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2011 BOARD MEMBER CANDIDATES
JOHN BAYMORE, WILTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE
As a studio artist, I’ve been running River Bend Pottery since 1977, and just celebrated 60 years on the planet, 40 years as a potter, and the 30 year tenure of my current noborigama, “Kawagama”. I’m a vessel maker, splitting my woodfired work between handbuilt and thrown, both glazed and yakishime pieces. I’ve taught at Mass. College of Art, B.U.’s Program in Artisanry, and been adjunct professor at NH Institute of Art for the past 15 years. I’ve presented at NCECA three times, and conducted workshops at diverse venues like the Alabama Clay Conference, Harvard University, and New Hampshire Art Educators Association Conferences. I was guest lecturer at Tokyo National University of Fine Art on two occasions.
I have experience on college committees, including campus planning, NASAD accreditation, curriculum, and health and safety. I recently chaired the NHIA safety committee for 4 years. I’m on the Arts Leadership Advisory Team for the NH Department of Education. I also bring board-level experience from 9 years on the BOD of a 10,000 member non-profit educational and certification organization (P.S.I.A.E.), with 3 years as an executive officer.
Like everyone who runs for such board positions, I want to give something back to the field that I love. As to mentioning a possible “pet project”; I don’t have one! Board positions are not about the board member’s personal agenda, they are about looking to the needs of the membership and the betterment of the professional field. My approach would be to learn about the nature of the board, seek out and listen to the membership’s thoughts, and then bring my background and experiences to bear in making judgments about future directions. The Potters Council has already done great things, and I hope to continue moving the organization into even more useful outcomes for its members.
For more information: www.JohnBaymore.com and www.nhia.edu/new-facultypage-5/
DAWN FERGUSON, ORLANDO, FLORIDA
How incredible it is to have a voice and even more incredible to have that voice heard. We all need an advocate, from seasoned potters who desire complex solutions to shiny new students trying to understand the basics of glaze chemistry. Throughout my 20-year love affair with pottery I worked with both. I’m currently teaching and potting in Florida. Along that 20 year span I’ve managed a bank and all those nifty financial things that go with it, helped 1st graders learn how to make a pinch pot, taught college students to refine their ideas and forms, and helped colleagues think their way around a rut or glaze problem. From each experience I’ve taken away inspiration that has both helped me as a teacher, business owner, and potter.
I would love to see the Potters’ Council continue to grow as a resource for learning and development through educational forums and workshops that coincide with NCECA where we can appeal to the largest gathering of our kind. I’d love to see an interactive studio map that puts us instantly in touch with potters in our area or areas we’re going to visit. I love the online community forum and hope to see it grow and evolve where everyone who posts questions can be confident that someone will reply. My greatest desire is that we would be connected to each other by this beautiful medium and become mentors and advocates for the ceramic arts.
For more information: www.fergusonpottery.com
LARRY KRUZAN, PEKIN, ILLINOIS
When I began my journey with clay I was none to certain that I would succeed at any level. Living in a wheelchair for twenty five years teaches one that there are some challenges that just cannot be overcome – like flights of stairs – hard to climb with a 300 pound power wheelchair strapped to your back. But it was overcoming those very challenges that shaped my life since I fell from an Army missile launcher in 1985.
In 1996 we moved back home to central Illinois and I tried to look like a dignified retired person. I did not succeed. Thoroughly bored with a constant diet of the activities of retirement, I enrolled into the Art department at Bradley University in Peoria IL. Seeking a location for my studio we found an old abandoned Railroad Depot that we purchased in 2005. We worked to renovate the depot as I was finishing school, officially opening “Lost Creek Pottery” June 10th, 2005.
So the next time anyone asks you “just what can a handicapped person do in clay”, I hope you will remember this one thing – they can do ANYTHING they can imagine! Over the past year, I have visited with potters in 24 studios. Half of them had visible, physical handicaps. Many are fulltime potters earning real families income to support themselves.
As a prospective member of the Potters Council Board, it is my strongest desire to reach out to this special community. To open doors that have been closed, to flatten stairs that block access, to lead by example. From emails I have received from teachers all over the country, there is a desire to reach others with such handicaps but they don’t know how. I feel that the Potters Council is in a unique position to guide these teachers through these problems. They can do ANYTHING they can imagine! We can help.
For more information: www.lostcreekpottery.com
MARTA MATRAY, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
I grew up in a small village in Hungary, where my family lived next door to a potter. I have vivid memories of playing with clay—especially its weight, smell and texture—which remain in my mind to this day. I began my adult life as a stage actor in Budapest, where I played dozens of roles on stage: from one of Chekov’s Three Sisters to Shakespeare’s Ophelia. My training as an actor taught me to express myself fully and to trust my artistic impulses.
In the early 1980s, I moved to Rochester, Minnesota, where I got married and had two kids. I setup a home studio in the 1990s and soon I began acting in clay. I hope that my pieces invite the viewer to touch them, and I am especially drawn to the natural world for inspiration in my work. From the lava fields of Hawaii to the ancient ruins of Pompeii, I like to travel across geographic boundaries, while still bringing a strong sense of place to my work.
As a charter member of The Potters Council, I have always been very thankful for the support of this fine organization. Artists are as good as the organizations that support them, and I believe that this organization is especially well-positioned to stand up for the needs and wants of potters across the country and the world. I would be grateful for the opportunity to contribute my talents, and my transnational insight, to the organization. During this time of
economic uncertainty, organizations such as this one are as important as ever. I would consider it an honor to lend my voice to the meaningful work of The Potters Council.
We need to further our efforts to connect potters-to-potters, and to connect potters with other craftspeople and our interested allies. The emerging digital media environment, especially social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, seem like particularly important places within which to expand our presence. I believe that a world in which potters are more easily connected creates a “win-win” situation for everyone. If elected, I would work to ensure that the Potters Council is committed to building and sustaining such connections throughout the years to come.
