Red Lodge Clay Center – Short-Term Resident 2019
Brian was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA and earned a BFA from Tyler School of Art working with Nick Kripal, Bob Winokur and Berry Mathews. Brian began his career teaching adults, then transitioned into the K-12 arena.spending a decade teaching art, primarily ceramics at Chestnut Hill Academy, Phila. The teaching of MS boys changed Brian’s haircolor and sent him running to the calming atmosphere of Washington DC. Brian relocated to outside of DC, Falls Church, VA returning to teaching and opening a gallery presence at the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria. He became a resident at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, VA which he still currently enjoys. He teaches at The Art League in Alexandria as well. Brian deeply believes in the fluidity of clay, its natural properties and ability to translate an idea. If you aren’t taking risks you aren’t growing, is a guiding philosophy of his.
My vessel work reinforces my interest in the manipulation of volume, considering implied movement by way of line. The soft clay is pushed and pulled in a fashion that is intuitive. The work springs from that physical conversation .The concept of traditional roundness is discarded and the vessel embraces the process of throwing, illustrating the fluidity of the hand affecting the vessel. This fluidity is juxtaposed with additions that run from rounded protrusions to stiff linear inclusions. These manipulations create rounded hills, hollows and planes for the firing process to accentuate and increase a suggested depth of history. I choose to atmospherically fire these works in salt but primarily in a wood-kiln. Flame moves across the structure in a heated dance, marrying the firing to the sculptural vessel leaving an aesthetic surface that speaks to the dynamic process.