Mary Barringer I Massachusetts
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I am fascinated by the conversation that goes on between people and things -- and between people thorough things -- and I want to participate in that with my work. It means engaging in ideas that are not just personal, and that my personal exploration goes on against the backdrop of a larger, cultural set of ideas about about objects and functions. I like that my pots go out and lead a life separate from me, and become a part of some one else's life. That potential is a huge gift for a potter.

Process

Within this work there is a balance, between form and function, texture and line, color and image, hard and soft, warm and cool. Although fired to cone 6 in an electric kiln, the surfaces have a richness and a depth that most believe can only come from reduction firing.
Creating textures through -- lines, scratches, punctures, grooves--with her many tools. After creating the texture slip is brushed on, scraped off and then more slip is added this process is repeated several times. Once the pot has been bisque fired more layers of slip of along with glazes are applied. She varies the thickness by again scraping or wiping them off.

Artist's Statement

I have been a studio artist for thirty years, making both functional pottery and sculpture. The two come out of the same internal place, but speak, you might say, different languages. In recent years I have been concentrating on pots, drawn to them by the parameters of form and utility they offer - an arena with elastic but defined boundaries. The space within those boundaries contains both visual riches beyond measure, as the history of ceramics so abundantly demonstrates, and a very human conversation about scale, space, nourishment, and celebration. It is that conversation that my pots seek to join, and although they begin in private experiences, I'm pleased that they go on to lead their own lives: to occupy other spaces, fit other hands, and fulfill other ideas of the useful and the beautiful.

Education
1972 Bennington College, Bennington, VT. B.A., Art.
1968-69 Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. Studied sculpture.

Professional Experience
1983- Present Studio artist, Charlemont, MA.
1976-83 Resident artist, Farmington Valley Arts Center, Avon, CT.
1973-76 Established Park Street Potters in Hartford, CT, a working studio with workshop facilities and a gallery/shop area. Managed the studio, taught, and produced functional pottery.
1971 Apprenticed to Michael Frimkess, Venice, CA.

Selected Exhibitions

One and Two Person Shows

Lacoste Gallery, Concord, MA 2003
Baltimore Clayworks, Baltimore MD, 2000.
Fresh Pond Clay Works, Cambridge MA, 1999.
Hammond Gallery, Fitchburg State College, Fitchburg, MA, 1998.
Paesaggio Gallery, West Hartford, CT, 1997, 1995, 1993.
Pewabic Pottery, Detroit, MI, 1996.
Lill Street Gallery, Chicago, IL, 1995.
Worth Gallery, Taos, NM, 1994.
The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA, 1993.
Frick Gallery, Belfast, ME, 1992, 1989.
Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery, Kent, CT, 1991.
Connecticut Gallery, Marlborough, CT, 1990.
A.I.R. Gallery, New York, NY, 1989.
The Clay Place, Pittsburgh, PA, 1994, 1990, 1989.
M.S. Gallery, Hartford, CT, 1988, 1986, 1984.
Erector Square Gallery, New Haven, CT, 1988.
New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT, 1986.
Widener Gallery, Trinity College, Hartford, CT, 1980.
Farmington Valley Arts Center, Avon, CT, 1979.

