2022 Featured Presenters

Adero Willard

Bio

Adero Willard is currently a visiting professor at New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. She received a BFA at Alfred University in 1995 and MFA at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 2006. She completed a one-year residency at Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Maine. Adero has exhibited work nationally and internationally. She has worked as a professor of ceramics at Holyoke Community College since 2011. Since 2014 she is one of the cofounders of Pots on Wheels a nonprofit mobile clay education outreach project.

Artist Statement

A unifying thread in my work is the exploration of ordered chaos on my surfaces, constructing layer upon layer of colorful spinning circles, flipping flowers, meandering vines, industrial grids, and geometric planes.

Red clay is an important part of my palette: it is the skin of the pot and provides a rich base as the first layer of the surface. Using engobe and underglazes — which like jars of paint allow me immediate access to color — I paint shapes with wax on each layer. These areas become windows through which different layers of decoration interact. The intricate visual dialogue I create presents endless possibilities for exploring identity, metaphor, materiality, and design.

Benjie Heu

Bio

Benjie Heu is Professor of Ceramics at Southeast Missouri State University. He received his MFA in Ceramics from Ohio University, post-bac from UMASS Dartmouth, and his BFA from the University of Montevallo. His artwork is exhibited nationally and internationally in juried, invitational, and solo exhibitions. He conducts visiting artist workshops and residencies at universities and institutions across the United States.

Artist Statement

Illustrated objects communicate with the viewer much like a multiple-panel sequence in a graphic novel. I employ simple but richly textured surfaces to transform easily relatable and yet often overlooked anxieties of everyday life - the frailty of our bodies, the specter of chemical dependency, religious uncertainty, family dynamics, etc. - into figures or obstacles to be faced by the viewer. Battles against time, against the obstacles that prevent the fulfillment of desire, or the repossession of something cherished but lost are themes that provoke me. Revealing truth and humor in the face of horror and the seemingly absurd is my answer.

Ceramics and Drawing is an immediate and accessible format for me. I prefer simple line carving and mark making because of their concise nature: time sits still or zigzags through a composition. The most outlandish adventures are accounted with an eye fixed on the bare essentials. Translating oral narrative into a visual narrative not only reveals the significance of the story but it teaches me about myself and extends that revealing devise to the viewer.

Tim See

Bio

Tim is a ceramic artist born in Syracuse, New York in 1979. He has lived in the Greater Syracuse area, commonly known as Central New York, all of his life. He began working in clay while an art student at Onondaga Community College and completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics with Honors at Syracuse University in 2004.

Tim has taught beginning, intermediate and advanced pottery to adults in a community-based ceramics studio at Clayscapes Pottery, Inc. since 2006. He has also have taught children and teens at the elementary, middle and high school levels in workshops, as a visiting artist, and, in year-long after school programs. He has really enjoyed traveling throughout the country engaging potters in half-day, full-day and multi-day workshops tailored to their unique goals.

As a founding member of the Independent Potters Association, Tim works collaboratively with fellow artists to organize and implement several charitable events each year as well as group exhibitions. He helps organize group shows, an art trail and a high school ceramics competition annually as well.

Social media has provided Tim with many platforms to communicate with more than100,000 potters nationally and internationally. Since 2007, Tim has produced 1000+ educational videos and live streams on pottery related topics on different platforms.

Tim and his wife Brenda Pierce live in Bridgeport, NY with our cat Viggo

Artist Statement

My Artist statement is the lack of one. Every time I make one up I get caught up in what I think my work should be and it’s the antithesis of they way I make. I am a potter that loves to throw, an illustrator that loves to tell stories and a pyromaniac that has found a productive outlet. The work I make is just a segment in a timeline a part of me caught forever in clay.

Paul Wandless

Bio

Paul Andrew Wandless was born in Miami, Florida and grew up in Smyrna, Delaware. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics and Sculpture from the University of Delaware, a Master of Arts in Ceramics from Minnesota State University Mankato and then earned his Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics and Printmaking from Arizona State University. He also worked with art historians while earning his MA and MFA to study different styles of writing in the arts. Wandless returned to the greater Philadelphia area after finishing graduate school, where he taught and had his studio for 10 years.

Wandless currently lives and has his studio in Chicago, IL. His sculptures and prints feature ceramic processes, printmaking methods and a wide variety of sculptural techniques and mediums. Clay, printmaking, stone carving, mold making, leather working, metalsmithing, wood carving and painting are all mediums used in combination or individually for creation of his works. His clay work, prints and sculptures have been widely exhibited since 1995 including a recent solo exhibitions at the Ohr-O'keefe Museum of Art. His art works are published in 16 books and collected privately and publicly.

As a writer, Wandless authored Image Transfer On Clay, 500 Prints On Clay, Image & Design Transfer Techniques and co-authored Alternative Kilns & Firing Techniques and is a contributing author in 10 clay technique books. He's written 30 published articles for several publications including Pottery Making Illustrated, Ceramics: Art and Perception and the International Review of African American Art. A DVD was also created of Wandless by the American Ceramic Society titted, Fundamentals of Screen Printing On Clay with Paul Andrew Wandless.

Wandless has served on several Boards in different capacities since 2001. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Penland School of Art (2015 - ). He served on the Board of Directors for the International Ceramic Artists Network (ICAN) as Vice President, the Board of Directors for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) as a Director-at-Large, the Board of Directors for The Clay Studio of Philadelphia and the steering committee for the Philadelphia Sculptors. He was also an NCECA Presidential Appointee for the Demonstrating Artist Video Program as the Video Editor/DVD Creator.

Wandless has given 96 workshops regarding his art, techniques and research around the U.S. and Canada. He lectures frequently and sits on panels addressing a wide range of art related topics from technique and process to aesthetics and art theory. He has received recognition for his work in the form of awards from Minnesota State University, Mankato as a recipient of the Distinguished Young Alumni Award and from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) as an Outstanding Achievement Award recipient.I'm a storyteller and my artwork is a vehicle through which my voice can be seen. As an artist, craftsman and writer, I want to engage and inform the viewer both visually and intellectually through the mediums and processes I employ. My personal philosophies and concerns manifest themselves as musings, stories or philosophical statements. These conceptualized ideas then take physical form as visual narratives through my work. This often manifests as figurative art or pictorial scenes.

Artist Statement

My clay prints and prints on paper tell stories or share insights through printed images. My mythologized philosophy, symbology and narratives are manifested in pictorial format to visually and intellectually engage the viewer. The clay prints and the prints on paper are the most direct interpretations of my writings. The pictorial format also allows for the use compositional geometry to imbed multiple layers of coded information. Compositional arrangements of the objects and the symbolism of the imagery, contained in the prints, are for the viewer to decipher and further interpret the narratives for each.

My sculptural figures are metaphorical interpretations or personas of musings and concerns, that have come into being through clay and stone. Like putting a face to an emotion or in this case a figure to an idea.

As a Black Artist, Craftsman and Writer, I strive to engage and inform the viewer both visually and intellectually from my point of view that has been filtered through my own personal experiences. I want to leave something to think about from the dialogue or storytelling occurring between the viewer and me through my work. Then hopefully, due to this shared experience, the person will feel a commonality or recognition of the narrative I'm communicating through my art.