FUSION Conference 2011
May 27 - 29th, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario

FUSION 2011 TORONTO CONFERENCE has invited two experienced workshop leaders, Sequoia Miller and Audrey Killoran, to share their design experience and personal narratives with members.


Sequoia Miller, a native of Manhattan, graduated from Brandeis University in Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Arts in Russian & Art History. His ceramic education was largely through a series of workshops at Penland, Haystack and other craft schools in the mid-90s. At Penland, Douglass Rankin and Will Ruggles introduced Miller to the Mingei tradition or Japanese folk-craft movement espoused by Warren MacKenzie and the “fathers of North American studio ceramics”, Shoji Hamada and Bernard Leach. Rankin and Ruggles also introduced Miller to the art of wood-firing. Workshops with Michael Simon, Linda Christianson, Nick Joerling, MacKenzie Smith, Terry Gess and Chris Staley honed Miller’s aesthetic direction.

In 1995, Miller moved to Olympia, Washington, where he set up a pottery in an abandoned boat shack and in relative solitude, discovered his own voice in clay. He began to exhibit his work through galleries and shops across the US and supplemented his pottery sales revenue with occasional teaching and workshops.

Miller’s style encompasses cut and reassembled wheel thrown parts in a limited production – small batch, studio process. He contends his surface treatments “are individual responses to particular forms” and uses brush decoration for emphasis. He utilizes a minimal number of glazes combined with underglazes and oxides in gas reduction firing to cone 10. Thematically, Miller defines his work as an exploration of the “tensions between a rural or folk ideal with a contemporary urban experience”.

After having been a full-time potter for 15 years, in the fall of 2010 Miller made an abrupt life-style change to pursue his interest in ancient Japanese pottery and art history. He moved east once again and enrolled in a Masters in Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture programme in New York City.

Miller has exhibited his work at the Smithsonian Craft Show and the Philadelphia Museum Show. He is currently exhibiting work in the Bellevue Art Museum Exhibition in the Seattle area, the Lacoste Gallery, Freehand Gallery, and the Snyderman/Works Gallery.

Attendees at the FUSION Conference 2011 will enjoy Miller’s perspective as a graduate student, in discussing the relevance today of the folk pottery ideal within the context of new directions in the ceramic arts, while he demonstrates the making of his compelling forms.

 
Audrey Killoran, like many FUSION members, aspired to a vocation in ceramics, after taking studio courses at the local community college. Born in Montreal and initially trained as a biologist at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec, Killoran served as a CUSO volunteer in Ghana for two years before settling in Lennoxville. In 1975, Killoran moved to Montreal, rented studio space at Centre de Ceramique Bonsecours and began to work as a potter making high fired, wheel-thrown, functional stoneware and porcelain in the traditions of Japanese folk pottery and Bernard Leach. She taught pottery classes at cultural and recreational centres in and around Montreal, as well as group workshops. She has continued her teaching as a part-time staff member at the Visual Arts Centre, Montreal.

In 1980, Killoran returned to school and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art History – Studio Art from Concordia University. Her sojourn led to a rekindled interest in smoke firing, a technique she first encountered in 1975 during a “primitive” firing in North Hatley, Quebec. At University, her work became sculptural, reminiscent of the architectural forms made of organic materials like thatch or adobe, which she had encountered during travels to Africa, Asia and the Middle East. She acknowledges that details of her forms reference construction features such as entrances, windows or steps. Smoke firing pieces in sawdust gave her the desired final effect.

Why we respond to pattern and form is a topic of great interest to Killoran. Her choice of surface treatment for the smoke-fired work is rhythmic patterning with fine copper carbonate brushwork on burnished terra sigillata. The geometric elements of her surface decoration are suggestive of natural design found in insects, leaves or growth rings. Furthermore, the influence of her time in Africa shows through in the surface treatment, as she recognizes the affect of African textile design in her brushwork. Killoran’s artist statement sums up her approach: “In my ceramic vessels and small sculptures I try to achieve the presence, simplicity and tactile appeal I have long admired in many early art forms”.

Killoran has participated in craft shows, juried and invitational exhibitions and solo exhibitions both in Canada and the US since 1982, including the Orton Cone Box Show in 2002. Her work has been published in Robin Hopper’s Ceramic Spectrum, and in the journals Ceramics: Art and Perception (2000), Contact (Fall 1998) and Ceramics Monthly (February 2004). In 2001, Killoran was awarded the prestigious Prix spécial Gaétan Baudin pour “qualité et originalité d’oeuvre” at 1001 Pots in Val David, Quebec. In Ontario, her work can be found at Jonathon Bancroft-Snell and Harbinger galleries. FUSION looks forward to introducing this talented Canadian artist to members.