November 1, 2024
Exhibition

NOV 2 AND 3: WILD CLAY WEEKEND EXPLORES THE NATURAL AND

THE REFINED (AND THE TOXIC) AT 50 ARROW GALLERY

EASTHAMPTON, MA — Please join us November 2 and 3 for Wild Clay Weekend, a celebration and exploration of the raw materials—the clays, rocks, metals, minerals and even the rash-inducing sap of poison ivy—used in ceramics, and the creative ways people transform those materials into art.

The event marks the final weekend of the exhibition Wild Clay at 50 Arrow Gallery, located in Suite 134 at Eastworks in Easthampton, MA. Co-curated by UMass Amherst Studio Arts MFA graduate student Michael Medeiros and Liz Rodriguez, owner of the community pottery studio Easthampton Clay, the exhibit features the ceramic work and research of dozens of artists, clay enthusiasts, scientists, and thinkers from western Massachusetts and around the country.

Wild Clay explores the organic nature of clay as a medium, its roots in the earth, the natural processes inherent to clay work, and how we synthesize ceramic origins into modern, functional pottery.

Other members of the UMass Studio Arts MFA cohort Kiran Jandu, Hayle Lovstedt, and Kait O’Brien will also be participating over the course of the weekend. Both Jandu and O’Brien will create work on-site, while Lovstedt will be selling her work as part of the weekend sale.

Wild Clay begins with the unpredictability of a natural resource like locally-dug clay and continues through the thinking, creative excitement and experimentation that helps us gain a better understanding, and hopefully deeper respect, of how to interact with that resource and the natural world from which it’s harvested,” says Medeiros, who also runs Poesia Pottery at the Brushworks Arts and Industry Building in Florence, MA.

 

WEEKEND SCHEDULE

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2

1-2:30 PM   WILD CLAY: A HANDS-ON WORKSHOP & TALK    
                     MICHAEL MEDEIROS

3 PM   X-RAYS & TADPOLES: COMMUNICATING WITH CLAY
            GREG DE WET & ALIX GERBER

4 PM   DISQUIET ARK: A PERFORMANCE  OF POETRY & CLAY    
            ABIGAIL CHABITNOY

 

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3

12 PM CRYSTALLIZED CLAY
    JASON MONTGOMERY

1 PM   FIRING CERAMICS IN THE PIT, WOODFIRE KILN
            & COMMUNITY STUDIO

            INGRID FLORY, FINLEY FOSTER,  LUCAS MAY,
            MICHAEL MEDEIROS & LIZ RODRIGUEZ

2 PM   POISON IVY KINTSUGI, OUR BODIES & THE WORLD    
            ABIGAIL ROSE CLARKE & MARIELENA FERRER

3 PM   ROBOTIC CERAMICS    FALLON NAVARRO

4 PM   MAKING HISTORIC CERAMIC TILES
            KATHERINE VERDICKT & MICHAEL MEDEIROS