Ceramics Research Center

The ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center at Arizona State University is pleased to present the Jan Fisher Memorial Lecture Series. Named in honor of Jan Fisher, an art history graduate student and active CLA (Ceramics Leaders of ASU) member who passed away in February 2006, the lecture series brings to the Phoenix community both established and emerging women ceramic artists. While on campus, all of the participating artists will meet with art students and become acquainted with the ASU Herberger College of the Arts programs.

We thank Mr. and Mrs. Cole Fisher and their family, whose support enabled us to offer this multi-year series for the benefit of ASU students, staff and the general public.

Speaker Profiles:

ANNABETH ROSEN
Oct. 16, 2008, 7 p.m.

TANYA BATURA
April 10, 2008, 7 p.m.

Tanya Batura, Sourire en Bois, 2007 ceramic, acrylic
10 x 14 x 9"

The ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center was honored to welcome Tanya Batura as a featured speaker for the Jan Fisher Memorial Lecture Series. Batura is a Los Angeles-based artist, who has focuses her work on the figure, drawing from a diverse range of influences, including fashion models, surgical procedures and photography.

“My figures are a compilation of conflicting ideas and emotions that are derivative of the ideal beauty inherent in traditional figurative sculpture and the abstract beauty that is found in the contemporary non-artistic photographic representation of the body.”

BETTY WOODMAN
January 26, 2008, 1 p.m.

 

Betty Woodman, Pillow Pitcher, c. 1980, glazed earthenware, 17 ½ x 24 x 13 ½”
Gift of Anne and Sam Davis
ASU Art Museum Collection
 

One of the most influential American ceramists of the 20th century, Betty Woodman integrates color and form into complex sculpture based on the historical traditions of pottery-making; most notably Asian and Italian majolica. Woodman was honored in 2006 as the first living woman artist to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and is represented in museum collections worldwide.

PATTI WARASHINA
March 20, 2007, 7 p.m.

Patti Warashina, What’s That Falling from the Sky, 1980, porcelain and plexiglass, 23 x 36 x 20”, gift of Joyce and Jay Cooper
ASU Art Museum Collection

Internationally acclaimed ceramic sculptor Patti Warashina’s divergent influences include Asian ceramic traditions, Surrealism and California Funk ceramics. A major figure in the development of studio ceramics and Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington, Warashina is credited with bringing national recognition to Northwest ceramics and influencing a new generation of contemporary ceramic artists. She is best known for her humorous figurative sculptures with whimsical themes expressed through low-fire, highly colored images. Often satirical, her dreamlike autobiographical sculptures are seductive and playful, yet explore provocative subject matter.

JULIE YORK
September 11, 2007, 7 p.m.

 

Julie York, Blindness, 2003, mixed media
27 x 18 x 13”

Julie York describes her art as “a reflection of how she sees.” York’s mixed-media sculpture and installations reflect a dynamic intellectual and visual exploration of her day-to-day experiences and surrounding environment. Found objects reproduced in slip- cast porcelain juxtaposed with metal, glass and plastic, question her own, and the viewers, perceptions.

NORA NARANJO-MORSE
October 24 , 2007, 7 p.m.

 

Nora Naranjo-Morse, The Tribe, 2005
Variable dimensions, 34 pieces
Private Collection

Nora Naranjo-Morse, a Native American artist from the Santa Clara Pueblo, explores contemporary issues in a wide variety of media: clay, bronze, video and poetry. Morse embraces traditional practices of working with clay imbued by her concerns with community, the environment and what it means to be a Native American woman in today’s society. She freely challenges perceptions and expectations, expressing issues of gender and aging in a humorous, yet potent manner.

 

ASU | Herberger College | ASU Art Museum | Internal Resources | Staff Directory