March 31, 2009

Troy University students exhibit work at Wiregrass Museum of Art

TROY, Ala. – The ceramic artwork of Troy University art and design students is currently on display in the Wiregrass Museum of Art in the exhibit “The Formative Years.”
 
The artwork will be on exhibit in the Museum’s Dove East Gallery through April 11.
 
The students under the instruction of Larry Percy, associate professor of art and design, used a variety of forming methods including pinching, pinching and coiling, coil building, building with slabs and throwing on the wheel.
 
“The transformative journey of working with wet clay, having it record your every touch and nudge and then coaxing it through days and weeks of drying, glazing, and firing, really does develop into a relationship with the substance and the process,” Percy said. “Seeing those students’ faces when those pieces are on the pedestals and lit in a museum setting, it is hard to tell who is transformed more, the students or the clay. And it just makes them hunger for more knowledge. Mud and fire….it doesn’t get much more primal or elemental than that.”
 
Percy said he is proud the students have this opportunity to have their work exhibited.
 
“It is very gratifying after eight years of program building to see students’ hard work and dedication rewarded with a museum show of their own,” he said. “The volume, scale and caliber of works that were produced to create this exhibition is pretty stunning. What is even more surprising is that for many of these students, it was their first course in ceramics and the first time they had ever worked with clay. I am very proud of what they have done and what we have been able to accomplish.”
 
Students participating in the exhibit are:
 

• Walter Black, a senior from Troy;
• Johanna Diaz, a junior from Itasca, Texas;
• Nina Franks, a senior from Brierfield;
• Jamie Keith, a junior from Daleville;
• Stefani Slaughter, a junior from Birmingham;
• Victoria Smith, a graduate school candidate from Seale;
• Thomas Stanton, a senior from Gulf Shores;
• Angie Stadler, a junior from Cullman;
• Larissa Thompson, a senior from Campbellton, Fla.;
• Xiaoran Li, a junior from Shandong, China;
• Paige Miller, a senior from Fairhope;
• Lyla Nelson, a junior from Madison;
• Davina Tindoll, a senior from Enterprise; and
• April Watson, a senior from Brewton.