July 2006 Featured Artists
CLAY / LIGHT / GRAPHITE SHOW FEATURES CERAMICS, PHOTOGRAPHY AND DRAWINGS
The work of Marguerite DeLucia Hall, Eric Hovermale and Thomas McCullough was on exhibit throughout July 2006. Hall makes softly colored pots realized in a pit firing. Hovermale's specialty is photographing nudes with subtle drapery, Thomas McCullough draws highly detailed pattern of leaves with graphite pencil.
Marguerite DeLucia Hall
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ARTIST'S STATEMENT I've been working with clay for over a dozen years and its adaptability continues to fascinate me. Though I currently use several different types of clay and several different methods of firing, the work that I am showing at the DeBlois Gallery, July 2006, is handbuilt, non-functional vessels which are pit or sawdust fired. I was inspired early on by Native American works in clay. I was drawn to the handbuilding techniques and the fullbodied spherical forms. Though I use clay slab and have made several molds from organic shapes, my primary handbuilding work is done with coils. The firing process is special for me because it is done outdoors using basic materials such as cut wood and sawdust for fuel, and copper, seaweed, steel wool and salt for color. I enjoy the process of gathering the materials, driving to my friend Mika's farm where I have my pit, and placing all the materials side by side with my pots and setting it all on fire. From the wood and sawdust, pots become black and gray as carbonization takes place. From the copper, seaweed, salt etc. there will be bold shades of orange and dark red, and softer shades of blue and yellow. The colors and markings from the fire become not just a covering, they become one with the pot.
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ARTIST'S STATEMENT Eric Hovermale lives and works in Newport, RI. Although he studied to be a painter, he has concentrated on photography for the past ten years. The subject matter for his photography centers principally on the figure and on the portrait. His figure studies are primarily explorations of movement, form, and light. Both his figure studies and his portraits express the human spirit, as well as the external form of his subjects. He is a member of the Newport Art Museum, the Photographers’ Guild of the Newport Museum, the Art League of Rhode Island, the South County Art Association, and the Mystic Art Association. Recent Exhibitions: Arnold’s Art Gallery, Newport, RI, June 2006, Invitational Show: Newport – Through an Artist’s Eye South County Art Association, Kingston, RI, June 2006, Members’ Invitational Show Jessica Hagen Gallery, Newport, RI, May 2006, Invitational Show: The Silver Circle Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI, April 2006, Members’ Show: Photographers’ Guild of the Newport Art Museum Island Arts, Newport, RI, March 2006, 8th Annual Unjuried Show Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI, March 2006, 2006 Juried Members’ Show Rhode Island Foundation, Providence, RI, March 2006, Invitational Juried Show: The Art League of Rhode Island at The Rhode Island Foundation Education: M.F.A. Visual Design University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Massachusetts
B.A. Art Berea College, Berea, Kentucky
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NEPENTHE VII
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Thomas McCullough
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LEAVES II graphite
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ARTIST'S STATEMENT I have been a serious artist all my life, but not productive of a living income. So as the term ‘professional’ is currently used, I am not a professional artist. In the original sense of the word, I am a professional artist for it is thereby that I profess higher and deeper reality, God only knows how successfully. In the economic sense of the word, my profession involved jobs labeled ‘artist,’ ‘illustrator’ or ‘designer,’ but that’s another story and not really relevant. My first medium was the graphite pencil. I find it now is my primary medium as it had never been since childhood. I have worked in a number of media and mostly loved them each as a man might love a woman. But I love drawing in pencil as a man might love his mother, something assumed, unquestioned and as ordinary, necessary, deep and beautiful as water. Two experiences in my childhood inform this, my art. One is the discovery of chiaroscuro. I was overwhelmed and profoundly impressed. It was as if I’d found that I could fly or breathe water. It still amazes me that with shading one can express depth. I did not learn the word chiaroscuro until much later, but it’s a really cool word. Such a miracle deserves a special word. The second experience was getting glasses. When I took an eye test, I couldn’t read the big “E,” was 20/900 or something like that. So glasses instantly advanced me to 20/20. It was an indescribable experience. I was astonished and moved deeply by the infinity of detail. I particularly remember the branches, so many branches, of the winter trees and the grain of the granite curbstone. I am still amazed at the immensity of detail that make a single tree. Trees particularly, wonderful, wonderful and wonderful again. But I am rather the sort of artist who does a better leaf than tree.
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