Highlights from Plates and Platters at the Clay Studio

Kevin Snipes

Courtney Murphy

Eric Pardue

Kari Smith

Kathy King

Kurt Anderson

Meredith Host

Sue Tirrell

The Clay Studio in Philadelphia is hosting Plates and Platters from May 3 through June 2, 2013 in their Reed Smith Gallery. They do a fantastic job of photographing the work and presenting it online. It makes it easy to admire the work from afar. I have posted a few of my favorites above but please see the whole show by visiting www.theclaystudio.org.

It is a good exercise to pick favorites from a set and then find the common thread that unifies them. Over the years my enjoyment of new work has not changed but the aesthetics of the pieces I enjoy has changed drastically. In the last five years I have been engrossed in pattern and color whereas I previously liked simpler pieces with all-over surface treatments. Does my love of work that is visually more busy reflect my increasingly more saturated mind... or maybe I'm just drawn to what I am think I am not as strong at in my own studio practice (i.e suface over form.)

There is a definite correlation between the evolution of my own studio work and what I am actively looking at. About a year after I start enjoying a certain style of work I find I start drifting in that direction. I'm not sure why a year is the magic duration but this seems to be the nature cycle of me assimilating an influence before I can actively use it in studio. Based on that equation the work I will be making a year from now should be brightly colored graphic work with geometric organization. Lets see how it turns out.

I'm happy to have work in this show. I sent this large platter which features a mix of finger swipes through slip and underglaze sgraffito drawings.