Juried and Group Shows

The Nature of Craft. Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC 2004
Twenty-first Century Ceramics. CCAD, Columbus, OH 2003
Intent: Work from Electric-Fired Kilns. Worcester Center for Crafts, Worcester, MA 2002
Blind Collaboration, PABA Gallery, New Haven CT, 2001.
Taking Measure: American Ceramic Art, World Ceramic Expo, Korea, 2001.
Focus on Function, Katherine Nash Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, 2000.
A Glimpse of the Invisible, Arvada Center, Arvada CO, 2000.
Sublime Servers, traveling show, curated by Gail Brown, 2000.
Abstract Craft, Southwest Center for Art and Craft, San Antonio, TX, 1999.
National Ceramic Competition, Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts, Florence, AL, 1999.
Strictly Functional, Market House Craft Center, Ephrata, PA, 1998.
Functional Ceramics Invitational, John Elder Gallery, New York, NY, 1998.
Fletcher Challenge, Auckland Museum, Auckland, NZ, 1997.
Sculptural Ceramics in New England, Boston Athenaeum, Boston, MA, 1997.
Clay Invitiational, CPCC, Charlotte, NC, 1995.
Winter’ Work, Frick Gallery, Belfast, ME, 1995.
Contemporary Clay, Usdan Gallery, Bennington College, Bennington, VT, 1993.
The Domestic Object, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA (traveling), 1993.
Containers Revisited, NCECA Clay National, Philadelphia, PA, 1992.
Built, Thrown, and Touched, Traveling National Show, 1992-95.
Nine Massachusetts Potters, Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA, 1992.
Artists on their Own, Greenwich House Pottery, New York, NY, 1992.
Personal Mythologies, Westfield State College, Westfield, MA, 1991.
Common Ground, Sawtooth Center for Visual Arts, Winston-Salem, NC, 1991.
New Work, Pewabic Pottery, Detroit, MI, 1990.
13th Anniversary Show, Contemporary Porcelain, New York, NY, 1990.
Small Works, Artists Foundation, Boston, MA, 1989.
Surface and Substance, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA, 1989.
Wyoming Clay Show, Nicolaysen Museum, Casper, WY, 1989.
The Eclectic Vessel, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA, 1987.
Art of the Northeast, Silvermine Gallery, New Canaan, CT, 1986.
National Crafts Exhibition, Currier Gallery, Manchester,NH, 1981.
National Paper and Clay Exhibition, Memhis, TN, 1980.
Women in Clay, Women’s Interart Center, New York, NY, 1975.
Northeast Craft Fair, Rhinebeck, NY, 1975.

Teaching

Appalachian Center for Crafts, Smithville, TN
James Renwick Alliance, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
Greenwich House Pottery, New York, NY.
92 St Y, New York, NY.
University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT: Visiting Lecturer, 1997.
Ohio University, Athens, OH: Visiting Lecturer, 1996.
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Visiting Artist, 1995.
Radcliffe College Ceramics Studio, 1995.
Ohio State University: Visiting Lecturer, 1993-1994.
Greater Hartford Community College: Lecturer in ceramics, 1982-1988.
Peters Valley Craft Center, Layton, NJ.
Penland School for Crafts, Penland, NC.
Arrowmont School of Art and Crafts, Uniontown, PA.
Old Church Cultural Center, Demarest, NJ.
Wesleyan Potters, Middletown, CT.
Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven, CT.
Park Street Potters, Hartford, CT.

Visiting Artist

University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE.
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 1999.
Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA, 1999.
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, 1998.
University of Akron, Akron, OH, 1993.
Portland School of Art, Portland, ME, 1992.
UMass Dartmouth, New Bedford, MA, 1989, 1990.
Watershed Center for eramic Arts, North Edgecomb, ME, 1998, 1990.
Philadelphia College of Art, Piladelphia, PA, 1986.
Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA, 1986, 1988.
Artpark, Lewiston, NY 1983.
Hartford Public Schools, Hartford, CT, 1979-1983.
Hartford Conservatory, Hartford, CT, 1978, 1979.
Trinity College, Hartford, CT, 1980.

Awards and Collections

New England Foundation for the Arts: Artist’s fellowship, 1993.
C.R. Gibson Award Art of the Northeast, Silvermine Gallery, New Canaan, CT, 1986.
Connecticut Commision on the Arts: Individual artist’s grant, 1979.
Bank of Boston, Boston, MA.
Ceramics Collection, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT.
Pemanent Collection, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.
Private Collections in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina.

Publications

The Ceramic Surface. Matthias Ostermann. A&C Black, London, 2002
Creating, catalogue essay, Northern Clay Center Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, 2001
North American Legacies by life in general, catalogue essay, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, 2001.
The Spirit of Clay, Robert Piepenburg, Pebble Press, 1995.
Electric Kiln Ceramics, Richard Zakin, Chilton, 1993.
Ceramics: Mastering the Craft, Richard Zakin, Chilton, 1990.

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