I make decorative pottery, milagros and ex-votives in glazed and painted finishes.
We (my wife Francie) are featured in the July/August 2011 issue of Inside Northside Magazine. Click here to take a look.
My formal art training was in painting but my interests quickly incorporated pottery and I actively pursued both separately for years. My new work fuses those interests into one statement. The traditional pottery techniques allow me to design and make the ceramic canvases that later come to life with glazed and/or painted surfaces of mixed media. The pottery is usually wheel thrown with minor hand building techniques in a series of related concepts involving shape, texture and applied decoration with some vague idea of how to decorate them with color. The throwing phase usually lasts long enough that by the time I get to the painting I have forgotten what I originally intended or have gotten excited about some new idea. In any event, I am usually beginning to “panic” about that time and end up working in a wildly extemporaneous manner. This leads to many accidental discoveries which further the creative process and affects each successive work. This results in one-of-a-kind expressions in a conglomeration of all my artistic experiences.
Every piece of pottery that I make generates from clay or slip (liquid clay) that has been mixed in my studio. I have begun to think of this clay and slip as a source of energy which I enhance with special additions, including holy water and fountain from our favorite churches and fountains in Rome, and holy dirt from the shrine of Chimayo in New Mexico. I also added the ashes of ribbon that I got from the trash can in the apartment where John Lennon and Yoko Ono were living on Bank Street in New York City, when they were fighting extradition to England in the ‘70’s. Also included are the ashes of ticker tape from the John Glenn ticker tape parade in New York. I think of my pottery as a reliquary of positive energy.
This one of a kind work has been designed and hand made of clay which has been bisque fired and glazed or painted with non-fired mixed media including pigments with metallic particles which are then washed with acids to produce the unusual patinas.
M.F.A Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
B.F.A. University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, LA
REPRESENTED BY:
Southern Avenue, Covington, LA
Perino’s, Metairie, LA
Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans, LA
Rug Chic, Mandeville, LA
The Queen Bee, Baton Rouge, LA
Grace and Mercy, Shreveport, LA
SELECTED Publications and awards:
2013 Artful Feast, Nia Terezakis, Browncroft Publishing
2011 InsideNorthside Magazine, July/August
2010 New Orleans Kitchens, Gibbs Smith Publishers
2006 The Ann O’Brien Jewelry Studio, Abitian Press
2000 The Contemporary Potter, Rockport Publishers (Cover photo)
1998 The Ceramic Design Book, Lark Books
1996 Art in the American South by Randolph Delehanty, LSU Press
1996 The Best of Pottery, Rockport Publishers
1993 WYES-TV 12, Art Collection 12 Winner, New Orleans
1991 Raku, A Practical Approach, Steve Branfman, Chilton BookCompany (first edition)
1989 Louisiana Life, September/October
1989 Southern Living, August
1988 Southern Magazine, April
1987 Craft Magazine, April/May
1987 New Orleans Magazine, July
1986 Architectural Digest, August
1983 Craft Magazine, October/November
1982 Craft Magazine, April/May
SELECTED COLLECTIONS:
Alice Walton, Bentonville, AR
New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
Pan American Life Insurance, New Orleans, LA
Aquarium of the Americas Collection, New Orleans, LA
University of Southwestern Louisiana Collection, Lafayette, LA
Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel, MS
Meridian Museum, Meridian, MS
Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL
Ann Barnett, New Orleans, LA
Arthur Roger, New Orleans, LA
William Fagaly, New Orleans, LA
John Bullard, New Orleans, LA
John Ed Bradley, Mandeville, LA
Dr. Nia Terezakis, New Orleans, LA
Mignon Faget, New Orleans, LA
Jayne and Patrick McMath, Covington, LA
Jill Champagne, Covington, LA
SELECTED COMMISSIONS:
2000 Louisiana State Department of Tourism Award
1994 WYES TV, New Orleans, LA Patron Artist
1990 Graham Resources, Covington, LA Corporate Christmas Gifts
1989 Burger King, St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA Architectural decoration, 26 styrofoam plaques, Ron Domis, Architect (no longer exists)
1986 Tulane University School of Business, New Orleans, LA Architectural decoration, 111 cement plaques, Concordia Architects
1985 Howard and Ann Barnett, New Orleans, LA Residential architectural decoration, 2 column capitals, clay, Concordia Architects
1981 Louisiana Nature and Science Center, New Orleans, LA Ceramic tile floor entrance for Mississippi River Delta Exhibition
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
St. Tammany Art Association, Covington, LA
New Orleans Academy of Art, New Orleans, LA
Museo Casa Lopez Portillo, Guadalajara, Mexico
Centro de la Cultura, Zapopan, Mexico
Preusser Gallery, Taos, NM
Art Connections, Bethesda, MD
Mignon Faget, New Orleans, LA
Gulf/South Gallery, McComb, MS
Meridian Museum of Art, Meridian, MA
University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, LA
Galerie Simonne Stern, New Orleans, LA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
Contemporary Reliquaries: Housing the Momentos of Our Day, Northern Arizona University Art Museum/Flagstaff / Brigham Young University Auditorium Gallery at the Harold B Lee Library, Provo, UT
Offerings: Votives, Retablos and Milagros, The Outsider’s Studio Collective, Livingston Manor, NY
The Best in Contemporary Clay, Miller Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
Galveston’s Salute to New Orleans, Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, TX
Contemporary Ceramics of the Mississippi Delta, The Feliciana Center for the Creative Arts, Clinton, LA
The Choice Collection – Crafts ‘95, Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, Loveladies, NJ
Contemporary Crafts in the Urban Environment, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
Festival International de Louisane, Mastery of Craft, Lafayette, LA
Rutgers Master of Fine Arts 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Stones Gallery, Kauai, HA
Art Who, Ocean Springs, MS
Celebration of Spring, Sheila Atchinson Gallery, Birmingham, AL
International New Art Forms Expo, Chicago, IL
Capitol Street Crafts Gallery, Jackson, MS
25th Anniversary Traveling Crafts Exhibition, Louisiana Crafts Council
Terrebonne Museum, Southdown Plantation, Houma, LA
The Flower Garden Invitational, Kentuck Museum, Northport, AL
Couples, Alexandria Museum of Art, Alexandria, LA
Artisan Gallery, Great Neck, NY
Crafts Incredible Gallery, Kansas City, KS
American Craft Enterprise Exhibition, Dallas, TX
Art Cars, PS 1, New York, Tweed Art Gallery, NJ, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA, Barbara Gilman Gallery, Miami, FL
20th Anniversary MFA Celebration, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
Art on the Move/Art in America, Mobile Home Installation, Alternative Space Conference,
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA
Tiennial, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA
Seven Artists from Louisiana, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL
USL 19601970, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA
Personal Monuments/Artist Burial Ground, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, LA
Ten Years of Craft in Louisiana, Louisiana Crafts Council, New Orleans, LA
North, South, East, West and Middle, Moore College, Philadelphia, PA
Art in Other Media Invitational, Burpee Museum, Rockford, I
