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Conversations: ceramics by Joyce Michaud and Ray Chen

April 16 – June 8, 2001

The "conversation" currently on view in the Dadian Gallery may be understood as one between two poles in the world of ceramics. Joyce Michaud’s tiny, translucent porcelains look and feel as light as leaves, as fragile as eggshells. One wants to hold them lightly cupped in the hand, careful lest too tight a grip might smash them into smithereens. The artist’s skill is readily apparent in the smooth surfaces and graceful curves of the enigmatically-titled Impressions. Her impossibly small-mouthed, perfectly rounded Pinchpots bear little resemblance to the lumpy, oddly-shaped objects of the same name many people make as their first attempt at working in clay. There is a kind of magic here, the kind that comes from years of dedicated practice, and that turns the ordinary elements of earth and fire into objects of stunning beauty.

In a very different voice, Ray Chen’s large, timeless sculptures look at first as though they were simply pulled from the ground. As heavy as the rocks and crystals they resemble, these works of stoneware and earthenware seem eternal. It is hard to remember that they came from a human hand, that a human mind conceived and created them. Each one is titled simply, Mother and Child, and each is composed of two contrasting elements – one lighter, one darker; one rougher, one smoother; one larger, one smaller. In each case, the two parts balance precariously against one another, holding one another up against the tug of gravity, a force that reveals how fragile they really are. Here, too, is a kind of magic, a distillation of skill and imagination into concrete abstractions of the human condition.

Joyce Michaud is on the faculty of Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, where she is the director of the ceramics program and curator of the Hodson Gallery. The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where her ceramics may be seen as part of the current exhibit USA Clay, has recently purchased five examples of her work for its permanent collection. Ray Chen teaches at the Baltimore Clayworks and at Goucher College, also in Baltimore, Maryland. Widely exhibited in the United States as well as his native Taiwan and Japan, Chen has recently received one of the most prestigious awards in American ceramics, the Emerging Artist Award 2001, from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts.

I am grateful to Patrick Caughy, one of our current Artists-in-Residence, who brought both of these fine artists to my attention. It is a privilege to be able to present their work to the Wesley community at a time when they are both also coming to the attention of the greater world of ceramic art.

Ray Chen

Sculpture is the language that allows me to cross and re-cross the boundaries of East and West.

After spending ten years in Taiwan training myself in handbuilding and the ways of the wheel as a sculptor, five years teaching ceramics and four years managing a ceramics studio in Taiwan, I came to the United States 1991 to pursue more contemporary issues in my work. I accomplished my B.F.A. in ceramics at Ohio University and M.F.A. in ceramic sculpture at Rochester Institute of Technology. Since 1994, I have attended six NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) conferences. During the 1996 conference I assisted Brad Schwieger with his demonstration and was selected as the NCECA SHIMPO 1994 scholarship recipient.

I was the 1998 Lormina Salter Fellowship Recipient with one year free residency and stipend at Baltimore Clayworks in Maryland. In 1998 I taught at Maryland Institute College of Art as a part time faculty at Ceramics Department. In 1999 I taught at Towson State University and Goucher College. And I am also NCECA conference 2001 emerging artist recipient. Presently, I teach at Goucher College as a part time faculty, and at Baltimore Clayworks as a teacher and as a resident artist.

In my sculpture, I represent both East and West cultural influence. My sculpture is my physical language that crosses the boundaries of culture, while strongly reflecting two other art forms - music and flower arrangement. I have studied music, particularly Western classical music. I played violin for 18 years, majoring in music as an undergraduate in Taiwan. At 22, I began to study flower arrangement with my mother, a practice which helps me to think about space and visual objects from all perspectives.

Mother and Child

Relationship between human persons have been the core theme of my ceramic sculpture.

For the last several years, I have addressed in my work the central relationship between my mother and myself. Fourteen years ago, she fell into Parkinson’ disease. At the onset of this sickness, my father abandoned our family. In accord with the tradition of Chinese culture, it is now my role to take his place and be strong. As a result, my relationship with my mother has grown. I encourage her with love and warmth.

My sculpture exploration of form, space and line has become my outer language to embody my inner feelings about this experience. It has also expressed the crossed boundaries between Eastern and Western culture and aesthetics-as well as the physical distance between my mother and myself.

Even now I have not fully accepted her illness. I pray that she will recover one day. My sculpture is also the testimony of my faith.

The farmland of central Maryland, and historic Frederick lie at the end of a long evolution ranging from the cold northeastern shoreline through the rolling Appalachian Mountains, the agricultural mid-lands, the majestic Rockies, and the arid Sonoran Desert. Here I create my unique ceramic art which has found its genesis in the internal assimilation of the universal aesthetics of nature.

The study of the physical forces inherent in the production of ceramics brings me full circle from the inspiration by nature to the study of natural forces. For only with the understanding and harnessing of these natural forces can the expression of beauty in form and function continue. Simplification enhances the delicacy yet strength of each work. The natural beauty of clay itself is enhanced by the asymmetrical irregularities, surface texture, and subtleties of color produced by the organic fuels, the intense heat, and the lick of the flame during the firing process, bringing the clay back to nature for the final shaping of the form in its molten stage and the organic markings which are the gift of the fire.

The exhibition features two wood fired porcelain forms that have been my signature for many years. The pinch pots, formed by hand from a lump of clay the size of a small tangerine, are elegant narrow necked forms that seem to communicate. Placed in groups the couples and families carry on conversations and express emotions through the postures created in the subtle angles of the rim and neck and the shape of the shoulder and belly of each pot.

The Impressions are cups and chalice forms which present a new experience in the act of containing. They are created from an oval slab of clay draped over a river stone. The simple yet elegant curves created from the translucent porcelain are strengthened and formed by the textures drawn into the wet clay with a shell or stone. The already thin porcelain form becomes even more translucent in the thinnest areas of the impression creating a play of light through the walls. The delicacy of the porcelain container is held aloft on the points of the contrasting stoneware crown. The crown lifts the cup and its contents to allow the flow of light and flame to penetrate and surround the entire pot. Fired with a shell separating the cup from the crown in the wood and salt kilns allows the cradling of the form in your hands during use creating the dichotomy of intimate function and precipitous presentation. The cup is fused to the crown by the glaze to increase the stability of the chalices.

Joyce Michaud was born in Denver, Colorado. The third oldest of 12 children, teaching has been inherent in her life since childhood. She graduated magna cum laude from Lycoming College with a BA in Art and Education, pursued her graduate degree in Ceramics at Columbia Visual Arts College and completed her MFA in Ceramics and a specialty in Museum Studies at George Washington University. She teaches at Hood College where she is the studio coordinator, curator of Hodson Gallery and Director of the Ceramics Program. Her work has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions nationwide and is represented in many private collections both nationally and internationally.

send comments or questions about the gallery to the curator at:
dsokolove@wesleysem.edu