Archie Bray Foundation | Visiting Artists

2012 Visiting Artists and Workshop Instructors

Christa Assad, a mid-career artist based in Berkeley, CA, is best known for her ReObjectification series—teapot designs based on objects and buildings from American industry.

A teacher, traveler and full-time ceramist with an MFA from Indiana University, Assad’s work is in the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Ceramics Research Center at Arizona State University Museum and the Penn State Fulbright Scholar Collection, among others. Assad is represented by Ferrin Gallery, Harvey Meadows Gallery and Fourth & Clay. She teaches and exhibits internationally, creating both useful and sculptural pieces that begin on the potter’s wheel, but move beyond the round.

Nicholas Bivins, originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, received an MFA from Ohio University and a BFA and BA from the University of Washington, Seattle. He is currently a long-term resident at the Archie Bray Foundation where he received the Matsutani Fellowship. He is also a 2011 NCECA emerging artist.

Bivins makes highly functional, uniquely handmade objects for use. The reductive minimal aesthetic found in his work is abstracted from his appreciation for all things precisely done with style. The ceramic pieces are high-fire slip cast porcelain with glaze and decals; the trays the pots rest upon are CNC-milled MDF, with automotive paint and rubber.

Andrea Gill is a Professor of Ceramic Art at Alfred University’s College of Ceramics. She earned her BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, and earned an MFA from Alfred University in New York. She has been a resident at the Archie Bray Foundation and Anderson Ranch, and was awarded two Artist Fellowship Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. She has taught workshops across the US and Canada, exhibited nationally and internationally, and is currently represented by the Harvey Meadows Gallery in Aspen, Colorado. Her work is in many private and public collections. She maintains a studio with her husband, John Gill, in Alfred, NY.

Walter Keeler studied at the Harrow School of Art in Middlesex, England. Keeler has an international reputation, and is noted for training production potters. He established his first studio in 1965. In 1976, he moved his pottery to Wales where he continues to create functional pots as well as lecture on ceramics around the world.

“My work is informed by my passion for pots from the past, but also by making and firing, and the world and times in which I live. Sometimes I make simple, useful things like mugs or jugs; on other occasions my work is less straightforward, making demands, even challenging the user to negotiate with an unexpected pot to do an ordinary job. I hope my pottery brings, with its seriousness, some humor and sensual pleasure.” – Keeler

Matt Long received his MFA in ceramics from Ohio University and his BFA in ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute. After receiving his MFA, Long went on to become a teaching lab specialist, adjunct faculty and visiting assistant professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville for six and a half years. Currently, Long is an Associate Professor of Art and the Graduate Coordinator for the Department of Art at the University of Mississippi. Long has become a well-known workshop presenter, teaching workshops and lectures at over 40 universities, colleges and art centers both nationally and internationally.

Matthew Metz has been making his living as a studio potter for the last 25 years. He shares a home and studio in Alfred Station, NY with potter/educator Linda Sikora. He received his MFA from Edinboro University in PA and his BFA from Ball State University in Muncie, IN, and was a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation from 1989–1991.

Metz has received multiple awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Crafts Fellowship and two McKnight Fellowships from the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, MN. He exhibits and sells his pottery internationally and at locations throughout the US, including the St. Croix Pottery Tour, MN, the Old Church Pottery Show, NJ, and the Philadelphia Craft Show, PA. His work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Liz Quackenbush is a studio potter and a professor at Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA. Her pottery has been exhibited across the US and internationally.

She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and her graduate degree from RIT in Rochester, NY. Quackenbush spends her summers with her family camping in Vermont. She was a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation from 1995–1996.

Brad Schwieger has been teaching at Ohio University since 1990 and is presently a Professor of Art and Ceramics Area Chairman. Schwieger received his MFA from Utah State University and his BFA from the University of Iowa. He has shown nationally and internationally and his work has been included in more than 400 exhibitions throughout the US, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, England, Germany, Czech Republic, Lithuania and Spain. Schwieger has presented workshops and lectures at more than 80 universities, colleges and art centers. His work has been published in Ceramics Monthly, American Craft, Clay Times, Ceramics Art and Perception, as well as several textbooks.

Christina West lives in Atlanta, GA, where she is a sculptor and assistant professor of art at Georgia State University. West received a BFA from Siena Heights University and an MFA from Alfred University. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Archie Bray Foundation, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE, and the Clay Studio in Philadelphia, PA. She shows her work extensively across the country and is represented by Mindy Solomon Gallery.