCA campus with a full day of workshops, lectures, panel discussions with key speakers, and hands-on making sessions.
This first-ever conference by Etsy joined business owners and leaders in the locally made / entrepreneur community alongside artists who have invented their own products and markets to discuss innovations and challenges to succeeding in the independent and handmade movements. CCA’s fine arts and Communications administration was thrilled to partner in the programming and support of this event. Attendees ranged from crafters, CCA fine arts students, local business owners, bloggers, faculty, and dozens of CCA alumni.
The Hello Etsy event kicked off a new partnership between the college and Etsy, called I Heart Art: San Francisco. Said Etsy Director of Community and Education Vanessa Bertozzi: “Over the past few years we were seeing so much activity and energy coming out of our community in the Bay Area. After visiting CCA for the Craft Forward Symposium, it was clear to me that we wanted to partner with this school -- filled with talented faculty and students, filled with history, and new ideas.”
Read the rest >>>Ceramicist Trevor Mantkus Breaks the Mold to Crack the Motor City
Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011, by Simon Hodgson
Of all the career paths leading to Detroit's auto industry, you might think majoring in ceramics would be an unlikely route. But Trevor Mantkus (Ceramics 2008) is not your average ceramicist.
When he's not at work at General Motors as an automotive sculptor, he spends his spare time drawing, making paintings on commission, designing tattoos, and customizing a 1978 Corvette Stingray. He also customizes superfast motorbikes -- a YouTube video shows him pulling a (don't try this at home) freeway wheelie on a retooled Suzuki streetfighter with an estimated top speed north of 180 mph. His motorcycle designs have been featured in Hot Bike and Sport Bike magazines.
Shortly after being hired at GM he rushed to sign up for classes in digital modeling. "I wanted to be a candidate to do whatever the company needed. Now I move back and forth between digital and clay. There's benefits to both media. Although, obviously, I was a ceramics major, so I like working with my hands, getting dirty, and seeing something come to life in three dimensions."
The seeds of Mantkus's success were sown at CCA. "I've always been into cars, and in the Ceramics Program, I made a motorcycle. In 2007 my professors Nathan Lynch and Arthur Gonzalez came to me with the application for a summer internship at General Motors. They saw this as a good path for me even before I realized it. I knew cars were sculpted out of clay, but I had no idea what was really involved. Thousands of art students from across the country, mostly industrial and automotive design students, applied for 18 internships, and I got in. It was an amazing opportunity to work, to learn, and also to make contacts. One of the guys I met there had an automotive design degree from the San Francisco Art Institute, another was a digital designer from Howard University. It was one of these contacts I made back in 2007 who tipped me off about GM hiring in 2010. I got this job because of that internship."
Read the rest >>>ENGAGE at CCA: All Hands on Deck: part 1
Posted on Wednesday, January 19, 2011, by Samantha Braman
(This is the first of four installments describing highlights of the spring 2010 ENGAGE at CCA courses. You can also download the whole story as it appeared in Glance, CCA's college magazine.)
"Art school can definitely put you in a kind of bubble. But it can also help you break out of the bubble."
So said one of the 140 students (although more of them were thinking it!) coming up for air after one of the most intense and immersive experiences of their college careers thus far: ENGAGE at CCA.
This new group of project-based courses is an outgrowth of several decades of community-centered work by CCA students and faculty. This past spring more than 140 students, enrolled in 10 different courses, did everything from creating ceramic nesting modules for threatened bird species at Ano Nuevo Island to designing new systems for elders at Bethany Center Senior Housing. More than a dozen new courses are happening this academic year, including a Writing course with San Quentin State Prison, a Textiles course with Zen Hospice Project, and a Community Arts course with La Cocina (the San Francisco "incubator kitchen" for women).
Read the rest >>>The Still Life at CCA: First-year Rachel Steiner
Posted on Thursday, December 16, 2010, by Marion Anthonisen
Hey all! It’s finals week here at CCA and lots of great projects have been rapidly multiplying in our campus studios. Students in Intro to Ceramics (taught by ceramicist and CCA professor Nancy Selvin) just finished fine-tuning a still life series, and I thought I'd share a slice of this with you before we leave for the holidays.
Read the rest >>>CCA Community Members Dive In to Make OPENwater a Big Splash
Posted on Friday, November 5, 2010, by Sarah Owens
Several members from CCA’s community are engaging themselves in OPENwater, a two-day event scheduled for November 13–14 that celebrates the collaboration between SFMOMA and the artists, chefs, and educators who comprise OPENrestaurant—a self-described “collective of restaurant professionals who sought to move their environment to an art space as a way to experiment with the language of their daily activities.”
Read the rest >>>ENGAGE at CCA: Designing Ecology Año Nuevo Island
Posted on Thursday, September 9, 2010, by Jason Engelund
This past semester participants in the ENGAGE at CCA course "Designing Ecology with Año Neuvo Island" designed, built, and deployed nesting modules for rhinoceros aucklets, an endangered sea bird. CCA Ceramics chair Nathan Lynch and his students collaborated with Oikonos eco-science nonprofit and REBAR art, design, and social activism group to design the nesting modules now in place on the island. Last report from the team was the birds are doing well in their new homes!
Read the rest >>>How Has Louise Bourgeois Inspired You?
Posted on Tuesday, June 1, 2010, by Clay Walsh
French-born American artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) passed away Monday at age 98. The artist first studied painting at École du Louvre, then at École des Beaux-Arts. She was an assistant to Fernand Léger, a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker, before moving to New York in 1938, where she continued displaying her work until the end of her life.
Read the rest >>>