EXHIBITS Oct. 3 - Nov. 9 at The Artisan Gallery 162 Main Street Northampton, MA 413-586-1942 The Artisan Gallery is pleased and proud to announce the opening of Chuck Stern’s exhibit: Sculptural Ceramics. This exhibit will feature the results of Chuck’s work of the past two years exploring form and texture with an unusual Shigaraki style clay. Primarily working in the vase form, Chuck hand builds sculptural and functional pieces that reflect both architecture and the natural world. Chuck Stern: Sculptural Ceramics will be on exhibit: Oct. 3 - Nov 9, 2008 Please join us for the opening reception with the artist: Oct. 11 from 5-8 pm Chuck comments on the work: I came to clay by way of woodworking, painting and photography. And as time-consuming as the others were to learn, clay seems to me the most difficult medium to assimilate - it’s simply the most willful of the bunch. A teacher of mine, Sadashi Inazuka said, “Chuck, the clay is 10,000 years old - it knows more than you do.” And while it may seem a quaint homily (it did to me at the time), it turns out that the only pieces I feel have any satisfying qualities are the ones I didn’t try to beat into submission. The results were far more satisfying when I was patient enough to catch the hints the clay was giving - when I was calm enough to step back and see/feel the next step … And because I’m forced (?!) to slow down and spend time out of my usual head chatter, clay has allowed me to plumb deeper into the unknown. To create something that I had not seen before hand - that my hand saw before my brain. It’s a real gift of the medium. So part of the goal is simply to learn how to work with this wonder-full stuff. It seems akin to learning a foreign language; first the teachers (great local potters) give you vocabulary, then sentences and then some phrases. Then you put together a combination of colloquial phrases, find some inflection or rhythm. Then you expand your vocabulary with success and beautiful serendipitous mistakes. You begin to acquire the tools that form the basis of your ability to communicate. You begin to trust your understanding - and your work expands into that trust. Like language, it is finally only developed from time spent using it. Clay and work are the ultimate teachers. Part of the goal is to make artifacts that sit in the room like the interesting stranger you hope to meet at a party - fine looking, a colorful story-teller and a good listener. One who keeps you entertained with new ideas and interesting takes on old ones. But even the works that turn out shy or obtuse should mean well and have enough character to amply repay your efforts to get to know them. It would be wonderful to make something that adds a bit of respite from the everyday internal conversation and leaves you feeling better after your encounter. But short of that, I would hope they would lend some sweetness to the ether. And the final part is wondering where this stuff will take me tomorrow and tomorrows. These pieces are the result of a search for an unknown, satisfying form within the constraints of the available technical tools, a lifelong cache of visual patterns, and the emotional wiring that drives me forward and holds me back. My work is predominantly coil built and soda fired, often multiple times in a cross-draft kiln. It is fired to 2300 f, with the soda added at about 2200 f for about an hour.