The latest art exhibit, Wall To Table, on display at the Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana marries 2D (wall) art with 3D (ceramics) art for a collective experience. 

Clay artists were invited to consider the space that 2D and 3D art occupy and work to bridge the gap. Ceramics are often considered “work for the table or pedestal.” Our national call for participation encouraged ceramic artists to show their ability to take their work in a new direction and bring in the walls around them. A national call for art was met with pieces from Indiana, Kentucky, Georgia, and Ohio.

Al Holen and Brett Anderson assisted Gallery Director Andrea Adams in planning and organizing this exhibit, starting with the call for art to setting up the show in the gallery and ending with jurying the exhibit for cash awards to be announced at the reception on Saturday, August 19 from 5-6:30pm. 

Juror Statements
Wall to Table
Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana

Alisa (Al) Holen, Associate Professor of Ceramics at the University of Southern Indiana

The initial concept for this show came from a desire to fully utilize the unique footprint of the ARTSWIN  gallery with a 3D Ceramics exhibition.  Many ceramic artists work from sketches or specific visual sources, which can give us great information about how the ceramic piece was developed.  Many ceramic artists consider their work for a specific environment – the table, the garden, or a specific space. With this, we were looking for unique pairings of 3D ceramic objects with strong 2D staging, information, or presentation elements.  

Beyond this, I use a simple rubric for the jury process.  Completion, Creativity, Challenge, and Craftpersonship.  

• Completion: Did the artist see the work through to a fully completed statement? 
• Creativity: Did the artist go beyond an obvious solution and think creatively?  
• Challenge: Did the artist challenge themselves to bring the work to the next level?  
• Craftspersonship: Is the work finished with attention to detail?  

Because we juried from digital images, the quality of photography also played into the jury process. 

We made some difficult choices, but I think we chose a cohesive and compelling group of works!  Congratulations to all who entered!  This was a new challenge for most, and we hope to encourage all artists to continue to take risks and get the work “out there”! 

Brett Anderson, Director of McCutchan Art Center and Pace Galleries

Many artists are multifaceted in their approach to process and find reworking the same concept with different media often leads to satisfying alternatives that couldn’t be achieved otherwise.  There are also conventions of genre and functionality linked to many artistic processes, like ceramics and printmaking; whether an artist lends into or rejects these conventions becomes an important aspect of using that specific process.   These types of concerns, as well as the artist’s visual dialogue between their two-dimensional and three-dimensional components, were the most important criteria by which I considered the pieces submitted in my role as co-juror for this exhibition.

Additionally, several artists also used the show parameters as an impetus to collaborate with others, or to make new work specifically in response to the exhibition concept, Kudos! My thanks to everyone who responded to the open call, our invitation was a complex puzzle to solve.

Wall To Table is available to view in person at the gallery from 10am to 4pm Tuesday through Friday until September 28.