Nicholas Joerling

San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts

Accession no: 2007.8 Type of work: ceramic
Current location: Prep Room R15
Artist/creator: Nicholas Joerling
Variant forms of names: Nick Joerling; Nicholas P. Joerling

Artist biography: Nick Joerling is a full-time studio potter who has maintained a studio in Penland, North Carolina since the mid-1980's. He received a B.A. in History from the University of Dayton, Ohio, and an M.F.A. in Ceramics from Louisiana State University in 1986. He has taught in craft programs in the United States and abroad, been widely reviewed and exhibited, and is represented in public and private collections.

Title of work: Large Bowl with Handles
Date of item: 2007
Signed: no
Other markings/identifiers: There is a small mark on the bottom of the bowl which could be a type of artist’s trademark – an oval shaped form circles in a red line with a few black spatters in it.
Dimensions: 6 ¾” h x 13” w x 11” d (17.145 x 33.02 x 27.94 cm)

Description: A footed bowl with a skewed or altered rim. At two opposite points on the rim 2 knob-like handles are attached. The outside of the bowl is a dark charcoal gray color with touches of green and a horizontal reddish stripe occurring close to the rim on either side of the bowl. The interior is a warm yellow-brown shiny glaze. A number of small, red circles appear haphazardly exterior and interior of the bowl. The bowl is funnel shaped –narrow at the base and wider at the rim. It sits on an approximately 1” high foot.

Material: stoneware clay
Technique: wheel thrown then altered; Fired to cone 10 in a gas reduction atmosphere. Thin shino glaze on bisque ware, wax resist decoration, then a final glaze
Medium: ceramic
Country of origin: U.S.A.

Artist’s statement about work: I make pots as much from a drawing sensibility as a pottery one. Daydreaming with a pencil. Not drawing as rendering but simply doodling, then working hard to get that drawing to function. Profile line is therefore a strong attraction, a strong dictate, as are the smaller spaces within spaces. And of course that sense of animation. My pot reference is most often you and I, our bodies. It’s where my cues come from: dance, people seated on a park bench, the cleavage that forms on the inside of a bent elbow. But I want to stay in the pot’s world – too literal and the pots seem deflated. In my studio what I hope for are pots that have qualities of sensuality, compassion, humor and risk.

Condition: Excellent condition from Condition Report dated May 19, 2009
Provenance: Purchased from artist

Source: Purchased from artist at the 2007 Art of the Pot Tour in Austin, Texas
Fund(s) used: Grant from Art of the Pot Tour

Exhibitions: 100 American ceramics from the Collection of the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX, June 11 – September 5, 2010.

Cataloger name: K. Zimmerly
Date: November 23, 2010
Sources used: artist file