Embracing Doubt
Instructor: Wayne Higby
October 10–11, 2009

In this two-day demonstration based workshop Higby will share his personal manifesto and process as a maker. His unique vision of the American Landscape and its manifestation in work ranging from vessel form to tile, sculpture and architectural installation has brought him international recognition.  Since 1991, Higby has traveled and taught extensively in the Peoples Republic of China and in 2004 he became the first foreign national to be acclaimed an Honorary Citizen of the “porcelain city“of Jingdezhen. 

Higby will facilitate conversations about contemporary ceramic art and answer questions participants have about their own work. Participants are asked to bring a piece of artwork and prepare a question.

All artists are welcome. No clay experience is necessary.

Wayne HIGBY is a ceramic artist and educator.  Higby received his BFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an MFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is a professor and the Robert C. Turner Chair of Ceramic Art at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, NY.

His work is held in the permanent collections of art museums around the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; as well as the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.  Higby is the recipient of both the Master of the Media and the Distinguished Educator awards from the James Renwick Alliance and the American Craft Museum (Museum of Arts and Design, New York) Visionary award. Higby is an Honorary Professor of Art at Shanghai University and the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute as well as a faculty member of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing.  Higby is a member of Honor of the United States National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA), a Life Trustee of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and the Vice President of the International Academy of Ceramics, Geneva, Switzerland.  A major book on Wayne Higby’s work and his project “EarthCloud” ---the largest hand cut porcelain, architectural installation in the world---has recently been published by Arnoldsche, Stuttgart, Germany.