This exhibit features work by McKnight's Minnesota Artist Fellowship recipients Bob Briscoe (Harris), Mika Negishi Laidlaw
(Mankato), Yonghee Joo (Korean/living in New Jersey), Junko Nomura (Japan/living in Minnesota) ,and Nick Renshaw
(British/ living in the Netherlands).
Bob Briscoe attended Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas and he has been working as a studio potter since 1967. Briscoe has shown
his work in craft shows across the country, from the Smithsonian Craft Show in Washington DC to the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver,
Colorado. He has pieces in many collections, including the Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, and the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul.
Briscoe's ash-glazed stoneware pottery is always created with an intended purpose in mind. "I make pots to hold liquids, serve food,
and display flowers," says Briscoe. "The forms I use are spare, with large, simple areas, heavy textures, weighty bases, and substantial
rims and attachments. I focus on the foot and the rim of a form as the defining elements. They are intentionally rough and crude to
achieve this definition." (source: http://naia-artists.org/gallery/briscoe_r/) Briscoe describes his recent work as "mining deeper
into the vocabulary I have evolved over three–plus decades of making work." We all look forward to what this "mining" will unearth.
Mika Negishi Laidlaw received her M.F.A. from Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas in 2000 and her B.A. in Studio Art from Southern
Illinois University at Edwardsville in 1994. In 2002, Laidlaw was an Artist-in-Residence at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena,
Montana and from 1994-1997, she was an apprentice at Akishino Pottery in Nara City, Japan, where she studied traditional Japanese pottery
under Masaya Imanishi. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Ceramics and Design at Mankato Statue University, Minnesota.
Laidlaw's hand-built sculptures are inspired by her interest in the beauty of human bodies. "The curves and folds of a body are
what I am strongly drawn to," she says. "I see them as the beauty that changes every moment." Her ultimate goal as an artist is
"to create works that can grab somebody by his/her heart." Laidlaw's sculptures are ambitious works of art that contribute an
important voice to the world of contemporary figurative ceramics.
Yonghee Joo received an M.F.A. from Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, in 2004 and her B.F.A. from Seoul National University,
Korea, in 1993. She has previously been an Artist-in-Residence at the Greenwich House Pottery in New York and was awarded a 2nd
place award in the exhibit "Earth, Wheel and Fire," an internationally juried ceramics exhibition at the International Museum of
Art & Science in McAllen, Texas. As her piece titled "Would you like to share my dinner?" demonstrates, Joo's work combines sculptural
elements of figures, flowers, and insects with traditional functional forms as she pursues her dual conceptual interests of human
psychology and personal meditations on nature.
Junko Nomura received her M.F.A. in Ceramics from State University of New York at New Paltz in 2006 and a Diploma in Ceramics from
Okayama Prefecture Bizen Ceramic Center, Japan in 1996. About her work, Nomura says, "I am moved by the power of nature, and I am
interest in the notion of tracing the history of life on earth. My interest in, and knowledge of, archeology, history and psychology
informs my work. I create intuitively, not intellectually, but I know that all I have absorbed goes into the alchemy that is my process…."
Nomura's sculptures emphasize the material properties inherent in clays and glazes and her installations create metaphoric spaces she
refers to as "subconscious landscapes" that are powerful and sublime.
Nick Renshaw received his M.A. from the Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1997. He has worked in such locations as the
European Ceramic Center in Den Bosch, Netherlands, Pratt University in Brooklyn, New York, and Helsinki, Finland. Renshaw's work
generally includes large- and small-scale sculptures, each use a variety of techniques, from coil building to casting. He describes
this process as one that creates "tensions brought about by combining contrasting organic and industrial ways of making…" In an article
about Renshaw's work titled "Native Procreation in Eboracum," (September, 2005 Ceramic Art and Perception No. 61), author Siobhan Wall
describes his installation of figurative work as "pastel-coloured humanoids arranged in rows. These ambiguous characters, reminiscent of
the Chinese terra-cotta army of Qin Shi Hung, seem innocent rather than warrior-like. Some of the faces are also similar to those belonging
to the ominous cybermen seen in the British television series Doctor Who. This makes their uncomprehending anonymity both nostalgic and
compelling because we are unsure whether they are benign or threatening." Renshaw's McKnight Residency at Northern Clay Center occured
February through April 2007.
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Yonghee Joo
Would you like to share my dinner?
Cone 6 Stoneware, 2006
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Junko Nomura
The Subconscious Landscape II - Deep pool of water, Landscape G
Ceramic, Mixed Media, 2007
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Miki Negishi Laidlaw
Perch
Slip cast and press molded earthenware, 2006
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Nick Renshaw
Deep Blue Suspension
Stoneware, 2007
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ABOUT NORTHERN CLAY CENTER
Northern Clay Center's mission is the advancement of the ceramic arts. Ongoing programs include exhibitions of sculpture and pottery by
regional, national, and international artists; classes and workshops for children and adults; studio space and grants for artists; and a
sales gallery representing many top ceramic artists from the region and elsewhere. Guided tours, hands-on events and artist demos are available.
The facility is handicapped-accessible.
The Center is located at 2424 Franklin Avenue East, Minneapolis, MN 55406. It is one block south of Interstate 94, between 24th and 25th Avenues,
just off the Riverside/25th exit. Gallery hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 10 am to 6 pm; Thursday 10 am to 7pm; Sunday noon to
4 pm; closed Monday.
