2023

Sarah Jaeger

March 3, 2022 by

I took a roundabout path to clay, via an undergraduate degree in English literature, and attended Kansas City Art Institute when I was in my thirties. I came to the Bray as a resident in 1985, planning to spend a year there, and figure out where to set up a studio. I spent two years at the Bray, settled in Helena, and have been making pots here ever since. I was on the Bray board from 1992-2003. I may be the only former resident who has subsequently enrolled in community classes. I taught them in the 1980s, and have been taking them since 2018, full circle! Which is to say that my long, deep and varied relationship with the Bray has been central to my life as a potter.

I have always made functional pots, for a number of reasons: we experience them by touch, as well as by sight; we share our intimate domestic spaces with them; they can bring the experience of beauty or unexpected pleasure to our everyday lives; and there is always an implied conversation between the maker and the user, bringing them into a kind of community.

After a neurological disease made it impossible for me to throw pots on the wheel, and with encouragement and tutorials from friends, I began to hand build, mostly plates. So that I would not be tempted to try to mimic what I had done before, I chose to use red earthenware, with maiolica, and to focus more on the painting. It’s a very simple technique, requiring minimal equipment and few tools, which feels in keeping with my physical limitations. This has allowed me, late in my career, to be a beginner all over again.

My concerns haven’t changed much, however, in that I want my pots to express their potential to be useful and generous, to have a fluid quality, now achieved in the painting, rather than in the effects of the kiln. I want them to attract the hand as well as the eye, to be both beautiful and friendly, and to suggest that they can provide abundant nourishment to our daily lives.

Cannupa Hanska Luger

February 25, 2022 by

Cannupa Hanska Luger is a multidisciplinary artist who works primarily in ceramics, Luger is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota). Through monumental installations and social collaboration, Luger activates speculative fiction and communicates stories about 21st Century Indigeneity, combining critical cultural analysis with dedication and respect for the diverse materials, environments, and communities he engages. He lectures and produces large-scale projects around the globe and his works are in many public collections. Luger is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, recipient of the 2021 United States Artists Fellowship Award for Craft and was named a 2021 GRIST Fixer, he is a 2020 Creative Capital Fellow, a 2020 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, and the recipient of the Museum of Arts and Design’s 2018 inaugural Burke Prize, among others.

Kristy Moreno

February 25, 2022 by

Kristy Moreno’s current body of work examines the systems and bonds between social, political, and personal narratives. These narratives intersect to embody forms of relativity, healing and resilience. By producing these physically paused moments, she introduces a space for reflection which investigates the journey of a personal point of view, individual habits and character.

Kristy Moreno was born in the city of Inglewood, California and often found herself creating doodles of her favorite cartoons. Moving to Orange County inspired her to become involved in the art communities of Santa Ana leading her to collaborate with group collectives including We Are Rodents and Konsept. She then attended Santa Ana College where she found an interest in ceramics that lead her to transfer to California State University, Chico to pursue a BFA degree. Her work now spans across mediums from ceramics, illustrations and printmaking to bring awareness and visibility to an abundant future where mutual aid is possible.

Sydnie Jimenez

February 23, 2022 by

Sydnie Jimenez makes figurative work of brown youth with varied personalities to show individuality within communities on the fringes of a popular culture rooted in white supremacy. The navigation through this toxic Eurocentric foundation has shaped the way the world views brown people and how they view themselves in relation to whiteness. Figures portray conversations around style, self-expression, internal reflection, and the observation of the self by others in relation to the post-colonial society we live in along with the many connotations this has. With the rebellious and suspicious nature of her figurative work she shows the tough demeanors in which especially black and brown femmes take on or are projected onto as a defense mechanism combatting an unwelcoming society.

Sydnie Jimenez was born in Orlando, FL and spent most of her childhood in north Georgia from which she draws much inspiration. She recently graduated from SAIC with a BFA focusing in ceramic sculpture and is a recipient of the Windgate Fellowship and the SPARK Grant. Much of her work centers around the representation of black/brown youth and self-expression as a form of protest, self-care, and power within community.

*What You Want?*, 2019
ceramic, slip, glaze, 4″ x 2″ x 15″ each

Maura Wright

February 23, 2022 by

Maura Wright weds high art to low until we can’t tell the difference, until we feel ourselves acknowledging the staginess of all art, of all life. The pastiche considers the current conversation between craft and high art–the former all about repetition/perfection, the latter about the medium of clay as expressive material. The decorative is primarily dissected. Glazed vases and vessels feel pried from still life. The pleasure of the work comes from deft and shifting angles between the tradition of the past and the impropriety and insouciance of the present moment, from questioning the real and the imitation.

Maura Wright, received a Master of Fine Arts from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2018 and a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2013. Residencies include: the International Ceramic Research Center in Skaelskor, Denmark; the International Ceramic Studio in Kecskemet, Hungary; Red Star Studios in Kansas City, MO; The Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT; and Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, MT.

Soojin Choi

February 17, 2022 by

The ambivalence of human emotion occurs through unresolved and confusing situations in external and internal matters. An ambivalent moment reveals itself to Soojin Choi, and her work depicts that gray area of humanity. Soojin recreates unsettled situations so viewers can empathetically encounter the emotions of her human forms. Soojin’s work expresses ambiguity of emotion through flat and spatial surfaces; subtle facial expression, gaze and body gesture; as well as color and brush expressions. Building the surfaces with clay allows seamless weaving between dimensions and textures to articulate feelings of ambivalence.

Soojin Choi was born and raised in South Korea, and has worked as an artist in the United States since 2010. Soojin earned her BFA at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2015 with a double major in craft/ material studies and painting/printmaking. She continued her studies at Alfred University to pursue a MFA degree in ceramics in 2018. After graduate school, she accepted a residency at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, MN with funding by Anonymous Artist Studio Fellowship and a long-term resident artist at Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, MT. Soojin joins The Bray as the 2021 Speyer Fellow.