Artist Bio:

Erica Bleu grew up in Indiana with a playful relationship to clay. She maintained this mindset, however, in a more refined manner as she continued her studies. Now, she practices making elegant and precise ceramic forms that tie back to her initial fears found in nature, turned into her current interests. She communicates her thoughts on growth through vulnerability depicted by the beauty found in spiders and other insects. She graduated from Ball State University in the spring of 2023 with a BFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in ceramics. She is constantly working to communicate her concepts and develop her technique as she is a current resident at the Morean Center for Clay.

Statement:

As I grow, I find more patterns throughout life that other organisms display through similar repeated behaviors linked to how one grows from facing difficulties. I focus on the vulnerabilities that are revealed within relationships, whether that might be found in friendships, partners, families, or oneself. Rather than fearing these moments of weakness, I instead I embrace them in order to grow.

My concepts consist of three-dimensional depictions of my past fears that have formed my new fascinations. These include insects and arachnids, which led me to better understand myself and my relationship with others. I analyze how natural hardships seen among insects can mirror those of humans, as nature can reveal our intentions at its purest form. A spider molting leaves it exposed to potential harm but must do so in order to grow.

When depicting instances like this in my work, I translate these scenes into clay and glass. While creating functional work, I aim to be detailed especially with textures and ornate forms. Using porcelain, I construct classically influenced structures to represent fragility. For decoration I use slip trailing, water etching, colored slip, washes, and glaze to make subtle patterns and insect imagery all tied within an atmospheric surface. When sculpting, I create life size figures depicting scenes of vulnerability. Each figure takes on a hardship and allows me to better understand them by isolating these instances and seeing them from another perspective. When working with glass, similar imagery is achieved through flameworking borosilicate glass into relationships I find in nature that led me to understand human nature. Whether it is sculptural or functional, clay or glass, my work explores vulnerability within relationships, especially the relationship with oneself.

Artist Bio:
Born in a Mexican-American family, Jon Green is entertained by the absurd nature of the
American-Dream. He completed his BFA at the University of Montana with a minor in Art
History, and worked as a studio assistant for Julia Galloway, Casey Zablocki, and Anton
Alvarez. Green has completed Residencies at Red Lodge Clay Center, Medalta Clay District,
and Clay Art Center in Port Chester, NY. Green is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the
Morean Art Center where his work continues to pay homage to the craftspeople and merging
customs of the Americas through emphasizing objects and ornamentation.

Statement:
I explore the fragile boundaries of my blurred identity within the diverse multi- ethnic background
of the Americas.
My studio practice is explained as both a question and a statement; a curiosity of my ethnic
identity and a pride in my Mexican-American heritage. Decorative patterning and bright colors
are sourced from Mestizo prints of colonial Latin-America to represent the convergence of
ethnic and cultural ideas. This history is paired with personal symbolism that subverts traditional
expectations of Latino Communities.
This work represents a personal narrative as a second-generation Chicano, and is an
homage to the elaborate and diverse Latin American Craft-traditions before and after
colonization

Artist Bio:

Charles Morrison is a multi-disciplinary artist originally from the Chicago area. Receiving his Bachelors in sociology From Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Indiana in 2017, Charles first started working with clay in 2016. He has since exhibited throughout the Midwest in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana until taking an unexpected hiatus from his craft in 2020. Having recently relocated to Tampa in 2023, Charles quickly discovered the Morean Center for Clay and was able to pick up where he left off a few years prior.

Using clay as his primary means of communication, Charles also employs print, paint, and performance to convey his message. Taking great inspiration from the ancient world and indigenous cultures around the planet, he finds himself working to remind us today, of an ancient past. Creating vessels that appear to have been recovered from the bottom of the sea, or unearthed from years of compacted soil and earth beneath our feet, Morrison hopes to spark a deep remembrance in the viewers of his work, reminding them that we’ve been here before.

Artist Statement:

With a deep reverence and respect for those who came before us, I work to remind viewers of a previous time. I encourage you to remember your ancestors and their traditions. Try to remember their folktales and beliefs, their spirituality and medicines. It is easy to think we are so much further along than any ancient civilization and that there’s nothing to be learned from these people. However, I assure you, many of the answers we seek today remain evident in our past, if only we would take a moment to look at where we came from.

“A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture, is like a tree without roots” – Marcus Mosiah Garvey

Creating pieces that ignite an innate feeling of remembrance; I hope to invoke in viewers the memory that we’ve been here before. I feel this is an important memory to recover because of the vast amounts of knowledge and wisdom that our ancestors possessed. When we realize that so much of them is still alive in us today, we can bring awareness to this reality and make efforts to rebuild this sacred connection to our roots. By remembering who we are and where we come from, we are able to know where we stand today and where we are going.

With a series of textures, designs, hand and finger prints, my clay vessels and Ancestral Totems are covered in a vocabulary of mark making that reference the original civilizations and indigenous peoples of the world. In an age where humanity seems more desperate than ever for answers about which way to go, what to do, and who to trust; I present works that act as primordial messengers, carrying with them the spirit of an ancient time and the reminder to give thanks and travel wise.

Artist Bio:

Nina Samuels is a ceramics and mixed media sculptor working with natural materials, sustainable practices, and ecological themes. Coming From Savannah, Georgia, she uses wild clay and other natural materials she has foraged across the southeast. Her work is inspired by the land, sea, and fauna of the natural world. 

She received her BFA from Georgia Southern University in 2024. She has attended workshops, work-studies, and/ or residencies at Penland, Arrowmont, Peters Valley, Snow Farm, and the VCAC. 

She is currently an artist in residence at the Morean Center for Clay where she is creating work inspired by the native sea life. She also creates ceramic sculptures that are submerged underwater and serve as an artificial marine reef for organisms.

Statement:

Nature has always been at the center of my work. I often use wild clays and other natural materials as a medium to sculpt with. When I’m not using materials I have sourced from the earth, I’m making work inspired by it. 

Having grown up by the ocean and now being an artist in coastal Florida, I use the sea as a starting point for my ideas. Anything from the humblest microorganisms to the most revered fish in the sea are a constant source of inspiration. Whether I am making anatomically correct versions of sea creatures or using an abstracted version of their forms in a sculpture, the fluid nature of all ocean species comes to life in clay.

The more I studied marine biology for my work, the more I marveled at it and desired to have another dimension of interaction in my work. I have begun making ceramic sculptures and submerging them underwater to serve as artificial marine reefs. This provides a habitat for the very creatures I am so inspired by.

There is something ephemeral and beautiful about borrowing a material from the earth and transforming it into art; something that is so undeniably human, and then yielding ownership back to the earth for it to be retaken and transformed.