Red Lodge Clay Center – Short-Term Resident (AIA) 2015
Bede Clarke is a Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri, having taught at Missouri 1992- 2021. He received his MFA from the University of Iowa (1990) and a BFA from Eckerd College (1982). Bede maintains a studio in Columbia, Missouri where he continues to create and exhibit his work.
Bede’s work is found in collections in the U.S. and abroad, such as: Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan; Ichon World Ceramic Center, South Korea; South Bend Museum of Art; Martin Museum of Art; Baylor University; and Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University.
Bede has conducted over 100 workshops and lectures around the country and internationally. Awards have included Kansas City Artist Coalition Lighton International Artist Exchange Award; the Sturt Australian Contemporary Craft Center Residency Award; the Fletcher Challenge Ceramic Award, New Zealand; the Kennedy Center Fellowship for Teachers of the Arts; and the University of Missouri Byler Distinguished Professor Award.
My goal in making this work has been to create quiet, simple pots, which like a good meal leave a healthy, full feeling. Pots like these have been my constant companions for over forty years. They are forms and surfaces that I never grow tired of. They are rooted in ceramic history; yet, I hope they reflect a personal and individual quality of feeling. Above all, these pots are intended to be good to live with and interact with on a daily basis. They are made with others in mind.
For me, good pots spring from compassion. My “technique” amounts to wishing the work well as it moves through the process of forming, articulation of the surface and firing. I try to find ways of working that respond to the only ability I have ever had, wishing the work well and silently encouraging it to “be good, be good.” I keep returning to the studio simply trying to bring as much sincerity as I can muster to bear upon the work.