EARTH TO EYE
Julie Crosby + Robin Whiteman + Stiller Zusman
A contemporary ceramics invitational curated by Ken Burkhart
Artist’s reception: Saturday, October 7, 4-6 pm
On view: October 7 - November 10
Julie Crosby, Basket, 6 3/4”h x 16” l x 3 1/2”d, wood fired earthenware, 2021
Julie Crosby
Julie Crosby began working in clay as a student at the Hartford Art School, where she earned her BFA in ceramics in 1995. Opportunities to continue her clay education in the form of artist-in-residencies, workshops, kiln building and teaching brought her around the country, until she made Upstate New York her home in 2001. In 2007 she was awarded an artist fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). With funds from the grant, she built her wood/salt/soda kiln, near Trumansburg NY. Julie worked with stoneware clay for many years and now works primarily in earthenware. Her work has been included in many national juried and invitational exhibitions, as well as various publications, including Ceramics Monthly, The Studio Potter and The Log Book. Julie has exhibited at the Smithsonian Craft Show, the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show and the Craft Shows at Chautauqua, where she received the Award for Excellence in 2014. Julie is a founding coordinator of the Finger Lakes Pottery Tour.
Artist’s Statement:
Through clay I explore a myriad of interests and curiosities. The material itself invites play; to be stretched, shaped, pulled, cut, smoothed. I’m interested in how clay responds to the action of touch, either on the wheel or when shaped by hand or with a tool . The colors, shapes, lines and shadows within the rural landscape where I live, translate into a visual vocabulary that I draw upon for surface decoration. The finished object, if done well, takes on a life of it’s own and hopefully passes through hands daily as it does the work for which it was made.
My work is made from different types of red earthenware clay. Pots fired in my wood kiln have varied surfaces due to the atmosphere created by wood burning and the introduction of a soda ash solution late in the firing. There are multiple temperature zones within the kiln, which produce a range of surface variations and shifts of color.
Robin Whiteman, Mother and Child, 10.25" h x 12" l x 4" d, mixed clays, underglaze, glaze, paint, 2023
Robin Whiteman
Robin Whiteman’s ceramic sculpture is the culmination of a lifelong passion for clay. Born in 1972 in NY, USA, she received her degree at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of American Crafts under the mentorship of Richard Hirsch. She has shown internationally, and in national solo and invitational shows and fairs including Aqua Art Miami at Art Basel and the Chicago Art Expo. In 2018 one of Whiteman's sculptures was purchased for a permanent museum collection. Robin has created and installed ceramic tile murals with the partnership of local schools and their students, and co created murals for Golisano Children’s Hospital. She has taught all ages as an artist in residence at public and private schools and her own studio, as well as Melissa’s Living Legacy, a teen cancer center in upstate NY. She lives and works in the Finger Lakes region of New York state.
Artist’s Statement:
It’s time for this woman to take play seriously again.
The invitation to participate in “Earth To Eye” was an opportunity to share wisdom learned from my play gurus, Boots and Dr. Martin Toast, feral cat women who bring immense joy to my life.
Delight is what I’m going for here, in subject, form, color, and line. Whatever deeper meaning might come from a piece is incidental right now. True, my daughter is also a cat lover and away at college. And missed. So, “Mother and Child” has significance for sure, but what delights me
about that piece is the physicality of it, the way the wee cat is sheltered, and the simplicity of the forms. Also how their colors differ.
The felt wall pieces share a whimsy and elegance, but speak of process. There is joy in slowly building a form, and sometimes more in letting it remain “unfinished”. I have cut more than a few heads off various felted bodies because they never had the same magic once completed.
I make different lines of sculpture, so to speak, and I’ve realized that I don’t always take my fun work as seriously. I think this is a mistake.
Play is one of the most radical acts in difficult times, and joy is contagious.
Thanks for witnessing my joy.
Stiller Zusman, Shikara, 13"h x 7"l x 5"d, clay and underglaze, 2022
Stiller Zusman
Stiller Zusman has been working in the arts for over 4 decades, although her "artwork" per se has been mostly private. She has an MFA in sculpture from the University of Buffalo and an MS in art therapy from SUNY Buffalo. While living in NYC, she was teaching for MoMA in their Department for Visitors with Special Needs and working for Marquis Studios in the public schools. Here in the Fingerlakes she taught sculpture at SUNY Cortland and was the director of her own teaching studio called Abovoagogo for many years. Currently she is the Scenic Charge for the Kitchen Theatre.
Artist’s Statement:
These pieces spiral in on themselves, claiming their own energy. They have a shape that is revealed in a slow motion dance between the form and my hands, creating structure, losing structure, compression, expansion to the point of breaking then saved off the brink of chaos. Clay is liquid. It remains in motion, following my impulse and my intention until it comes to rest in its natural form. The pieces are my size, formed in relationship to gravity and the subtle spinning that defines our world and ourselves.
Ken Burkhart, Curator
Ken Burkhart is a fine art photographer and curator who came to Ithaca from Chicago where he served as Curator of Photography and Exhibitions at the Chicago Cultural Center. He has continued his work as an independent curator for over 100 exhibitions both in the US and abroad. Ken currently serves on the board of The Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and has served on the boards of Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art; the Illinois Arts Council Visual Arts Panel; the Chicago Artists Abroad Panel, and others.
Ken’s artwork has received several visual arts grants including awards from the Illinois Arts Council, Chicago Architecture Foundation and The Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago among others.
Ken received his BA in studio art from Mercyhurst University and an MFA from the University of Chicago. His photography resides in both public and private collections.