Past Ceramic Competitions

About Darlene Williams, from SAMFA Curator Laura Huckaby: Darlene Williams was an enthusiastic proponent of the ceramic arts, artists, and the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts. She was an optimistic, funny, and generous person who never talked about herself, but she had a story for every work of art in her collection and every SAMFA ceramics event for more than 20 years past. Darlene and her husband John amassed an impressive and broad-ranging collection of contemporary ceramics, supporting emerging as well as established ceramic artists.

Darlene and John endowed the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts’ San Angelo National Ceramic Competition and the San Angelo Ceramic Invitational, and they have given generous unrestricted financial gifts to the museum and its programs. They have underwritten the museum’s acquisition of many ceramic works and donated more than 65 important ceramic works from their personal collection. For each of these works, Darlene wrote down the story of how and why it was commissioned or acquired. Darlene made sure the legacy of her work and love for ceramics would continue long into the future. She is sorely missed.

Louise Rosenfield is a Dallas, Texas, potter who serves as a Board member of the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York, and the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. Rosenfield is also a founding organizer of the Dallas Pottery Invitational, an annual show and sale established in 2008 whose mission is to widen public knowledge about the breadth and depth of functional ceramics today. In addition, Rosenfield established a free, open online research resource of multiple digital images of over 4,000 functional pots she owns and uses.

A member of the Caddo Nation, Chase Kahwinhut Earles creates pottery in the traditional Caddo style and methods, with his own unique adaptations and themes taken from traditional as well as modern culture. The Caddo pottery traditions were in danger of disappearing when Earles began studying with the only living Caddo pottery revivalist at the time, and also teaching himself all he could learn through research. Now, Earles is educating broad audiences about the beauty, craftsmanship, and uniqueness of ancient Caddo pottery methods and culture, and his work is included in many private and public collections, including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and the Dallas Museum of Art. His daughter, Elizabeth BahNoos Earles, is also carrying on the Caddo pottery traditions.

Artist Statement: 

From 800 AD to 1700 Caddo pottery was an incredible and well-known tradition in the North American Southeast, traded far and wide, even overseas. Knowledge of this cultural history disappeared as the Caddo tribe was decimated from diseases and colonialism. Our last Caddo potter, a matriarch of my tribal namesake, stopped making pottery around 1908 and our tradition was almost lost. I hope to bring that unsung ceramic legacy back to the light.

Most people don’t see our ancestral pottery because our pottery was used at the end of its life as a burial offering. In that way, these culturally sensitive pieces cannot be put on public display. It is important to me to respectfully capture the skillfulness and intricate details and methods of our tradition in order to reintroduce its importance and create new admiration for our tribe.

However, I also feel deeply that our tribe’s representation and communication through the design and creation of pottery would have evolved over time with the introduction of new situations and environments. For that reason, I also strive to present a new ceramic and sculptural interpretation from my own experiences as an ambassador to my Caddo tribe and its ancient cultural identity.

James C. Watkins is a ceramic artist who has worked with clay for over 40 years. His work is held in 23 permanent collections, including the White House Collection of American Crafts at the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Shigaraki Institute of Ceramic Studies in Shigaraki, Japan, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York, the Tweed Museum in Duluth, Minnesota, the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in Houston, Texas. Watkins’ work has been widely exhibited in 44 solo exhibitions and 169 group exhibitions.

Watkins is a Texas Tech University, Horn Distinguished Professor Emeritus. The Horn Professorship is the highest honor Texas Tech University may bestow on members of its faculty. Horn Professorships are granted to professors in recognition of national and international distinction for outstanding research or other creative scholarly achievements.

His awards include the Texas Tech University President’s Excellence in Teaching Award and the third recipient of the Art on the Llano Estacada Legacy Award, presented by Texas Tech University Museum Association. He was a 2005 Senior Fulbright Scholar, teaching in Vietnam at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Architecture. Watkins is the 2019 recipient of the HCCC Texas Master Award present by the Houston Center of Contemporary Craft in Houston, Texas.

Watkins is the author of the self-published book, Reflections Made of Memories. He is also the co-author of, Alternative Kilns & Firing Techniques published by Sterling Publishing. Alternative Kilns & Firing Techniques wasco-authored with Paul Andrew Wandless and has been translated into Chinese and German. Watkins is also the co-author of Architectural Delineation: Presentation Techniques and Projects published by Kendall Hunt Publishing, co-authored with James T. Davis. His work is the subject of a book entitled A Meditation of Fire: The Art of James C. Watkins by Kippra D. Hopper published by Texas Tech University Press. Watkins has written numerous articles for national and international magazines, including Ceramics Monthly, Studio Potter, New Ceramics: The European Ceramics Magazine, and China Ceramic Artist. He received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and MFA from Indiana University.

Website: www.jcwclayworks.com

Andrea Gill began her ceramic art career in 1971 as an apprentice to a local potter in Cape Cod MA. She had just graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Painting, and continued her ceramics education at Kansas City Art Institute. There she met her husband, John Gill, and later joined him in Alfred, NY entering the ceramics MFA program in 1974.  They went on to share a residency at the Archie Bray Foundation.  For the next five years, Andrea Gill exhibited her work around the world.  In 1984, they returned to Alfred, NY to share a teaching position.  She continued to exhibit her work in galleries and museum exhibitions, including solo shows in New York, Philadelphia and most recently in Aspen, CO. She retired from teaching in 2016 and has continued making and exhibiting her work. Gill’s work is in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute and other public and private collections.  She has received numerous grants including from NEA Individual Artist Grants, and NYFA Grants. She was awarded fellowships from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship, and the Archie Bray foundation, and the American Craft Council. In 2019 she received the Distinguished Educator Award from the Renwick Alliance.  She is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics. 

