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Gallery Exhibit: Craig Edwards
- Exhibit runs
- September 11 - October 31, 2014
- SMAC Gallery
- 114 N Third Street, Marshall, MN
OPEN MONDAY – FRIDAY
8:00 AM – 12:00 N OON
1:00 PM – 4:30 PM
* Special Event: Artist Reception on September 25 from 5-7 pm with special music performed by folk trio: Bill Gossman, Maggie Harp and Andrew Renneker (5:30 – 6:30 pm)
Craig Edwards Exhibit
“My journey as a potter is one that combines my dual interests of making functional pottery and the art of tea.”
I enjoy making pottery out of a course stoneware clay and wood firing it in wood fueled kiln (an anagama) that I built, in New London, Minnesota, where my studio is located. The firings are between three and five days in duration. The longer firing allows me to slow down and spend some time with the process. The pots that come out of a longer firing are like friends from childhood that have lived a life and I am meeting them again in their old age. Some have been in the right place in the kiln and show the drama and blessing of the fire. Some may have been not so lucky and been knocked about by a bad stoke. Of course, there are also some that go through the firing and come out bland and boring with little to show of the experience. The woodfire is more than a tool, it is a collaborator in the creative process. The anagama allows the full force of the wood fire to express the exquisite random patterns left by the
I enjoy making pottery out of a course stoneware clay and wood firing it in wood fueled kiln (an anagama) that I built, in New London, Minnesota, where my studio is located. The firings are between three and five days in duration. The longer firing allows me to slow down and spend some time with the process. The pots that come out of a longer firing are like friends from childhood that have lived a life and I am meeting them again in their old age. Some have been in the right place in the kiln and show the drama and blessing of the fire. Some may have been not so lucky and been knocked about by a bad stoke. Of course, there are also some that go through the firing and come out bland and boring with little to show of the experience. The woodfire is more than a tool, it is a collaborator in the creative process. The anagama allows the full force of the wood fire to express the exquisite random patterns left by the
natural flow of the fire. The introduction of the fire as a collaborator creates work that introduces nature as part of the creative process. I received a Jerome Grant in 2003, to travel to Korea and Japan to study pottery and the tea culture. Since then, I have traveled there several times to visit and work with potters who make tea ware, tea masters and Zen masters to better appreciate how pottery functions within the art of tea. Although many pots are made for the tea ceremony it is the aesthetics from this that inform the design and process of many other works. A consistency between philosophy, design principles and process result in an artistic expression that resonates with my life. Hopefully creating work that is a vehicle for aesthetic contemplation as well as functional. In 2010, built a wood fueled kiln (anagama) in Taku, Japan, and continue to work there and in Mungyeong, South Korea. These areas have pottery traditions that date back hundreds of years, and provide a rich experience that I embrace wholeheartedly.
