FOCUS GALLERY
June 21 – July 30, 2022
This exhibition features work by Stormie Burns and Courtney Martin, two ceramic artists who live and work near Penland School of Craft. As friends and neighbors, Stormie and Courtney enjoy spending time together taking morning walks on the gravel road near their homes. It’s a chance to move, walk the dogs, and to catch up. Often they find themselves talking about their work and what they would create with each other’s pots as the starting point. These conversations led them to start collaborating a few years ago.
Walk Talks will include these recent collaborations, combining the clean lines of Stormie’s slip-cast porcelain forms with Courtney’s wood-fired patterns, as well as individual work by each artist.
Courtney Martin is a studio potter living and working in the mountains of North Carolina near Penland School. She grew up just outside of New York City on Long Island.
After high school, Courtney went to college at the University of New Mexico where she discovered clay and graduated with a BFA in Ceramics. In 2001 she moved to western North Carolina to work and apprentice with Terry Gess, Michael Kline, Cynthia Bringle, and others. In 2005 she and her husband (glassblower John Geci) bought a property with an old farmhouse on it near Penland School of Craft. By August of 2007, she had completed building her wood-fired cross draft climbing kiln.
Currently, Courtney shows in galleries and art centers throughout the US. She has taught workshops at Penland School of Craft and Arrowmont, as well as several universities. Courtney is a founding member of Spruce Pine Potters Market, a juried member of ArtAxis, and an organizer of Clay to Table.
Courtney’s work is made using NC clay, a kickwheel, slabs, and coils. She decorates her pots with patterns created by using resists to layer glazes. All of her pots are fired in her cross draft wood kiln to cone 11.
These collaborative pieces were designed and then slip-cast by Stormie Burns using a variety of colored porcelain slips. Courtney then applied her signature glazes and patterns to the bisque-fired forms. In the final step, they were fired in Courtney’s cross draft wood kiln.
Stormie Burns is a ceramic and glass artist utilizing the processes of mold making and casting. Originally from central Florida, Stormie moved to Western North Carolina in 2015 to work as a ceramic assistant for artists Jason Burnett and David Eichelberger, and from 2017 through 2019 participated in Penland School’s Core Fellowship program. She has also participated in an artist residency at Haystack School of Craft and the short-term Winter Residency at Penland School. Stormie originally began her studio practice while living in Asheville, NC, before returning to the Penland area to establish herself as a full-time studio artist.
Stormie’s work is created through the process of mold making and slip casting, utilizing blends of colored porcelain slip. Her work is fired to cone 8 in her electric kiln.
This collaborative body of work began with tableware forms made by Courtney Martin. Stormie created plaster molds of those forms and slip-cast them with colored porcelain clay. The pieces were then glazed and fired in Stormie’s electric kiln to cone 8.
Penland Gallery Contact Information
gallery@penland.org
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