christa assad

Dearest Pottery Pals,

Do any of you have a creative solution to help me get to Gatlinburg, TN, for the Utilitarian Clay Conference (Sept. 10-13)? I am trying to find a carpool that will get me there…from somewhere in one of the neighboring states, maybe? Any of you that are DRIVING there, I would love, love, love to fly somewhere OTHER than the Knoxville Airport…to meet you to drive the rest of the way!! Please send a message through my contact page, or comment on this post…THANK YOU!

This weekend my show at Red Star Gallery opened – as did Chris Gustin’s show at Sherry Leedy Gallery, right here in Kansas City! It was a beautiful spring evening (never mind the tornado warnings and screaming sirens the night before) and the First Friday turn-out was great, complete with guest stars, Victor Babu, and my colleagues Cary Esser and George TImock. My beloved friends and students came out to see what I’ve been hiding in my studio all this time.

It was exciting to see the culmination of my efforts to keep up the studio practice during this intense year of teaching at the Kansas City Art Institute – there were definitely moments when I wondered if I would, in fact,have a new body of work ready in time for the opening.

The new glazes I’ve been working with this year include a yummy satin pink, electric orange, and powder blue, along with a testy crystalline glaze that either fired out gorgeous…or dunted! 

Saturday I taught a workshop at Red Star – great crowd, delicious Bison burger at Bluebird café for lunch! – and was most impressed by how sparking-clean my tools were after Nathan got his hands on them! Nathan and Andrew kept the show running all day Saturday, and afterwards I wondered why I didn’t hang out with these guys more this year!

Oh! I forgot to mention that I had the pleasure of hanging out with the legendary Val Cushing a few weeks ago during his visit to KCAI. Val is undeniably one of the kindest Ceramic Superstars I’ve ever met, and one of the easiest to engage in conversation. I took him to my favorite local coffee shop, The Filling Station, and was very amused by his reaction to this sophisticated “hipster” café: he LOVED it, maybe as much as I do! I learned a lot about Mr. Cushing that week – like how he was an athlete in school, as well as a musician (both things we have in common), and that Bauhaus potter Marguerite Wildenhain was an early and significant influence. The stories he told about Marguerite were fantastic…and to top it all off, Val gave a most memorable throwing demonstration of his new-improved apple-core drop-lid technique! Amazing!

I’ve been meaning to post these photos for a while now - think I was hoping I’d have some professional shots done first, but I can see that’s not going to happen any time soon…so here you have it: the glaze-fired Matryoshka Doll series I made at Linda Christianson’s workshop at Red Star Studios last November. Hilarious!    

Last weekend I had the pleasure of taking a workshop with Linda Christianson, who I’ve admired since I first started potting. Linda has to be one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and her calming presence really helped me to hunker down and make some new work! Linda saddled up on the kick wheel and eased out a group of lovely pots - the group of 17 of us watched in amazement as she moved the clay up in two fluid pulls to finish each pot.

I stood at my electric wheel and felt like the tightly-wound, tight-ass potter I’ve come to be…wishing I could be so relaxed and loose! Once I got over my self-loathing I tackled a project I’ve been thinking about for some months now - the idea being a set of nesting jars based on the folk art of Russian nesting dolls (damn! I’ve forgotten the proper name for them…can anyone help me??). It seems like a kind of crazy idea, but what the heck - I gave it a try, along with my first attempt at Japanese Mish Ma decoration. Talk about crossing cultures! Soon I will work out a way to personalize this series with some type of contemporary American imagery…stay tuned. Here is a little sneak peak for you in the meantime!

We’re about to start week 5 of the fall semester here at the Kansas City Art Institute, and I realize I’ve fallen behind on my own blog a bit - after assigning my students to update their new blogs at least once a week! You see, in our Professional Practice class I’ve required the seniors I teach to put up their own blog sites (for free) at WordPress.com.
I think it’s a fun and very useful assignment, and a great way for me to check on their writing assignments, too - resumes, artist statements, article reviews, etc. Plus they get to see the fruits of their labor organized and up on the web - and can make updates to these sites easily themselves. I thought I’d list the links to all of my students’ sites in case you are curious about what KCAI students are up to! And to the students - if you guys happen to read this and DON’T want your blog site linked here just send me an email or comment and i’ll take you out of here.

www.tarapolansky.wordpress.com
www.rubytapp.wordpress.com
www.amazinglarry.wordpress.com
www.tyraforker.wordpress.com
www.bryanmorris.wordpress.com
www.kroesger.wordpress.com
www.edwardross3.wordpress.com
www.albertoveronica.wordpress.com
www.caseywhittier.wordpress.com
www.ceramicsuperstar.wordpress.com
www.bowiecroisant.wordpress.com
www.stevennichols.wordpress.com
www.gabrielreed.wordpress.com

…and just because i love to post images, here’s a cup and saucer by Molly Hatch. She’s a fabulous grad at CU Boulder - met her at Anderson Ranch this summer and thought her work was beautiful:

Wow - summer is over and today I teach my first class at the Kansas City Art Institute. It’s a busy time, this “back to school” business, but I just had to post a few photos from my amazing stay at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, CO. Doug Casebeer, Program Director of Ceramics at the Ranch, invited me and some fabulous folks to teach for two weeks at the beginning of August. If you have never visited the Ranch, I INSIST that you make it a priority for next year! Since my first stay way back in 1994 I have met many incredible artists there, but never before was I witness to the spectacle that was the Martin/Babu/Parady reunion! I was lucky enough to be a part of this session - and I won’t leak any of the juicier secrets of our party’s party! Suffice to say, a lot of work was made, even more food was eaten/drinks imbibed, and I think we counted 14 kilns that fired off. Oh, and there was hot-tubbing. Yeah - every sore-backed potter’s dream!
During my stay, Doug Casebeer put up a fabulous show of his sculptural work at the Harvey/Meadows Gallery in Aspen Highlands. Here’s Doug with my long-time friend and fellow potter, Bradley Walters. Owned by my favorite clay-pals, Sam and Alleghany, HM Gallery was chock full of treats for us to touch. Here’s a group shot of the gang: Scott, Alleghany, me, Sam, Victor and Andrew. Sam and Ghany even let us visit their “behind the scenes” rooms where all the buried treasures lay! Alleghany’s newest treasured creation was also on-hand…