Garth Johnson

Anderson Ranch invites you to join our online community to engage in a rigorous and stimulating Critical Dialog Program about the exciting world of contemporary ceramics. Through lectures and discussion each Monday and Wednesday (twice a month for four months), we connect to embark on a variety of topics that are crucial to today’s field of ceramics, giving participants the opportunity to reflect conceptually on this hands-on medium. This fall and winter we focus on the potential for ceramics to be socially engaging. Presenting artists join us in our dialog whose work plays an interactive role. January 11 & 13 – Elyse Pignolet – You Should Calm Down: #Pottery is Political Elyse Pignolet explores how engaging with social issues through her artwork is a way of confronting current political and social injustices. Pignolet discusses the potential for socially committed ceramics addressing themes in her work that deal with female transgression and empowerment, the dialectic between feminism and misogyny, inequality, gender stereotypes, and sexual harassment. She also asks: how does social media play a role in this 20,000-year-old medium? February 8 & 10 – Garth Johnson – No Food in the Galleries: Reinventing the Museum Café Garth Johnson guides us through the Everson Museum of Art’s new project “No Food in the Galleries: Reinventing the Museum Café”. The project uses the Museum café to change the way the Museum shows its ceramics and relates to the public. Garth discusses and present a rogue’s gallery of potters who place radical hospitality at the core of their practice. March 8 & 10 – Kathy King – TMI? Gender and Sexuality in Ceramics Take a brief tour through the history of ceramics to the contemporary to investigate gender and sexuality within ceramics as it pertains to the time and culture in which it was made. King then turns that lens toward her own narrative imagery intended to provoke impressions of gender, sexuality, and the influence of popular culture on our sense of self. April 5 & 7 – Nathan Murray – BIPOC of Nebraska Nathan Murray talks about his experiences creating figurative ceramic work that touches on societal issues of race by representing the stories and experiences of BIPOC Nebraskans in clay.  He explores the need for intersectional activism and creating ties of mutual support, along with the unique role art can play in engaging with people of diverse identities.  Nathan discusses the importance of representation, finding inspiration within the process of creating his work.