Around and About with Bulldog Pottery: "Our Past Shapes Our Present" - Linda Cordell, Samantha Henneke, Kristen Kieffer, Aysha Peltz, Elizabeth Vorlicek, Adero Willard, and Blake Jamison Williams

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

"Our Past Shapes Our Present" - Linda Cordell, Samantha Henneke, Kristen Kieffer, Aysha Peltz, Elizabeth Vorlicek, Adero Willard, and Blake Jamison Williams

Patterns of Being, Plate, Samantha Henneke, Bulldog Pottery, Seagrove, North Carolina

"Our Past Shapes Our Present" is an exhibition organized by Elizabeth Vorlicek and Blake Jamison Williams for NCECA (National Ceramics Education for the Ceramic Arts). Originally this show was to be on view during March 2020 in Richmond, Virginia. The Covid-19 pandemic cancelled the conference for 2020. This year March 2021, NCECA- Rivers, Reflections, Reinventions- will be online, the first virtual conference ever.

Bruce and I attended the Kansas City and Portland NCECA conferences in 2016 and 2017. The NCECA Ceramic Conference is an amazing time to connect with old friends and make new ones. In recent years, an estimated 6,000 ceramic artists have attended the 4 day event -- it is definitely a time to remember.

This exhibition includes seven ceramics artists. What is our common bond? We attended Alfred University in Alfred, New York and graduated together in 1995.

The invited artists for the show are Linda Cordell, Samantha Henneke, Kristen Kieffer, Aysha Peltz, Elizabeth Vorlicek, Adero Willard, and Blake Jamison Williams. We have joined together to display some of our recent work along with an artist statement, and a forward by Elizabeth Vorlicek. You can view the show here at "Our Past Shapes Our Present" ,

I am showing 6 plates decorated with figures and pattern medley designs.

Patterns of Being, Plate, Samantha Henneke, Bulldog Pottery, Seagrove, North Carolina

Samantha and Bruce did an artist residency in Paris a few years ago. We lived right in the middle of the city for two months, with people around everywhere, all the time. It fascinated me to walk among so many people, of all cultures, with historic architecture as the landscape.

Connection was the place, not necessarily the people. It was mesmerizing to be in the flow of city streets, where everyone seems to move to where they need to be among one another in a fluidly symbiotic way.

Coming back to the seclusion of our lifestyle here, with memories of the people on the Paris city streets walking around engaging with one another at that moment in time, but likely never to be encountered again. To see some images of our time in Paris, go to #bulldogpotteryparisresidency2018

Now, with the Covid-19 pandemic, the idea of being in crowds is of an obscure reality. The change for us personally hasn’t been as monumental compared to others because our daily rhythm is secluded at home with the trees. But I can imagine that in the city there is edginess now to this flow that we had experienced back in Paris.