Detail View: University Art Galleries (UMassD): [ Installation of Chris Gustin's Large Scale Ceramic Vessels and Drawings ]

Chris Gustin: Circling into Now: Large-Scale Vessels 2005-2010

October - November 2010

2010

University Art Gallery (UMass Dartmouth Galleries)

Lasse B. Antonsen

"The University Art Gallery to present an exhibition of large-scale vessels by Chris Gustin, a former ceramics Professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. The vessels were done over a five-year period, and the exhibition presents an unusual opportunity to view a large collection of his extraordinary vessels in one place. Chris Gustin chose to take early retirement in order to concentrate on his career. Already established as one of the preeminent craft artists in the country, he has devoted his time to an extensive exploration of the potential within his own work. He has also been instrumental in many national ceramics initiatives and events, and is much sought after as a lecturer and teacher of workshops. Chris Gustin's work is unusual in the way it uses the traditional form of the vessel for the exploration of sensations associated with the human body, in work that is almost human in scale. As he explains, "I am interested in pottery that make connections to the human figure. Though most of my work only alludes to function, I use the pot context because of its immense possibilities for abstraction. I want my work to provoke an image to the viewer, to suggest something that is just on the other side of consciousness. I don't want my pots to conjure up a singular recollection, but ones that change with each glance, with each change of light. I use surfaces that purposely encourage touch, by inviting not only the eye but also the hand, to explore the forms. I hope to provoke numerous memories and recollections that have the potential to change from moment to moment."

ceramics

http://www1.umassd.edu/cvpa/universityartgallery/past/2010/chris_gustin.cfm

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UMass Dartmouth Art Galleries

Gustin, Chris

American

1952

Born in 1952 in Chicago, Illinois, I grew up in Los Angeles, California, where I was surrounded by ceramics from an early age. My family were part owners of several commercial whiteware ceramic manufacturing companies. Spending my childhood around ceramic factories, it was an obvious choice for me to go into the family business. After taking a pottery class at a local clay studio in Venice Beach while in high school, I went to the University of California, Irvine in 1970, where I studied biology and sociology. Because of my interest in clay, I also took an introductory studio ceramic course with John Mason. After a semester of college, I took a summer job at one of my father's factories, located in Pasadena, California. I decided that I wanted to continue working in the family business, so in the fall of 1970, when I was 18 years old, I quit school and became the factory foreman and manager at Wildwood Ceramics, which I ran until 1972. Two years of running a small commercial ceramics factory was an apprenticeship that has since proved invaluable in my career. During my time at Wildwood, I was still making wheel thrown pottery. Having decided that the studio side of ceramics was of greater interest to me, I left the factory in 1972 to attend the Kansas City Art Institute, from which I received my BFA in ceramics in 1975. I then went on to graduate school at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, where I received my MFA in 1977. I established my first clay studio in 1977 in Guilford, Connecticut, with my sister-in-law Jane Gustin. We both shared the studio together for five years, where we each produced functional and sculptural pottery. During this time, I was invited to teach at Parson's School of Design in New York, where I was an instructor in the Crafts Department from 1978 to 1980. In 1980, I began teaching at the Program in Artisanry at Boston University, where I was Assistant Professor of Ceramics. In 1985, the Program in Artisanry moved to the Swain School of Design in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where I became Associate Professor of Ceramics and head of the ceramics program. Swain School subsequently merged in 1988 with Southeastern Massachusetts University, now the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. It was during my tenure at Boston University, in 1982, that I moved my studio from Connecticut to South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, where I purchased and renovated an 8000 square foot building that was an old chicken farm. This building became both my studio and my living space. In 1986, I became involved with a small group of artists interested in saving and preserving an old brick factory in southeast Maine. With Peg Griggs' generous donation of the property, she, George Mason, Lynn Duryea and myself founded the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, in Newcastle, Maine. Watershed is now thriving, offering summer and winter residencies to artists from around the world. I became interested in the production of tile in 1994, when my wife and I began to design our new home. I made all of the tile for the new house, and out of that experience I started Gustin Ceramics Tile Production in 1996. The tile company offered me another way to work with ceramics, and has grown significantly in the last couple of years. The tile is represented nationally by architects, designers and tile showrooms. I was Associate Professor of Ceramics and the senior faculty of the ceramics program during my ten year tenure at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. After twenty years of teaching and working with hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students, I retired from academia in the summer of 1999 to devote my full time and energies to my studio work and my tile production company.

http://www.gustinceramics.com/index.html

http://www.gustinceramics.com/index.html

[ Installation of Chris Gustin's Large Scale Ceramic Vessels and Drawings ]

ceramic

ca. 2005 – 2010

2013/02/02

ajc