Visions In Clay 2020
Watch recording of the Virtual Artist Talk with Exhibition Juror Nancy Selvin: September 17, 2020
Watch RecordingVirtual Artist Talk with Exhibiting Artist Marianne McGrath: September 25 • 6pm
LH Horton Jr Gallery presents the 11th annual Visions In Clay Exhibition and Awards Competition online due to the pandemic. Nancy Selvin, ceramics professor at California College of the Arts, is this year’s guest juror who selected the works and awards for the exhibition. The selection was based on quality of work, unique content and form, as well as technical skill. This year’s exhibit features 56 works by 40 artists from around the country, including many Bay Area artists and local artist Tricia Hand from Tracy. Many thanks to our Award Sponsor, San Joaquin Potters Guild for funding their annual Founders Award.
Founded by the San Joaquin Potters Guild in 2002 through 2007, Visions In Clay was turned over to the Horton Gallery in 2010 to continue presenting the ceramics based exhibition. Visions In Clay is the largest exhibition of ceramic works in the San Joaquin Valley, and has been featured several times in the national magazine, Ceramics Monthly. It’s an exceptional show of technical ability with diversity in style, process and content.
Exhibiting Artists:
(Click on photo/name for more information and details.)
To purchase artwork, please contact the Gallery: jan.marlese@deltacollege.edu
Nancy Selvin
Nancy Selvin trained as a sculptor at the University of California, Berkeley, in both the undergraduate and graduate programs, receiving her MA in ceramics in 1970. At UC Berkeley, Selvin learned the lessons of scale, volume, compositional finesse and, most importantly, energy — how to tap it, how to articulate it.
Selvin teaches ceramics at California College of the Arts in Oakland, and maintains a studio practice in West Berkeley, California. She is a board member of the American Museum of Ceramic Arts, and Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts.
“Best known for works such as *Nolinas* in which hand-made vessels are displayed on shelves, [her] pieces speak to Selvin’s fascination with the form of the vessel — a theme that has sustained her attention for many years. The treatment of the surfaces, with her use of underglaze, screened images and text, creates a feeling of timelessness, as if the objects have been unearthed rather than newly created in Selvin’s Berkeley studio.”
— Lindsey Kouvaris, Curator
de Saisset Museum
Juror's Statement
It is an honor and a challenge to be asked to jury artist’s work. Thank you Shenny Cruces and Jan Marlese for inviting me. Over the forty plus years during which I have judged artworks I now notice more and more eclectic entries and a wider range of “de-skilled” attitudes taking root. I applaud this and see it as a pronounced shift toward bravado and broader intent from the world of clay.
With an elegantly crafted still life “Moon Over Superior” by Elizabeth James, and a small, rough, “Pleather and Seafoam Study" by Gratia Brown, that knowingly or not reflects the influence of Dutch ceramist Anton Reijnders, the two artists fully illustrate how the field of ceramics has opened up to the inflections of the larger art world.
This now necessarily virtual exhibition for San Joaquin Delta College drew 279 submissions from 91 artists. From these entries I have selected 56 works. No central theme emerged although there was an abundance of reticulated forms and lattice like structures. As one would expect given our geography there was a myriad of figurative sculpture running the gamut from the refined, Andrew Wyeth-like realism of Megan Angolia, to figures in the spirit of the “funky” Davis School of clay.
There were many pieces of merit. It was daunting to settle on four award winners. Congratulations for the fine showing. There are always risks in judging three-dimensional art solely from digital imagery and even more so choosing awardees. Some art was passed over because I was unable to interpret the fullness or the detail from the images provided. Hopefully in the new world that emerges from this pandemic we can rectify the situation: holograms?
Some additional pieces worth noting include a fine pair of cups with knobs on either side of their tray by Chris Pickett and a large vessel like structure by Barbara Andio- Stevenson which appeared to have fiber atop an oval clay base. The beautifully crafted “Crucible 62” by Kenneth Baskin and the reticulated “Maebyeong Form I” by Tyler Quintin stood out as well. The possibly excellent submissions by Yvonne Christine described as ‘clay on paper’ were impossible to decipher from the visuals as presented. I would like to know more about them. And of course rather than the virtual I would love to see everything installed in the gallery as we originally planned. I know you would too! Again, congratulations everyone!
Best wishes, stay safe.
Nancy Selvin
Berkeley CA, July 2020