Simultaneous Contrast, my collaborative project with potter and friend Stephanie Rozene has been exhibited as a part of the Dis/Arming Domesticity show curated by Gail M Brown at the the Wallingford, PA Community Arts Center just outside of Philadelphia since the beginning of March, but this week was the NCECA (National Council on the Education of Ceramic Arts) conference so our audience got a big boost with potters and ceramic artists from all over, as well as some additional attention from the Philadelphia arts community overall as many of NCECA’s events and exhibits are open to the public.

We received some excellent feedback in person at Thursday evening’s reception, with people thanking us for our work and offering generous praise (although often it started with, “I didn’t really get it at first…” it always ended with enthusiasm for the challenge the work presented them). We’re also thrilled with the review by art critic Edward Sozanski in the Philadelphia Inquirer who says:

The NCECA invitational is a handsome and satisfying show that articulates its theme with restraint and pleasing contrasts of form and content. If you could see only one show among the 90-plus, the invitational would deliver the flavor of the whole.

So would “Dis/Arming Domesticity,” at the suburban Community Arts Center. Curator Brown’s theme is the domestic environment and domestic experience. This is abundantly evident in work such as Stephanie A. Rozene’s Simultaneous Contrast, a wall display of a dozen porcelain serving bowls linked to presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama, each accompanied by a poem by Moriah L. Purdy.

Rozene’s installation is enchanting, not only because some of the shallow, wide-rimmed bowls are conventionally beautiful, but because it straddles the divide that separates pure function from conceptional innovation.

I couldn’t be happier with the space (a converted home made gallery for a show commenting and inquiring about the domestic? how appropriate!) and the company we keep in this show. Here are a few of my not-so-great photos from the exhibit (clicking will offer better views than the main blog page). A virtual tour of the other work in the show can be seen at Gail’s website, or in virtual tour on youtube.