Photo and text by Robert Kokenyesi, Ceramic Artist, Beachfront Pottery, Godfrey, IL 62035, IL USA.
The Venue
The Ann Metzger Memorial National All Medium Exhibit took place in the galleries of the St Louis Artists’ Guild in Clayton, Missouri, from June 9 to July 22, 2017.
The call for entries
The call is very general, asking for art works representing all-styles, all-content, all-medium from across the nation.
Ann Metzger was a past President of and very active in the St. Louis Artists’ Guild. As an artist, she specialized in air brush techniques and worked in the 60’s venue of abstract, nontraditional images. She especially enjoyed silkscreen techniques and any kind of printmaking, photography and graphics.
My understanding is that Ms. Metzger’s estate funds this annual all media exhibit.
The ceramic pieces
This piece is about a foot tall. I would call it a sculpture, because there’s no functional shape or written narrative. It is similar to a vase, but there is no opening on the side or on top.
What made me curious about this piece is that it is assembled or structured to look like it is put together from broken shards.
Holly believes that “materials are vital part of who we are and what we do.” She reinterprets these materials to create engaging sculptural outcomes. Her process begins with breaking down the material into what she calls “cell structures”, and then she transforms them into “modular sculptures” .
In this piece the cell structures look like narrow rectangles. The shape of the sculpture resembles the envelope around a person who is in the process of walking.
The jewelry on these three pictures are made of porcelain. Debra fires porcelain at different oxidizing condition, and she mixes colorants into the porcelain clay to get the coloration of the beads and the other shapes.
The beads themselves are organic forms with intricate structures inspired by nature, such as coral, shells, pods.
She believes that jewelry is a portable form of artistic expression. Her intention is that the viewer her jewelry will pause and contemplate the beauty of nature.