christa assad

Just got back from NCECA (the national conference on the education of the ceramic arts) in Pittsburgh, PA (my hometown!) and boy am I jazzed up. I think I’ll have to write a few posts to get all the information and photos up, and first I want to start by talking about The Studio Potter magazine. I’ve been a subscriber off and on for some years now, but my commitment to this periodical really became solidified when potter Mary Barringer became editor. Mary has given The Studio Potter a total infusion of fresh energy, ideas, and incredible new thematic content. Published twice a year, each issue is more like a book than a magazine, with glossy, full-page color photos, and informative articles and dialogues with today’s leading ceramic artists, as well as students and educators. The best part is - there are absolutely no advertisements!! Just cover to cover content, breath-taking images, and a polished, yet grass-roots inspired feel - written by potters for potters. In every issue is a call for submissions for the next issue, encouraging experienced and new writers alike. It’s the perfect opportunity for all of you clay lovers to contribute your thoughts and energy to an incredible periodical - a chance to publish your first article, have your images seen, or to try to change the world - who knows! If nothing else, you had damn well better subscribe - because without us, this glorious publication will cease to exist. Visit: www.studiopotter.org  p.s. while at NCECA I was “tattooed” by Mary Barringer and Alleghany Meadows…check out the GUN SHOW!  

I was extremely honored to have one of my Iron Teapots included in a special exhibition at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s brand new de Young Museum. The teapot show is part of a fabulous exhibition, The Diane and Sandy Besser Collection, up through the beginning of January ‘08 (see de Young website for full details). I attended the opening (my first visit back to my long-lost homeland) and it was an INCREDIBLE show - and I’m not just saying that because my work was in it! Jason Walker’s piece blew my mind, as did Sergei Isupov’s (both represented by Leslie Ferrin Gallery, my dream gallery) and many others. There were 75 teapots in all, a virtual who’s who of contemporary American ceramics. A gorgeous color catalog is available - you can even buy it on-line for $29.95 and it is WELL worth the money…here’s the link for that. THANK YOU, Sandy, for making this all possible!!
The opening weekend was full of events for the artists and collectors, and many parties were held in Sandy Besser’s honor…we had tons of fun. Despite being shooed away by museum guards, my friend Whitney snapped this pic of me in front of my teapot!

I am very excited to announce that a wonderful, 5-year collaboration with Dr. Richard Jacobs has now reached fruition! Originally titled “Letters To a Young Potter”, the compilation of essays written to me by Dr. Jacobs has now been published by Kestrel Books (UK) as a scrumptious hard-cover with the new title, “Searching For Beauty.” This is a long-awaited treat, and I’m sure you will enjoy it, too! Below is an exerpt from the press release - please visit Kestrel Books’ website for full details at:
www.kestrel-books.co.uk/searching.shtm

In 2002, Christa Assad, now special instructor in the KCAI ceramics department, sold one of her works to California ceramics collector Richard Jacobs. This sale set Richard down a path that ultimately ended with the book “Searching for Beauty: Letters from a Collector to a Studio Potter.” The book was released last week by publishers Kestrel Books of the United Kingdom, and the book’s creation was described on the publisher’s Web site: “For whatever reasons, this single act, just one among many by a distinguished professor, educationist and ceramics collector, kindled a desire to set down in print the innumerable thoughts and questions of a tirelessly inquisitive and often heretical spirit. Taking his inspiration from Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Letters to a Young Poet,’ Richard Jacobs sets the tone of his letters to Christa Assad with his favorite quote from that classic work, ‘Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language … At present you need to live the question.”

Richard Jacobs
‘Searching for Beauty’
Letters from a Collector to a Studio Potter
Hardcover, 352 pages
ISBN 0-9548840-6-X

Available from 23rd October 2007

Retail price in UK £25.
Join the pre-publication mailing list here for a
20% discount on the hardcover edition to buy for just £20.00
For a limited period we are also offering postage costs to the UK and USA* of only £2.50

Today when I unlocked my narrow mailbox a new Ceramics Monthly popped out. I wasn’t even up the stairs to my fourth floor apartment when I flipped the page to find my two cents on What it Takes: Working Potters - a generous, two-page spread with my pots posing like pin-up girls…