Wheeling Heritage Hosts Clay Sculpture Exhibit
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WHEELING --Wheeling Heritage will welcome Pennsylvania artist Susan Phillips to display her clay works for a November exhibit in the 3rd Floor Loft Gallery of the Wheeling Artisan Center, 1400 Main St.
"Clay as Clay" will run Nov. 9-30, with an opening reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Nov. 9.
Phillips, now retired, had a 40-year career as an art educator, including 38 years as a professor of art at Waynesburg University, where she taught ceramics, clay sculpture and art history.
Phillips' current work is informed by the Japanese aesthetic wabi sabi, which is complex but can be defined partially as rustic, unrefined beauty.
She stated: "I am attracted to this way of working because it seems to celebrate the nature of raw clay and emphasize the tactile qualities of the material used, which in this case is red stoneware clay with heavy grog that I have used for years to build sculpture and am now finding very satisfying as a medium for these vessel forms and wall pieces."
Phillips' approach is to utilize stiffened slab shapes that are joined with liberal amounts of slip, which is allowed to ooze out and form an irregular linear element.
"I also try to use the natural edges of the rolled slabs as much as possible as a balance against the cut edges, she said. "Borrowing a term from woodworking, I refer to those textured, somewhat randomly occurring slab borders as 'live edges.'
"The finishing process I use is a mishimatreatment, in which red iron oxide is brushed over all and then sponged off, creating a contrast of light and dark areas and emphasizing textures. On some pieces, I followed the sponging with some light sanding before firing the pieces."
Phillips received a Bachelor of Science degree in art education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she studied ceramics under Frank Ross. Her graduate degree, a Master of Fine Arts in ceramic art, was earned at The Ohio State University.
At Waynesburg, she also served as chair of the Department of Fine Arts and was director of the Benedum Fine Arts Gallery. She was selected to receive the Lucas-Hathaway Award for Teaching Excellence at Waynesburg and was presented the WQED Multimedia Volunteer in the Arts Award for her work in helping to establish the Southwestern Pennsylvania Region of the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Program.
Phillips is a long-term member of the National Association for Education in the Ceramic Arts. When NCECA held its annual conference in Pittsburgh in 2008, she was co-curator of an exhibition of Monongahela River 9th-century salt-glazed stoneware at the Senator John Heinz History Center. The stoneware was from the Waynesburg University collection.
Phillips maintains a home studio in Amity, Pa., and exhibits her work regionally. She is a member of the Craftsmen's Guild of Pittsburgh.
The gallery is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The center is closed on Sunday. For more information, call 304-232-1810.