The works of three master potters will be featured in a show opening at Santa Fe Clay
Devotion to creating fine art that is also functional characterizes the work of three master potters featured in a show opening today at Santa Fe Clay. The sturdy but alluring stoneware works of Mary Barringer, Matthew Metz and S.C. Rolf open with an evening reception and run through Oct. 4 in the pottery studio-cum-gallery in the Railyard.
Mary Barringer
Barringer, who works in a small town in western Massachusetts, has been making pottery for a little more than 35 years, she told the Journal. “I got into it a little bit by accident,” she said. “I was in college, and thought I was going to do sculpture, but I got sidetracked into pottery. This was the ’70s and I was attracted to how accessible it was, how functional and available. And then, I was very drawn to the clay. I think just about every serious potter has had that tactile epiphany.”
Barringer said the accessibility to ceramic art appealed to her. “Most of my pieces are hand-built using slabs and coils,” she said. “And I do a lot of work on the surface with slips and tools. I like the way the layers interact.” Her work is fired mid-range in an electric kiln.
Barringer lives in a town of 2,000. “It’s a rural area, but my studio is in town, so I do have interaction with other artists — this town (she declined to say the town’s name) is very open to artists, so there is a high percentage of artists here. It gives one a feeling of company.”
She will be teaching at Anderson Ranch this weekend and unable to attend the opening. “I love Santa Fe Clay,” Barringer hastened to add. “I love the space they have for the gallery. I am an admirer of the work of Matthew Metz and S.C. Rolf and really glad they’re showing us together. I think the juxtapositions will be interesting.”
Matthew Metz
Metz, a ceramic artist based in Minnesota, was not available for an interview. According to biographical information, Metz’s influences include Asian pottery traditions, Greek and Roman pots, early American decorative arts like quilts and face jugs and other folk traditions. His pots are carved and drawn. They are decorative but “still relevant to contemporary life,” he has said. The images are often abstract but deeply personal.
Metz received a bachelor of fine arts degree from Ball State University and his master’s degree from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. He has been a guest lecturer and teacher throughout the country and his work can be found in the Arkansas Arts Center, Minneapolis Institute for the Arts and the Archie Bray Foundation.
According to Barringer, Metz fires his pots with wood, which means his work can show the atmospheric effects of the kiln, much like the work of S.C. Rolf, who fires with gas, she added.
S.C. Rolf
Rolf, equally well-known, lives in River Falls, Wis., near the Minnesota border. Holder of two BFAs — one in painting and one in ceramics — and a graduate degree from the ceramics program at Alfred University, he has been a professional potter for 13 years.
“I have always been involved with the visual arts,” he told the Journal. “I think my interest in pottery may stem from my upbringing on a family farm. I was attracted to the cycles of the art — working the clay, making the piece, drying it, firing and glazing. It’s like the cyclical nature of farm work.
“And then I also liked being able to physically push the medium around,” Rolf said, echoing Barringer’s “tactile epiphany.”
Functionality is absolutely key to his work, Rolf said. “If I had my way, I’d be one of those nutty people who make everything in their lives — all the furniture, everything,” he said with a laugh.
Rolf described his work as architecturally influenced, a vestige of his farm childhood. “I grew up around buildings — barns, houses, sheds, etc. I think I became attuned to looking at structural details,” he said.
Nevertheless, nature also impacts his work. “I’m really interested in formal ideas, but ideas about small features come from plants and textiles,” he said. “I work with wet or leather-hard pottery and then use glazes to veil that information.”
If You Go
WHAT: Mary Barringer, Matthew Metz, and S.C. Rolf
WHEN: Today through Oct. 4; reception 5-7 p.m. today
WHERE: Santa Fe Clay, 1615 Paseo de Peralta (in the Railyard)
CONTACT: 974-1122; www.santafeclay.com
