On Wed., April 15, several ceramics showcases will debut at the Mayer Museum on the Angelo State University campus:
- “Shaping the Path: ASU Ceramics Student Show”
- “Community” – works by invited artists Steve Hilton and Von Venhuizen
- “1st Mayer National Juried Student Ceramic Competition Show”
The opening reception begins at 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
In partnership with the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, ASU will also host the 41st Annual San Angelo Ceramic Symposium on Friday, April 17, in the Mayer Museum, which you can read about here.
“Community” Brings College Art Scenes Together
Applying the final touches and coats of paint, Angelo State and Texas Tech students working alongside with ceramic artists Steve Hilton and Von Venhuizen were turning an exhibition hall into an art studio, for a few days at least.
The project involves thousands of little clay marbles, which students shape by hand, while chatting, like students are prone to do.
That was the whole point behind the piece, says Steve Hilton.
“We’re making these marbles, we’re going to put them together, much like what is happening here with us,” he said, showing me a photo of what the final product was going to resemble on a clay-stained MacBook.
The marbles will be used to form spirals across the floor, connected by other marbles that have been fired. But the ones students are working with now are going to stay raw.
“And then the community, the students, that are ceramics majors will get this clay after the show is over, and they’ll get to make cups and bowls and those will go to peoples homes and so on and so forth…”
Killing two birds with one stone, or one marble, anyway.
“Community” runs through Sept. 19, and after all the spectators have enjoyed the piece, the material will be recycled for the program here at ASU.
The journey is more important than the product for Hilton, who fell in love with ceramics and teaching after starting out as a geologist, and then a snowboarding instructor.
“At the end of the day, I’ll have 10 good photographs and a couple of movies, and while that helps my patron and helps the public – that’s tertiary to what I do, and who I am.”
The whole point of the show is to build up the art community surrounding the project and start dialogues between students and instructors.
It’s these kinds of artistic meetups that so often change the course of students’ lives.
“I’ll tell you probably the most poigniant story,” Hilton explained, “I had 50 people in a gallery, similar to this, and we’re making marbles.
“And I had a young man ask if he could help, of course. He doesn’t sit down, he grabs three pieces of clay. And before I can tell him that we’re only doing one at a time, he rolls three perfect spheres.
“And I’m like “how do you do that?” And he said “well, I practice a lot.” And he explained that he is from Burma, he was orphaned when he was seven, and he had two younger siblings. And the only way I could feed them was to go to the river, making some marbles out of clay, So I could use a slingshot to kill some small game…
“Makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up thinking about that today. That community, that story… I cant help but think that the clay in that room changed everybodies life that day.”
“Fire and Mud”
Von Venhuizen doesn’t like to pull any punches — his art is “crunchy” — prominently featuring skulls, medical apparatus, and often focusing on horrible realities of life.
“I wouldn’t say a lot of my work is supposed to be happy,” Von explains, “it’s not really supposed to be sad either, really just more reflective.”
Ahead of the show, the main focal point of the room was Venhuizen’s “Shell Game” — a wide ranging piece about cancer, family, and destruction.
Set on a “CAUTION” yellow stripe background, the five pieces push outward, formed on cones made from 55-gallon drums, other industrial parts find new meaning when placed in context.
The five pieces progressing towards the middle get notably worse in appearance at their apex. These represent the stages of cancer, he says. The industrial eyebolt, which Venhuizen says he views as both a visual metaphor for the symbol of womanhood: ?, but also as an incredibly strong component that keeps industry together. Its little details like these that made the final part of the piece effective.
Venhuizen lost his grandmother and his mother to cancer, and so as a tribute to their loss places the chair once occupied by his grandmother, and a mask used in his mother’s treatment together. Shadows of life, one might say.
“It’s more just internalizing it all, and working through those things externally. Art is therapy, so it’s just one part of working it out.”
Venhuizen’s other works will be displayed down the wall, but most have something to do with death. That, or taking something innocent like a balloon, and corrupting it physically. He’s been a ceramics instructor for over two-decades. After first focusing on architecture, he found himself drawn to the ceramic arts, saying: “It explained a lot about me loving fire and mud.”
“Fire and Mud” would be a pretty excellent way of describing Venhuizen’s aesthetic.
Student Creations
Across the room, the winning pieces of the 1st Mayer National Juried Ceramics Show are displayed, highlighting an interesting variety of subjects .
From an intricately detailed mallard duck, locked in mortal combat with a serpent, to futuristic sci-fi technology, there’s plenty of creativity on display.
Emily Daw’s piece was inspired by her husband’s profession: “I married a magician, and thinking of story telling through rabbits – This is a wood fired piece about change and transformation, and wood kilns take several days to fire, so you get all this interesting discoloration from the fire.”
Marc Jeannin, who develops his intricate layers through soda ash firing: “Whenever i’m making sculpture like these, it starts with making a dozen cups, and from that dozen cups, two or three of them flop, and I keep those, and patch them together to create these Frankenstein experiments.”
Hunter Marze says the best thing for beginners: “just get your hands on some clay, community studios are a great place for that…”
San Angelo’s foremost community ceramics shop is the Chicken Farm Art Center. Link here.
The ASU Mayer Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., free admission. Link here.