For more information: www.martamatray.com
DAVID McBETH, MARTIN, TENNESSEE
Certainly artists can live and work in isolation and maybe some even need to. Undoubtedly, there are times when solitude and quiet are very productive. For the most part though, we are communal people, thriving on interaction with others. It is just this very sense of community that the Potters Council provides. As with membership organization, each member brings his/her own unique contributions and needs. Each of us takes from the Potters Council what we need at any given time. In my work as a Board Member of a local arts council, I offer certain business related insights, exhibit support and so on. In my work with the local Arts Co-op I offer expertise in gallery design and exhibit installation. As the president of the Board of an artists association in Maine I provide enthusiasm for the organization, encouragement to the members and exhibit expertise while installing new exhibits every two weeks all summer long.
I believe my 20+ years as a university art professor has equipped me with certain skills and a broad knowledge base that I can bring to the Potters Council. I am eager to take a leadership role in the Potters Council, to share in the guidance of the organization as the Council seeks ways to improve its services to the membership at large. Each semester I evaluate what and how I am teaching to keep my classes fresh and relevant to the students. This semi-annual introspection has helped me develop skills of organization and presentation that will benefit the Potters Council Regional Conference program. As an arts council, art gallery and art association administrator I have developed communication skills, planning and development skills that have helped these organizations grow. Under my leadership the Deer Isle Artist Association doubled its membership to over 150 working artist members in one year. I have a thorough working understanding of the presentation of artwork, the promotion of artists and a willingness to listen to the ideas of others. Should the membership of the Potters Council so choose, I look forward to serving as a Potters Council Board Member
For more information: www.utm.edu/staff/dmcbeth/crafts/dave.htm
ROXIE SPELL, NEW PORT RITCHEY, FLORIDA
I am 54 yrs old and I have always loved 3-D art. I was mostly interested in clay and was fortunate enough to meet Joe Bova at the L.S.U. registrar’s office in the late 70′s. He accepted me in his class and I found my love, clay. I was unable to continue with clay after I left L.S.U. but was able to fill the void with polymer clay, not nearly as satisfying and too expensive to go large. In early 2005, I joined an art class at the Pasco Art Council where my love and I were reintroduced and it took off from there. I made so many items that I eventually had to start my own business, created my own website and I actually do the Art Festivals in this area. I work out of my home, but keep up with other clay artists in the area, and my future plans will be opening a multi-media center for the arts and gallery in this area within the next 2 years. I am willing to work hard and learn so that I will have more to bring to the multi-media center when I open it. I have had my work in galleries in the Tampa Bay area and am a member of 3 other art groups in the area, besides The Potters Council.
The reason I would like to be on the board of the Potters Council would be to help give the lesser experienced a chance to showcase their work. I would love to share my experience of creating my business and my website with others. I did it free, on my own, and I am not the most computer savvy individual. I would like a dialogue between the other clay artists as to what works and does not work for them. I would love to push more for Art in Education, I am willing to write letters, make phone calls and I can do this from my home base. I would love to share my experience of getting funding and attention for the much needed multi-media arts center in this area so that others can learn from my trial and errors. I feel I would be an asset to the board as an “everyman” artist.
For more information: www.naturesclayart.com
DINAH SNIPES STEVENI, MOUNT VERNON, WASHINGTON
My background and skills are grounded in teaching, local arts organizations, teaching union representative, business, and making pots. My complete back story can be gleaned from my website, www.dinahsnipessteveni.com, on which I’ve posted my resume. I find the efforts that many put into the Potters Council useful and helpful. I’m just a jobbing potter interested in sound practice and more efficient ways to take care of business in my workshop and selling on. I’d like to help and serve our potting community for a while. I’m not grand or crazy busy or name-droppingly famous. After my long teaching service, I’m thankful to have the time to make pots and paint and give something back to my community. I whole-heartedly support the next generation to pursue workshops and teaching. I would also like to enable rewarding online opportunities, afforded by the social networks, to help potters market themselves, their fascinating lifestyles and work to a wider audience. I’ve got computer skills, a solid background in ceramics, small business experience from the United Kingdom in a busy tourist market town: Stratford-Upon-Avon.
It’s a tough market at the moment for many arts and crafts practitioners; and it’s going to remain in stasis for a long while. There’s no sense in even debating whether the glass is half-full or half-empty. That is not the question. The question revolves around your skills, your concerns and interests in your community and what you can do — and have done — within your community to promote yourself and your work. The Potters Council has to get better, brighter, and smarter about marketing members and our ware. We have to advocate and explain sound business practices, illustrate self-promotional strategies which play up and enhance individual circumstances and make the very best of our skills. We have to continue to share our expertise and pay it forward to each other to the best of our abilities and inclinations. Finally, we have to continue to educate our customers. I would very much like to be your advocate, and representative for our mutual concerns.
For more information: www.dinahsnipessteveni.com
MICHAEL WENDT, LEWISTON, IDAHO
I think the areas where I can contribute to the Potters Council are: 1. Assisting interested potters in filling the custom work niche if that interests them through a simple email contact
method offered directly through my web page most likely in the form of answering questions with brief articles that will have a web address interested persons can access. 2. Compiling and displaying on my web site a list of other custom work potters who are willing to share what they have learned about making custom work a paying proposition. I could also post their comments and suggestions on my web page. 3. Sharing what I have learned about starting and running a pottery studio like a real business especially in the areas of set up, record keeping, financing and advertising.
My philosophy about sharing knowledge is simple… we are all better off when everyone does well and that requires learning and education.
For more information: www.wendtpottery.com
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