October Issue 2000
Waterworks Visual Arts Center in Salisbury, NC, Features New Exhibits
Waterworks Visual Arts Center's exhibition, Luminous Presence, features the work of glass artist Judson Guerard, painter Jim Moon, and potter Phil Morgan, on view through Nov. 26 at the Center in Salisbury, NC. Waterworks Director Denny Mecham comments, "This exuberant exhibition is a celebration of color, light, and elegant form in distinctly different media and styles by three highly accomplished artists."
Judson Guerard maintains a glass studio in Bakersville, NC, and was Glass Studio Coordinator at Penland School from 1989-93. His work is exhibited nationally, most recently at the Philadelphia Buyer's Market 2000. Guerard combines a variety of glass techniques including lamp work, fusing, slumped, and blown glass. Of his work he says, "I came to glass rather late after having blundered between the extremes of philosophy (BA, UNC-Chapel Hill, MA, University of Hawaii) and carpentry. As a material, glass focuses and sustains my interest in the immediate task of making, while hinting and sometimes pointing in a direction beyond the piece... a symbiotic process of doing and becoming in which the work sustains the process."
Painter Jim Moon's work, often referred to as both mythical and magical, is in the permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art, New York; North Carolina Museum of Art; Peggy Guggenheim Museum, Venice, Italy; and Duke University. He is listed in Who's Who in American Art. A native North Carolinian, he moved to New York City to attend the Cooper Union Institute of Art and Science at the age of 16. At 24 years of age he painted and exhibited in Italy, returning to NC in 1965 where he remains an important influence. In 1967 Moon founded the visual arts program at the North Carolina School of the Arts and was instrumental in creating the North Carolina Dance Theatre. In a 1993 essay on Jim Moon, his life and his art, Paul R. Aho, Director of Design and Visual Arts Services for the Palm Beach County (Florida) Cultural Council said, "Moon has made a unique and eccentric body of work, steadily steering clear of the fads and conformity of his time. His teacher was life, his school, imagination and actuality. Although striking as celebrations of the power of imagination, the real measure of his works is in our ability to receive and interact with them. His imagination requires ours. Beyond his skill as a painter, beyond his superb draftsmanship, beyond his strength as a colorist, Moon is creditable above all for orchestrating our contemplation of subjects rich in association and for trusting us to enjoy their mysteries without uncovering them."
Phil Morgan is well known for the elegant crystalline glazed pottery created in his Seagrove, NC, studio. Using traditional porcelain shapes as a canvas for the extraordinary glazes he has perfected, each piece becomes a unique work of art. The crystalline glazes are jewel-like surfaces highlighted by lustrous crystals embedded in the glaze. The special glaze contains zinc oxide crystal nuclei. In the process of firing, the glaze melts and the zinc oxide crystals grow in circular or fan shapes to a diameter of two and one-half to four inches, floating on the surface of the glaze while it is molten, and "freezing" in place as the glaze cools. This description is deceptively simple. The firing technique is quite complicated and the percentage of loss in an unsuccessful firing is high. As one of only a handful of potters in the country who work with this process, Morgan takes great pride in his work. "Every piece I let go out the door represents me," he says. His work is found in collections around the world.
In addition, the Young People's Gallery will host an exhibition of work by Randall Leach, a Dean's List student at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. He will graduate in May 2001 earning a BFA degree in Studio Art with a concentration in painting. He has won many awards and scholarships while a student at Appalachian and served as an intern this summer at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC.
For further information check our NC Institutional
Gallery listings or call the center at 704/636-1882.
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