Horse Play

Jeri has developed a process for creating relief sculpture and tile drawings in clay that incorporate slabs with extruded tubes of clay.  The resulting tile has depth, volume, and structure without the weight of solid clay.  Either the slab side or the side with the extrusions may be used as a back ground for bas-relief.  Alternately, one may use the tile as a canvas and decorate it using various ceramic surface techniques. She will also explain how to mount the hanging device for the sculpture.

DAY ONE:   Students will work with slabs and extrusions to create their "canvas" on which they will build their relief sculpture.  We will look at examples of bas-relief work and plan the composition that will be completed the next day.

DAY TWO:  Jeri will demonstrate soft slab construction of relief work on slabs prepared the previous day.  Students will work on their own reliefs.

About Jeri Hollister : Born in Michigan Jeri Hollister has lived in Ann Arbor since coming to the University of Michigan for her BA and MFA degrees. She taught ceramics at Eastern Michigan University for 4 years and currently teaches at the Potters Guild in Ann Arbor. As a professional photographer for the University of Michigan, she photographed art in museums in the US, Italy and Switzerland.

Jeri exhibits nationally and has won numerous awards including best of show in Monarch Tile Company’s National Competition and the purchase prize at Michigan Ceramics ‘04. Jeri has twice received funding from the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs.

Jeri’s work is in the public collections of the Midland Center for the Arts, the Paint Creek Center for the Arts, Rochester, and the Washtenaw Community College Art Collection, Ann Arbor. Corporate collections include the Monarch Tile, Ford, Steelcase, Marriot, and Dow Automotive.

Her work is pictured in Lark Books’ 500 Animals in Clay, Robert Pipenberg's Spirit of Clay, Pebble Press’s Clay Art 2000 Calendar, and Guild Press Publications’ Beautiful Things and Object Lessons: Beauty And Meaning In Art.  It is also featured on the cover of Best of New Ceramic Art by Toni Fountain Sikes.

Artist's Statement - My most recognized work deals with the horse as subject matter. The viewer will probably have personal associations that will contribute to the character of the figure. Regardless of my intent, the work will communicate through the viewer's unique perspective. The horse has become a personal symbol. The animal continues to be a satisfying subject, providing me with challenges and direction. Since pre-history, the horse has fascinated artists. It is a symbol of wealth and power, sensuality and independent spirit. My influences include sources from around the world and throughout the centuries. Among these sources are pre-historic cave images, Japanese Haniwa, Chinese Xian tomb figures and T'ang Dynasty ceramic sculpture. I am also influenced by the contemporary horse imagery of Deborah Butterfield and Susan Rothenberg, as well as other modern masters such as Marino Marini and Pablo Picasso.

When I work on the freestanding figures, I start by extruding long hollow shapes and throwing closed forms on a wheel. When the clay has lost some moisture, I cut and tear the thrown and extruded parts, reassembling them at this stage to form the legs, haunches, shoulders, belly, neck and head of the horse. I work intuitively with the parts, altering them in a somewhat random manner, allowing the pieces to contribute to the shape and posture of the animal.

The piece is built from the ground up, attaching the legs to a base, and adding the other parts until the work is complete. Evidence of the ceramic process, the surface of the extrusions, the finger marks in the wheel thrown parts, the character of the clay when it is cut and torn is an important part of the piece. I am interested in allowing the evidence of the ceramic processes to be prominent in describing the physical attributes of the animal. My goal is for the viewer to have a sense of how the sculpture evolved as well as the energy involved in the building process.

Movement and gesture are emphasized through linear elements derived from the intersections of forms within the figure as well as those found in the silhouette. Mass and volume are described by both form and negative space. The surface is treated with slips, stains, and glazes with concern for allowing the building processes to show.

Often, when I look at a finished work, I am surprised. The combination of each separate decision becomes larger than the sum of those decisions. There are forms I could not have imagined as a unit, yet they evolve from my hands and consciousness. Because I am focused on the process and decisions that I make one at a time, when I step back and look at the entire piece, I have a feeling of seeing it for the first time.