Clay West Invitational brings artists to USU
Artists and art lovers alike crowded the upper galleries of the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum on Friday Sept. 18. They welcomed back the old Ceramics West Invitational as the newly incarnated Clay West 2003 Intermountain Invitational.
The invitational brings together 70 ceramic works of art by 50 artists living and working in the intermountain West.
The show featured a twist – every featured artist is also a professor of higher education.
Why is the invitational a showcase of only “West” art?
“The West has its own flavor,” said Victoria Rowe, director of the Eccles Museum.
Rowe has been working for the museum for three and one-half years and has been the director for one.
Rowe said the invitational was an opportunity to bring together the creative efforts of artists in this region.
“We collect art only west of the Mississippi,” she said.
The exhibition is free to the public and will run until Dec. 6. It is an opportunity for both the community and the students to experience a variety of ceramic art forms from traditional works to sculptures.
“Our goal was to show a representative swath of ceramics with diverse background of geography,” said Jill Lawley, exhibition intern.
Lawley’s responsibilities as the intern were to keep in contact with the artists, arrange for the delivery of the art and as she called it, the “grunt work.”
Utah State University has five of its own faculty showcasing their art at the invitational. They include Daniel Murphy, an assistant professor, who helped put the project together; Dennise Gackstetter, a temporary instructor; Marilyn Krannich, an adjunct professor; Ted Neal, ceramics studio coordinator; and art department head John Neely. All work in the art department.
Along with professors came former alumna Susan Harris.
Harris, professor at Southern Utah University, showcased her art, which was influenced by ancient Chinese bronze vessels but personalized with her own flavor, as she added armadillos to her work.
“I think it’s a great idea that they went up and started this again,” she said.
Harris had attended all of the previous Ceramic West shows when they were first initiated through the ’70s and ’80s.
Harris said this show is a bit more ambitious in that there is more sculptural work, as opposed to the usual traditional art such as pots.
“It makes it a little richer,” she said.
For more information on the invitational go to www.artmuseum.usu.edu.
-vramirez@cc.usu.edu