ARTWORK by FACULTY OF THE SOUTHWEST SCHOOL OF ART

The Hill Country Arts Foundation is proud to present “Mastery in Clay,” artwork by the faculty of the Southwest School of Art Ceramic Department that is currently on display in the Creek Side Gallery of the HCAF Visual Arts Center through October 16th. 

Artists who are featured in the exhibition include Dennis Smith, the Chairman of the Ceramic Department at the Southwest School of Art & Craft since 1976, Jennifer Datchuk, Wesley Harvey, Diana Kersey, Dale Neese, Kimberly Rumfelt, Ryan Takaba and Lyn Woods, Development Assistant at the SSAC.

            Smith has taught as an adjunct faculty at Trinity University, San Antonio Art Institute and San Antonio College. His work appeared in numerous publications including Ceramics Monthly, “An Opportunity for Growth: Dennis Smith and the Southwest School of Art & Craft” (1998 May Issue); and Ceramics: Art & Perception, “Against Dichotomy: Dennis Smith’s Conversations in Clay” (2005 Issue #59). His work has been shown extensively throughout the United States including the 43^rd Annual National Drawing & Small Sculpture Show (Best of Show Purchase Award, Dennis Smith/Verne Funk).

            Datchuk is a ceramic artist whose work addresses issues of conflict, as experienced from the perspectives of identity, gender and race in her family. Through the manipulation of forms and surfaces, she captures this conflict by transforming domestic objects to reveal the beauty, dysfunction and fragility of familial settings.  She has participated in study abroad programs at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana, West Africa and at the Sanbao Ceramic Institute in Jingdezhen, China.