2016 Chuck Solberg

Someone asked Duke Ellington “What is Jazz?”  Ellington replied, “It is the sound of surprise.”  I have always liked that quote.  It captures the spirit and essence of jazz.  To paraphrase Ellington, I work to keep a element of surprise in my ceramic pieces ~ the sense of the spontaneity that I find in wet clay while I am working with it.   

I began making pots as an apprentice to Milwaukee’s nationally renowned potter, Abe Cohn.  It was a priceless education and experience.  It began a lifelong love affair with clay and the whole process: making clay, testing glazes, building and firing kilns.  I went on to study at the University of Southern Illinois and get my master’s degree from the University of Minnesota. 

My work is based on traditional classic forms that go back to the ancient cultures of japan, Korea and Africa.  I will make 5 or 6 thirty pound vessels on the potter’s wheel.  The next day, after the clay has firmed up, I cut them apart and reassemble the more interesting sections. This construction process leads to many discoveries and surprises.  Because the clay is still malleable, pieces sag or distort; so a lot of improvisation takes place. It is similar to a jazz musician ~ altering the cords, changing the tempo and rhythm of a familiar song to make it more personal when performed.  

To keep the spontaneity in the finished pieces that I find while building the pots, I wood-fire most of my work.  Pine slabs are stoked into my anagama kiln for five days.  Flames flow through the kiln, largely uncontrolled, leaving wonderfully unexpected and unplanned for colors and firemarks on the pots.  The wood kiln is a true partner in the design of the pots.   

This firing process is as improvised and unpredictable as the construction process of my work.  It is all done by hand.  I adhere to the ancient Japanese adage: give your pots over to your kiln and accept what the kiln gives back to you.   

As life becomes more automated, homogenized and impersonal, I strongly believe that unique hand-made art ~ be it clay, wood, steel, glass, etc. enriches our lives beyond measure.  Because these things are hand-made, they connect us directly to our humanity.  Hand-made art in a room gives personality and character to a home.  

Dancing Bottle

From the Crocker Art Museum

2016 Emily Gray Koehler

Through dramatic landscapes and visual narratives of the natural world, printmaker Emily Gray Koehler investigates the places she calls home: North Woods and Great Plains, Farm and City, Michigan and Minnesota.

Growing up on her family’s ancestral farm in the forests of Northern Lower Michigan, Koehler developed a strong connection to the natural world.  Always with a sketchbook in hand, the curiosities of the woodlands – from salamanders to samaras – and the activities of the farm inspired her creative endeavors from an early age.  After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree with an emphasis in Printmaking from Grand Valley State University, she moved to Minnesota, where she discovered a passion for protecting and preserving the world around her.

Initially, Koehler’s work explored the agricultural world familiar from her youth.  These works often hinted at human relationships to the land and the animals we raise.  More recently, her work has evolved to largely focus on normally slow natural processes which have been hastened, interrupted or otherwise affected by human actions such as forest succession, the movement of plant and animal ranges, the introduction of exotic species and surface and groundwater fluctuations.

Currently working out of her public studio in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, Koehler has exhibited her art throughout the upper Midwest.  Her work is also in public and private collections across the country and in Europe.  Most recently, Koehler was awarded a 2015 Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board which aided her in the development of a new body of work entitled The Trespasser’s Garden which investigates the ecology of invasive plants in Minnesota. She is also an active member of Project Art for Nature (PAN), a colaborative group of artists and illustrators working to inspire conservation of nature through art.

The Trespasser's Garden

Greening the Deep

2016 Ann Ringness

As a leather artisan since 1974, a natural rhythm has developed in my work. Before I hand cut the leather, each piece is examined thoroughly.  As I lay out my designs I choose which part of the hide will work best to enhance each piece I am working on. Then each seam is guided carefully on an industrial sewing machine to insure quality and longevity.

My leather bags are classic and functional. I use natural, textured and finished hides. My current work includes burning images onto the surface of leather to create a positive-negative effect. I have been doing “hands”, “letters” and “abstract images” and have had fun flowing dots around the images creating pictographs such as “Hand Bags” or “MI Hand Bag”. My recent work includes metal buttons and hand made silver pieces.