The Silver City CLAY Festival is an annual event held every July since 2011, but this year’s festival looked different from previous years’, with many of the events taking place on the WNMU campus, July 10-16. The university is one of the major sponsors of the festival.
The festival brought together artists, educators, families and collectors for a week of activities and exhibitions that explored and celebrated clay. Participants had an opportunity to take part in hands-on workshops with prominent clay artists, and children were welcomed to WNMU Museum as well as the Silver City Museum, where they had a chance to participate in clay-based activities. Demonstrations, lectures, exhibitions and gallery talks were held throughout the week, and the festival concluded with a ceramic-glaze-inspired brunch at Bear Mountain Lodge.
Headlining the event this year was WNMU Visiting Artist George Rodriguez. Rodriguez, a sculptor whose work addresses themes of culture and community, presented his own art at Light Art Space in the exhibition “Shapeshifters,” and he juried the exhibition “Grace,” which brought together work by artists from across the country. He also led a multi-day sculpture workshop that explored the use of clay embellishment to tell stories. Workshop participant Zoe Wolfe, a Silver City artist, described the workshop as “Fabulous,” adding, “I can’t say enough good things about [Rodriguez].”
Assistant Professor of Ceramics Courtney Michaud, one of the organizers of the festival, noted that Rodriguez is “incredibly respected and established in the ceramics and art community.” He is originally from El Paso, TX and is now working in Seattle and Philadelphia, where he creates highly ornamented figural sculpture. Rodriguez describes his work as “contemporary [but] there is a historical and mythical aspect to the work that I make.”
Other artists involved in the festival this year were Mary Fischer, who both exhibited her art and led a workshop on printing on clay, Oralia Lopez, who demonstrated the Mata Ortiz style of painting on pottery, and Marko Fields and Diego Valles, who held a joint exhibition, “Under the Influence,” that also included the work of other artists that inspire them.
Two WNMU post-baccalaureate students in ceramics, Susie Meskill and Hugh Remar, were also very involved in the festival. Not only did they help to plan the event and install exhibitions, but they also presented their own work in the joint exhibition, “Helix,” and gave a talk about their art at Made in Silver City Studio and Gallery.
Meskill, who is completing her second and final year in the post-baccalaureate program, said that the festival marked part of her transition from student to professional ceramic artist. Meskill said that her art has “lived in [the studio] for so long, so it is exciting and shocking to see it out in the world on pedestals for people to view. . . It is exciting to see people interact with it outside of these four walls” of the studio.
For Remar, who is entering his second year at WNMU, the exhibition and gallery talk offered an opportunity to further reflect on his art practice and on what he is learning from the post-baccalaureate ceramics program. “Being surprised is a huge part of the process,” he said, “It’s not just disappointments; there are fabulous surprises, too, that can really change your art practice and how you approach things. That’s the best and most exciting part of the process. There’s always something that will surprise you.”