Alix Knipe will present her MFA Thesis Exhibition April 1-5 in the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery in Richards Hall. Her work is inspired by her Fulbright Research Fellow study in Turkey last year.
Knipe spent 10 months in Turkey during the 2011-2012 academic year, where she lived in Kayseri and taught at Erciyes University.
Her main focus was making work inspired by her environment in her public studio. She taught during her first semester there and spent time in two ceramic communities, Avanos and Kutahya, the second semester.
“The teaching wasn’t part of the Fulbright grant, but I felt like I needed to have some way of interacting with the locals. I really used that as a way to make a connection to the community and get to know my students.”
She taught a throwing class, which wasn’t normally offered at the University.
In Avanos she befriended a family.
“I ended up spending quite a bit of time with them in their studio and fired a kiln with them,” Knipe said. “On one hand it was a bit difficult to fully integrate into the community, but on the other hand, especially in a place like Avanos where they're used to travelers coming through, it was quite easy to connect to local potters.”
In Kutahya she also met Marie Porterfield Barry, a fellow artist and Fulbright scholar who was studying the painting of ceramics in Kutahya. While Barry was studying a particular technique of çini painting, Knipe’s focus was wider.
“I wasn’t there to learn a particular technique, but to look more closely at how tradition really functions,” Knipe said. “Turkey really is the crossroads of both European styles and Asian styles coming together. During the Seljuk Empire, the synthesis of Central Asian, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean influences were combined with those of indigenous Anatolian origin to manifest a new and distinctive Turkish style.”
Pots from China came down to Turkey on the Silk Road.
“In Turkey, the traditions trace back so far that it’s really fascinating. Within the Middle East, they really liked pots from China, but they didn’t have the same materials, like porcelain,” Knipe said. “They started imitating them, using the materials available. They incorporated their own styles and decorative motifs. What was born was a lovely synthesis of style and materials that is wrought with remarkable complexity. Those pots from the Middle East are some of the first pots I fell in love with, and particularly the decoration on them.”
The previous summer, Knipe had traveled to Burma for a month on a National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) Fellowship.
“They also have a pottery tradition that is very different from the way we approach art. We approach art making with originality and the individual at the forefront of importance. In Burma, there were so many hands that would touch one form. They worked in workshops where family members come together and multiple families come together, and they’d all make these pots,” Knipe said.
In Turkey, Knipe was in the area of Cappadocia, a historic region in Central Anatolia near the center of Turkey. Three volcanoes surround the area and have erupted over time, forming these soft layers of rock.
“In Avanos, a lot of the ceramic studios are in caves that people have hollowed out,” Knipe said. “The landscape was so incredible.”
Knipe also faced challenges with both the clay and glazes, which were different than what she was used to here.
“There were so many technical issues with the clay, and the glaze ingredients are different,” she said. “In a way, that was really freeing. I wasn’t focused on this end result that I would put in my suitcase and bring home. Whatever I made, it was the product of being inspired there and seeing where it took me. It was as if I was sketching three-dimensionally.”
She started to build really large forms that were inspired from the landscape.
“It’s been fun coming back this year and being put in an environment where I understand the materials and the glaze ingredients,” Knipe said. “I took all that, which I was sketching 3-D and building these large forms.”
She was also influenced by Turkish architecture.
“There are old towns in Turkey from the 1920s with houses built out of cobb,” Knipe said. “There aren’t a lot of straight lines. There is this incredible, rich texture and color to these old buildings. I took a ton of pictures of these old neighborhoods, and I’ve been thinking a lot about that when thinking about how I surface my forms.”
One aspect of ceramics that drew Knipe to clay is the elusiveness of it.
“There’s a certain elusiveness to getting it right, to make something that matches your intention,” Knipe said. “There’s a chasing that happens. Because of the process, the high chance of failure, the transformation that happens in the kiln that is out of the artist's control, there is always a gap between your expectations, your vision and the object. I think this happens to even the most successful ceramic artists. There are always elements of the unexpected. And in those surprises, sometimes even in the failures, there is an elusive beauty that keeps you chasing it, trying to repeat those small moments of wonder.”
It’s also malleable.
“You can have clay look like practically any material that you want, form it into any shape you want, with nearly any surface,” Knipe said. “There are certain technical limitations, but it’s just figuring out how to get around those limitations.”
She was also drawn to the rhythm of a potter’s life and the romantic notion of pots being something centered around food and the domestic sphere.
“I thought about cups being like a handshake—a connection,” Knipe said. “If someone bought one of my cups, then every time they use it, I’d be a part of their morning ritual. That seems very special. It’s something we’re losing when we use everything disposable.”
Knipe will receive her Master of Fine Arts with an emphasis in ceramics this May. After graduation, she plans to return to Carbondale, Colo., and have a studio at a collective studio space called SAW (Studio for Arts and Works). She will also teach at Colorado Mountain College this Fall.
“The idea is to strike a balance between studio, work and play," Knipe said. "As you can see, my decisions in the studio are tied to my experiences outside of the studio. Most importantly, I want to keep up the momentum I feel in the studio and continue exploring the ideas that I have just started to unravel."