Jo Lauria is a Los Angeles-based curator, writer, and educator who received her curatorial training at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  She is a specialist in the fields of design, craft, and decorative arts, with particular emphasis on modern and contemporary studio ceramics.

Lauria is the organizer of several national touring exhibitions as well as author of numerous publications: biographies that chart the lives and work of contemporary designers and craft artists; and survey books that chronicle major movements in the field. Most recently she received the American Ceramic Circle Book Award for Ralph Bacerra: Exquisite Beauty. Currently she is a contributing writer to Ornament Magazine, Mentor Faculty of Otis College of Art and Design, and Adjunct Curator of the American Museum of Ceramic Art (California).

For each competition show, a noted ceramic artist is asked to display a small focus exhibit, which highlights the artist’s work. This year we're pleased to welcome Austin artist Ginger Geyer. She grew up in Springdale, Arkansas, attended the University of Arkansas and took off for Texas in 1973. At SMU she earned BFA in painting and MFA in museum education. She later received a lay degree in pastoral ministry at the Seminary of the Southwest (SSW). Having worked as an art museum professional for 15 years (at the Dallas Museum of Art and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth), she occasionally consults on collection management and museum design. For another 15 years she directed artist workshops and curated the gallery for the H.E. Butt Foundation retreat center, Laity Lodge. Other career opportunities include adjunct professor at SSW and Concordia University, plus artist residencies in Vancouver, Dallas, and Rome.  Making art with homeless people and especially with her own two children have deeply informed her avid studio practice. For thirty years, porcelain sculpture has been the primary medium for combining her quests into art history, spirituality and culture. A large body of “not quite trompe l’oeil” works is accompanied by ever-changing narratives. Now in a retrospective in an Austin historic house, her collaborative project with a performer called “If These Walls Could Talk,” is engaging a diverse audience over issues of privilege and racial equity. For more information, visit www.gingergeyer.com, Instagram, or Valley House Gallery and Sculpture Garden in Dallas.

In the course of Peter Held’s impressive three-decade career as a museum director and contemporary art curator, he has organized more than 200 exhibitions, including seven national traveling shows. Held is the editor and essayist for 10 books including Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of Wayne Higby (2013); Innovation and Change: Ceramics from the ASU Art Museum Collection (2009), and Akio Takamori: Between Clouds of Memory (2005).

He has received three of the highest accolades possible within the field from the Friends of Contemporary Ceramics; the Smithsonian’s James Renwick Alliance, and the National Council for Education on the Ceramic Arts.  

Held also served as a trustee for the American Craft Council, was a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts (1974-75), and has been a nominator for several granting organizations.

In June, 2014, he retired from his position as curator of ceramics, Arizona State University, Ceramics Research Center, and owns an art appraisal and consulting business based in Phoenix, Arizona.

Randy Brodnax, a life-long potter and educator, creates everything from functional dinnerware to large decorative vessels to clay sculpture.

A Louisiana native, Randy has retained much of the Cajun joie de vivre with which he was raised, and has spent a career building bridges among clay artists of all leverls of experience.

Many of Randy's creations exhibit images of nature, animals, and fish.

Christy Johnson is currently an independent curator, writer and part-time ceramics instructor. She holds a BA in English Literature from California State University, Los Angeles, and later studied ceramics at Pasadena City College with Phil Cornelius and at Otis College of Art and Design with Ralph Bacerra. Her pottery career includes many exhibition credits, awards, teaching experiences, and workshop presentations.
Among her early curatorial highlights is a Sam Maloof woodworking retrospective and Envisioning the Future, a collaboration with feminist artist Judy Chicago. Between 2004 and 2013, Johnson was Director of the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, CA, where she facilitated a diverse, five-exhibitiona-year schedule, including American art tile, California-made dinnerware, and Chinese glazes. She also curated shows that featured renowned ceramic artists such as Paul Soldner, Peter Voulkos, Don Reitz, Rudy Autio, and Patti Warashina. Most notably, Johnson was involved with the Getty’s Pacific Standard
Time initiative, producing a critically acclaimed exhibition, Common Ground: Ceramics in Southern California 1945-1975, and book of the same title.
Among her current curatorial projects are Otis Revisited and Crossroads in Clay at Chouinard and Otis: The Ralph Bacerra Years, two out of four Los Angeles year-end exhibitions associated with famed ceramic artist Ralph Bacerra.

Invited Artist, Ron Meyers, earned his MFA degree in ceramics in 1967 from the School for American Craftsmen at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He taught at the University of South Carolina from 1967-1972, then spent the next 20 years teaching at the University of Georgia in Athens, where he retired as Professor Emeritus in 1992. He has an extensive history of professional activities within the ceramics community and has presented more than 100 workshops and demonstrations in the United States and abroad. Recent exhibitions of his work include a one-person show, Roads, Rivers and Red Clay, at the College of Environment and Design, University of Georgia and the Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV; the Regis Masters Exhibit at the Northern
Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN; and a 45-year retrospective, A Potter's Menagerie, at the Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock. His works are in the collections of the Wiseman Museum of Art, Minneapolis, MN; the High Museum, Atlanta, GA; the Georgia Museum of Art, Athens GA; and the Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC.