Ceramics artist will give talk, demonstrations at UND April 8 and 9

Document Type

News Article

Publication Date

3-26-2015

Campus Unit

College of Arts & Sciences

Abstract

The University of North Dakota Department of Art & Design’s Visiting Artist Series presents Kurt Weiser, a ceramics artist whose works are in the San Francisco Museum of Fine Art, the Smithsonian, Victorian and Albert Museum in London, and museums in Finland, China, and Japan, among others.

Weiser's talk is set for 5 p.m. Thursday, April 9, in the Paul E. Barr Memorial Lecture Room (room 227) in the Hughes Fine Arts Center on campus. He will conduct demonstrations in the ceramics area of Hughes Fine Arts Center from 9 to 11:30 a.m. and 1 to 3:30 p.m. April 8. Demonstrations continue April 9 from 9:30 a.m. to noon and 1:30 to 4 p.m.

About the artist Kurt Weiser is an internationally acclaimed ceramic artist whose work is in public and private collections around the world. Born in 1950 in Lansing, Mich., he studied ceramics under Ken Fergusen at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1972-1976 and then completed an MFA at the University of Michigan.

In 1988, after he served as director of the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Mont., Weiser started teaching ceramics at Arizona State University, where he has held the position of Regents' Professor of Art since August 2000.

Weiser began his career by making sculptural porcelain vessels, but soon turned his attention to painting on porcelain. His allegorical scenes, painted in a natural realism style on his distinctive forms, have become easily recognizable works of a porcelain painting master.

Weiser Statement For years, the work I did in ceramics was an effort to somehow express the beautiful nature of the material. As interesting as this exploration was, I always had the vague feeling that the best expression was if the material only came as a gift of nature. The problem was, nature and I never got along that well. Somewhere in the midst of this struggle, I realized that the materials are there to allow me to say what I need to say, not to tell me what to say. So I gave up trying to control nature and decided to use what I had learned about the materials to express some ideas about nature itself and my place in it. -Kurt Weiser

The Visiting Artist Series The Department of Art & Design’s Visiting Artist events are possible through generous funding provided by the Colonel Eugene E. Myers Foundation.

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