The Edaren Foundation Presents: Gumbo Clayfest 2023 returns to TASI when ceramists descend on Beaumont July 6, 7, and 8!
No admission fee required, any donations accepted.
A total of NINE nationally-recognized ceramic artists will visit Beaumont, TX to demonstrate their unique works during ClayFest, only at The Art Studio! Here are some of the artists you may remember from last year’s festivities, who we are happy to see returning for 2023. Stay tuned for more visiting artists to be announced soon!
Gary “Greeny” Greenberg
I spent most of my formative years in the principal’s office, as my teachers didn’t appreciate nor
understand the process in which I actualized my philosophy. Ceramics was pretty much the only thing I didn’t get sent to the office for doing, and since my parents met at the Chicago Art institute, my chances of being paleontologist or fireman were rather slim.
I have been involved with ceramics for more than 52 years. This led me to pursue a BFA from Northern Illinois University, an MFA from Arizona State, and has resulted in my current position as Ass. Prof. Art/Ceramics and former department chair at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, where I have been working quietly for the last 30 years on a variety of foil-fired, low-fired and wood-fired, art objects and vessels. My work has been featured in several publications, among these are “Alternative Kilns and Firing Techniques”, Lark Books, 2004, “The Extruder Book”, American Ceramics Society, “The 2005 NCECA Clay National Catalog and “American Style” Magazine. Although I am very serious about producing work, I feel strongly that it should contain an element of humor, reflecting the absurdities of life in general and of art in particular. In that regard, all the time I spent in the principal’s office and all the time I spent watching the Three Stooges and The Marx Brothers wasn’t really wasted. I noted a strong component of “slapstick” all those endeavors
Steven Erickson
Steven Erickson received his BFA from Minnesota State University Mankato MN in 1995 Studying under Roy Strassberg and James Tanner. He received his MFA from the University of Delaware in 1997 where he studied with Victor Spinski. After receiving his MFA from Delaware Steven went on to become the Studio Manager at Greenwich House Pottery in New York, NY. His career in New York included running a non profit called Bodana, which focused on at risk youth. Bodana partnered with Friends of the Island, (Rikers Island), to identify teens who had artistic potential but were facing minor sentences for petty crimes. The mission of Bodana was to give at risk teens a chance to be mentored through a ceramics program.
He also taught classes at the Jewish Community Center and became an Adjunct Professor at City University of New York John Jay College. He is now retired from teaching and is a full-time studio artist living in Upstate New York. He has shown in Galleries in New York City and most recently was selected for the international Juried Exhibition Craft Forms 2018 at Wayne Center for the Arts, in Wayne Pennsylvania.
“I make art because I love magic. Making something appear out of thin air never gets boring to me. I love how art brings together all the things I love, the mental exploration of ideas, the solving of the puzzle, and then the physical work of making the final piece.”
Danielle Weigandt
Danielle Weigandt grew up an army brat and lived all over the southern US before her family settled in Utah. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and Art Composite Teaching degree from Weber State University in 2013. After teaching two years in junior high and middle school, she received her Masters of Fine Art degree from the University of Oklahoma in 2018. She is currently teaching at Brighton high school in Utah
Artist Statement
What is time? It cannot be seen, heard, smelled, or touched. It eludes all our senses, yet we experience it every day. Time is ubiquitous. To most, time is just a clock on the wall. A constant cycle of 24 hours resetting and repeating over and over again in a continuous loop with seemingly no end. My art gives form to these ideas in creative ways using art, geology, and quantum mechanics physics. Each cube is a product of time I call a ‘moment’ and installed together as sculpture, constitutes an ‘event’.
Going beyond just a clock on the wall, I seek to make time, a seemingly invisible event, visible. My art, given sufficient time, will work within a dynamical system that has the same behavior over time in all the different phases of creation and through site specific installations will create different interpretations of its meaning. Stemming from the idea that the process of creating the art is just as important as the object that is created, the viewer can not merely move their eyes over the work or simply walk around it for there to be understanding. The viewer must actively engage their own interpretation of what time really is. This way of making allows my work to be created in the present, while always being a representation of time past. Like time itself, my work and these forms have no end in sight.
https://www.danielleweigandt.com