San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts

Different Directions: Coming Together
in Clay

Different Directions: Coming Together in Clay brings together the creative talent of six individual artists from Texas, North Carolina and California. These six different artists however also happen to be 3 artist-couples. Suze Lindsay and her husband Kent McLauglin are from Bakersville, North Carolina where they own and operate Fork Mountain Pottery. Suze received her MFA from Louisiana State University in 1992 and was artist -in-residence for three years at Penland School of Crafts in western North Carolina, where she eventually settled. Her stoneware pots subtley suggest human figure and character as she manipulates her forms by altering them after they are thrown. "Pots are like people, "she writes, "The techniques I use when making my pots allows me to create each one with a personality of its own."

Kent McLaughlin is a studio potter who was first introduced to making pottery in 1972 while attending college in Florida. He works with both porcelain and stoneware clays using traditional Eastern glazes from China and Japan. 'I have made thisobject with my hands with the intentions of you using it with your hands," writes Kent, "Your touch embracing my touch. The direct connection between maker and user. This is an essential and fundamental consideration I enjoy when I work."

Hasuyo Miller and Robert Farmer are husband and wife and also ceramic artists who live and maintain studios in Temecula, California. Hasuyo studied at North Texas State University in Denton from 1973-75. She then went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics from the University of Hawaii in 1980 and a Master of Arts in ceramics in 1983 from San Jose State University in California. She has taught ceramics at Mt. San Jacinto College and Palomar College in California and at the University of Hawaii. "I have used clay (whether it be porcelain, white stoneware or raku bodies) to tell stories for over thirty years, " says Hasuyo. "It's all about movement, color, texture and one thing leading to another."

Robert Farmer left law school to start over in the art department and found clay when he happened onto a pottery class to fill out his schedule. That was forty years ago and he has stayed involved in ceramics since. He started out in Texas, then moved to Colorado in the 1970's and then back to Texasfor 16 more years before moving to California 10 years ago. "I have been a self-employed studio potter all these years. Some years I've been incredibly diligent, some I've just gotten by, but I've usually been content with the direction my life has gone," states Farmer.

Gail Busch lives in Corpus Christi, Texas with her husband (and fellow ceramist), Louis Katz, and their sons, Sammy, 11, and Benny, 7. Gail studied at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and holds a BFA in ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute. Her MFA is from Montana State University, and she was a resident at the Archie BrayFoundation for two years. Gail is currently working on teapot stacks that often take forty hours to complete. The pieces are small, generally less than 12 inches tall, but detailed and intricate. "So why am I someone who spends forty hours making one miniature, highly decorated teapot stack that can't be used to brew tea? I believe that we don't necessarily make what we like the best, we make what we make the best," writes Gail.

Louis Katz has been involved in clay since a course in high school. He has been a resident at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana, and the New York Experimental Glass Workshop in Manhattan. He received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1980 and his MFA from Montana State University in 1984. He received a Fulbright Grant to document traditional Thai pottery in 1988-89. He has given numerous lectures on his work, Thai Pottery, and technical subjects. He wrote what isbelieved to be the first computer programfor Glaze Calculation at the University of Michigan in 1974. He has been teaching ceramics at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi since 1981 and is currently Associate Professor of Art. "I use clay and make pots but even the most functional of them for me are pots about pots, " says Louis, "I see them as tools to educate the public about the value of pots. I don't call myself a potter, but a clayer."

This exhibit made possible by the generous sponsorship of
Trinity Ceramic Supply, Inc. of Dallas