Beautifully decorated functional pottery by three clay artists who are college instructors is on display in Santa Fe Clay’s new show “Susan Dewsnap, Martina Lantin, Susie Rubenstein.”
Dewsnap, a visiting professor at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, draws with wax on clay to create imagery that reflects her interest in Asian ceramics, Japanese woodblock prints and ancient Greek pottery.
“I spent many years visually eating up art history,” Dewsnap explains. “I’m very influenced by what people have made throughout history. In my work I try to capture some of the gestures I see in pots made in the past.”
Although all of Dewsnap’s work is utilitarian, she is as concerned about its aesthetic qualities as its functionality. “I want my pieces to be attractive to look at when they’re not being used,” she adds.
A teacher at Marlboro College in Marlboro, Vermont, Lantin creates tableware inspired by early English porcelain and creamware.
“Pottery performs dual roles of utility and decoration, simultaneously serving as containers of social and cultural information,” she says in her artist statement. “Ceramics persist as a chronicle of cross-border influences and the exchange of aesthetic information. My pots typify our infinite access to information and images from throughout the world.”
Teaching at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California, Rubenstein works in series. It’s characteristic of her to create groupings of plates on a wall and arrangements of covered jars on a shelf. Her imagery references plant forms, flowers, leaves, lemons and birds.
“Susan Dewsnap, Martina Lantin, Susie Rubenstein” opens on April 7 and runs through May 27.
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