Thursday, June 28, 2012

By Example at the Green Hill Art Center


Coleoptera 1 of  24 in the Beetle Wall Painting Series, Samantha Henneke


   Tomorrow night, Friday, June 29th, 2012 the "By Example - NC Potters and their Mentors" exhibition opens at the Green Hill Art Center in downtown Greensboro, NC. This exhibition is made up of 20 young NC potters invited by Chapel Hill ceramic artist and guest curator Ronan Peterson.  Ronan selected 20 NC potters and in turn we selected our mentor. My mentor is Val Cushing, who was my teacher when I was at Alfred University during the mid 90's. 

   Green Hill has put together a facebook page called By Example, where they have listed the artist's bio's, their mentor of choice, and the mentor's bio. This is the link to my Artist Profile: Samantha Henneke and Val Cushing

 The Green Hill Art Center has a great space and beautiful gallery that is part of the Greensboro Cultural Center in downtown Greensboro. (Green Hill Center, 200 North Davie St. Greensboro, NC 27401, 336.333.7460 )

   I put the images of all of the ceramics works that I will have in the show on our Flickr site.  You can view them at the Samantha Henneke - June 2012 Flickr Set.  I worked on three different series for this show. The first is a series of 24 individual Beetles, glazed wall paintings (each piece is 12" x 7.75" 1.5"), these will be hung all together on one wall.  The second series I made is a group of vases between 17" - 22" tall with imagery and crystalline glazes. The third series that I designed are seven 11" x 11" x 2.25" glazed wall paintings of dung beetles and girls in lavender or red.  


Bat Vase- 17.5" x 4" x 4", Samantha Henneke


"Focal Point"- Samantha Henneke, 11" x 11" x 2.5"


Monday, June 11, 2012

Beetle Approval

Insect Jesse Vases by Samantha Henneke
 Focus.

 Close-up Insect Jesse Vases by Samantha Henneke

As we were loading the last of the Beetle wall glaze paintings we found this fellow inside the kiln on top of the shelf right where we were about to place the piece.  We took it as a good sign of approval.


Sunday, June 3, 2012

Vases for ' By Example' Exhibition

Samantha and her thrown tall bottles back in the beginning of May

  I have been invited to be part of a group exhibition called "By Example" which will open at the end of the month at the Green Hill Center for NC Art in Greensboro, NC.  The show will include 20 ceramic artists from North Carolina and we each have selected a mentor to join us. That will make a total of 40 potters, and I am really excited to see all of their work together.  I have selected Val Cushing to participate as my mentor. I am very proud that he has agreed, and will be sending some of his work to North Carolina.   I threw around 15 tall vases in April and May. They have been patiently awaiting for me to decorate them.   It is wonderful to have an exhibition to give me an extra push to try out some new ideas.  I have decorated some cups like this and now I am trying the technique on my tall vases.  Bruce and I sometimes call getting ready for a show like this similar to an extreme sport.  I have everything made, now  I just have to glaze it all and cross my fingers that everything will work out.