Sunday, May 19, 2013
Art by fire
Get a days worth of clay at Keramos
click to enlarge
Colorado College's grandly-named Coburn Gallery, in reality just a windowless little room tucked into the south side of the Worner Center, nevertheless manages to put on some pretty good shows. Keramos: Colorado Clay Artists is no exception. Featuring 56 works by nine Colorado-based ceramicists, including Colorado College's Greg Marshall, the art is interesting, diverse and engaging.
Take a look at Dan Fogelberg's (no, not that Dan Fogelberg -- this is Dan Fogelberg the art teacher from Longmont) five vapor-glazed ceramics, curving sensuous forms with glistening, irridescent metallic glazes. Fogelberg first throws simple forms on a wheel, then hand-forms them. Finally, he fires them in a high-temperature kiln, where the glazes, vaporized metallic compounds, are deposited. The process is neither completely controllable nor predictable; Fogelberg only knows what color the glaze will be when he removes the piece from the kiln. The pieces on display show a range of colors, from deep blue to copper gold.
Spend some time with nationally-renowned potter Bob Nelson's pieces, particularly his "Porcelain Pilgrim Bottle" tenmoku with rutile glaze. The surface is buttery, reflective, tactile.
Carla Kappa's painted and burnished earthenware has a nice solidity to it, rooted and anchored. "Dreaming," a tall, creamy, pebble-burnished vasiform sculpture, is as slow and contemplative as smoke curling from a late-night cigarette, as solid and present as a lone rock formation emerging from the fog.
Greg Marshall's "Umbilical Vase" series, six virtually identical pieces -- two yellow, two red, two blue -- has a repetitive, hypnotic quality, but it also seems very like a display at a particularly hip Crate & Barrel store.
In sum: a good show, bright, varied, energetic and well worth struggling with the CC parking problem to get to.
-- John Hazlehurst
capsule
Keramos: Colorado Clay Artists
Through April 19 (closed March 16-27)
Coburn Gallery, 14 E. Cache La Poudre (in the Worner Center)
Call 389-6797 for info.