• Full listing of MFA Thesis Exhibitions in April at the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery •
April 1-5
Reception: Friday, April 5 from 5-8 p.m.
Alix Knipe: Knipe received her B.A. in studio arts from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. in environmental studies and Eastern religious studies from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla. She has held prestigious residencies at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Carbondale Clay Center and was an invited artist at an international symposium titled “KeravanSaray Bulusmas, Battalgazi, Turkey.” In March she presented to the National Council of Education for the Ceramic Arts in Houston about what she learned on her Fulbright grant. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in the United States and internationally, most recently receiving first in show at “Vase Forms” at Studio 101.
Sean Larson: Originally from Ellsworth, Wis., Sean Larson earned a B.F.A. in ceramics while attending the University of Wisconsin-Stout and is currently pursuing his M.F.A. in ceramics at UNL. His work has been exhibited and published nationally and has received several awards of note. Recent exhibitions include the Morean Arts Centers “Functional/Dysfunctional” (honorable mention), NCECA “National Juried Student Exhibition” in Philadelphia and “Objects of Virtue” at Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, Calif.
Audrey Stommes: Audrey Stommes grew up in Sioux Falls, S.D., where she also graduated Cum Laude with a pre-professional art major from Augustana College. She was a resident of the New York Center for Art and Media Studies in Manhattan, N.Y. Currently, she is pursuing her MFA in painting and drawing from UNL. Her work has been exhibited nationally. Her recent exhibitions include the Bradley University Gallery’s “34th Bradley International Print and Drawing Exhibition,” Coagula “Group Show” and a Nebraska State Museum Solo Exhibition titled “Origins.” Her MFA Thesis Exhibition is titled “Dream State.”
April 8-12
Reception: Friday, April 12 from 5-7 p.m.
Matthew Blache is originally from New Orleans, La. He received a B.F.A. in sculpture from Louisiana Tech University in 2010. His work has been displayed at the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, La.; La Esquina in Kansas City, Mo.; and Cuchifritos Gallery & Project Space in New York City. His MFA Thesis Exhibition, “Half True-All Real” is a convergence of his compulsion to make things and his desire to give form to his narrative, which would otherwise be verbal and, therefore, temporary. It is his attempt to transform an incantation into a relic, to relive, recreate and build his past.
Megan McLeay is working toward an M.F.A. in printmaking. Originally from Omaha, she received her B.A. from Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She has interned with the Joslyn Art Museum, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and worked for the Omaha based non-profit Arts for All. She has participated in both group and juried exhibitions. The artworks in her MFA Thesis Exhibition are large-scale graphite drawings on Yupo, a synthetic paper. This exhibition is a series based on the emotional association of events, people, time and belief.
Emma Nishimura grew up in Toronto and received her B.A. from the University of Guelph in 2005. Her work ranges from traditional etchings, archival pigment prints, drawings, sculpture and audio pieces, to art installations. Using a diversity of media, her work addresses ideas of memory and loss that are rooted within family stories and inherited narratives. Her work is in public and private collections and has been exhibited in both Canada and the United States. Using a range of techniques, from etchings, archival pigment prints, paper cutting, sculptural elements and a lot of Japanese paper, her thesis exhibition, “Geographies of Story,” will explore the different forms and incarnations that memory can take and how specific memories can be revisited, cultivated and remembered.
April 15-19
Reception: Friday, April 19 from 5-7 p.m.
Sam Berner was raised in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area of Maryland. He went to Pennsylvania State University for a B.F.A. degree, originally for electrical engineering. Directly after his undergraduate degree, Berner found himself as a master’s student here at University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the ceramic department. Fueled by community activities at Penn State, he immediately sought out a community. Over time he found this community and has helped organize several events to promote the arts, Feast of the Most Precious, Project Mercury and most recently, Art Block. His MFA Thesis Exhibition, titled “Your Turn,” is a showing of interactive art that was created to be altered and played with by its audience. From self-destructive paintings to clay carving, the show will only come to be with the help of the viewer.
Gregory Scott Cook was born in western Kentucky. He received his B.F.A. degree from Murray State University in Murray, Ky., in 2010. A nationally and internationally shown artist, Cook works in the media of print, drawing, audio recording/performance and installation. The work in his thesis exhibition, “PATH-LOSS,” is about change through time and distance, acceptable loss, brokenness, and reconstitution. A somewhat palindromic process is present throughout the work—dirty, mishandled documents are tightly remade/reconstructed, while real-world objects are translated through digital space and back to become broken, rough, opportunistically formed sculpture.
Jacob Francois is originally from the St Louis metropolitan area. He completed his bachelor’s degree from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2008. Since 2010 he has continued his work at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln while pursuing his M.F.A. He has exhibited widely including Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Mo., the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, as well as public work currently on loan to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. His MFA Thesis Exhibition, “A Relationship of Parts,” is a show of kinetic work suggestive of a living body. The included pieces have a duality resting between artificial construction and the natural world.