New ceramics collection ‘unearthed’ at the NEHMA
The room is silent, nothing disturbing the still air but the few visitors stopping to observe the various shapes, colors and sizes of the ceramic displays in front of them. Some read the information plaques; others just simply stand there, taking in the unique designs and textures that can only be found in the mind of an artist.
The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum for Art, or NEHMA, opened their newest exhibit, “Unearthed: The Ceramics Collection and the Woman Behind It,” on Aug. 30.
There will be an official reception on Saturday, Sep. 17 from 6-8 p.m. It will be an opportunity to introduce the exhibit to students, and food and drinks will be served.
The exhibit highlights Nora Eccles Harrison — a collector of ceramics and a potter herself — with a section dedicated to her work as a driving force in the ceramics world.
Eccles was a Logan native relatively unknown in the art world. She grew up in one of the wealthiest families in Utah, and she helped found the museum with a $2 million gift from the Eccles Harrison estate, including 400 ceramic pieces from her personal collection.
The NEHMA has been operating successfully since 1982 and will celebrate its 40-year anniversary at the upcoming reception.
“What I’m hoping to achieve with this exhibit is to bring more attention to [Eccles] with her role in ceramics in the West,” said Katie Lee-Koven, museum executive director and chief curator. “She really developed relationships with the artists she collected. She was friends with them, she wanted to learn with them, but she’s a very unknown figure in the world of ceramics.”
“Unearthed” contains 300 ceramic pieces and highlights 211 artists. Organized chronologically, the exhibit displays art from the early 20th century at the front, with present and contemporary pieces continuing to the back.
“It’s the idea that these are made of earth. This is a retrospective, a 40 year retrospective, and we’re unearthing the highlights of the collections,” said curator Billie Sessions. “But it has a double-entendre, because they are made out of earth.”
A main theme of the exhibit is the evolution of ceramics throughout time.
During the 1920s, ceramics and pottery-making began to take root in mainstream culture, bringing with it many Native American influences. The rise of studio ceramics and the transition to personal expression began in the 30s and 40s, and more abstract themes and pieces took over during the 50s and 60s.
A prominent artist of the 60s was Peter Voulkos, who experimented with nontraditional pottery techniques. Voulkos paved the way for artists of the 70s and 80s who completely deconstructed what it meant to be a ceramicist.
Sessions explained how pivotal the 1970s were to the ceramics world. Ceramics became more of an artform than a craft. Ceramicists were given permission to do more than just make a pot.
Since 2000, the art form has changed again, and artists are now using ceramics to convey political and personal statements.
“It broadens knowledge of history and cultures and our world,” Sessions said. “Artists are generally thinking a lot about the bigger picture. It’s a way for students to get a broader picture of the world and a broader history of the world because it’s expressed in art. It gives students a space to contemplate about those things about our culture and the world and what’s going on.”
Today, the rise of technology has made the art form accessible to a wider range of audiences and artists.
Informational write-ups are included on the walls of the exhibit, giving more history and background on the pieces. The curators found it difficult to include all the information they felt was necessary, so QR codes are also displayed around the room for visitors to scan and have access to more information on the exhibit, art and artists.
The museum has 1,300 objects in the ceramics collection. Curators looked at them by time period, made a shortlist and then strategically looked at the balance of the artwork over the last 100 years to narrow down what would be showcased.
“We took into consideration, ‘Do we have a balance of women who are represented or under-recognized artists? Are Native American ceramicists represented? Are there USU alumni who are represented?’” Lee-Koven said.
In the background, a soft voice can be heard throughout the exhibit. On the right of the main entrance, there are two seats and a video stream depicting Maria Martinez, a famous Pueblo potter.
Taken in 1952, the video shows a week’s worth of footage of Martinez’ process in making traditional black-on-black Pueblo pottery. The voice-over is done by Susan Peterson, another prominent artist of the time.
The curators suspect that some of the pots made in the video are pots gifted to the museum by Eccles.
“This is an exhibit I’ve wanted to do for a long time because we have probably one of — if not the best — ceramics collections of American studio ceramics in the West,” Lee-Koven said.
The museum currently employs seven students and eight staff members. Ten of these people were directly involved with the organizing of the exhibit. Sessions, Lee-Koven and Matthew Limb were the curators for “Unearthed,” which took a year and a half to prepare for and open.
“This exhibition is different from what we’ve had in the past since it’s all ceramics, but the NEHMA in general strives to display objects of minorities, whether that’s women or Native Americans or African Americans,” said Shaylee Baggetts, a USU art history student and NEHMA employee. “A lot of the sections have focuses on female and Native American artists, which I think is really cool. It’s eye-opening to see the perspectives of those that normally aren’t represented in art museums.”
Lee-Koven reiterated that the NEHMA is a student museum. It exists for students to utilize, and there are lots of events to attend, including a community art day and various wellness programs.
For more information on the “Unearthed” exhibit, other exhibits currently open or general museum news, visit https://artmuseum.usu.edu/.