Clay Art Center

Clay Art Center is proud to present Lana Wilson Invites…, an exhibition featuring the work of nationally recognized California clay artist Lana Wilson and four artists of her choosing.  Exhibiting with Lana will be renowned functional potters Margaret Bohls, Nan Coffin, Bernadette Curran and Leah Leitson. 

You can never get too much of Lana Wilson.   We were in communication about her coming to do a workshop for us here at Clay Art Center, and we saw an opportunity to bring her, her work, and her vision to Clay Art Center all at once, and quickly turned her workshop weekend event into an exhibition as well.   Lana also saw this as an opportunity not to just showcase her work, but the work of other artists whose work she admires, and she asked if she could invite some artists to exhibit along with her.  This is what she wrote about her invitees:  “I wanted a variety of functional work for this exhibition.  Margaret Bohls offers innovative and elegantly constructed handbuilt functional ware. Nan Coffin contributes calm,highly approachable thrown reduction utilitarian works, while Bernadette Curran’sthrown work delights us with expressive colorful animals.   Leah Leitson brings us elegance with her thrown porcelain work, and my new work is about function and color through a layered colored slip process that is like the fabric shibori.” This exhibit promises to delight and inspire, as well as expand our notions of function and form.

Lana Wilson has given more than 85 workshops on handbuilding and has taught in Canada, Israel, New Zealand and South Africa. She has written a column for Clay Times magazine since 1996. Her work has been in over 185 shows and appears in fourteen books including both volumes of The Best of Pottery and Kathy Triplett's Handbuilt Ceramics and several of Robin Hopper's books. She is the author of Ceramics: Shape and Surface, which includes extensive cone 6 and cone 04 electric glazes she has developed. A video "Soft Slab Techniques with Lana Wilson" has been produced on her working techniques and she was a featured demonstrator at 2003 NCECA where a DVD was also produced on her working process. After serving on the board of Craft Emergency Relief Fund for four terms, she is now on the board of Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. She has appeared twice on Discovery Channel to extol the delights of working in clay while making a teapot.

Margaret Bohls is a studio potter and educator who lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has been teaching ceramics at the University of Minnesota since 1998, during which time she has also been visiting faculty at Ohio University, Penn State University, and NSCAD University in Halifax. Margaret has also taught many community classes and workshops at art centers and universities across the country. In her studio, Margaret makes hand-built porcelain pottery which she shows and sells both locally and nationally. For more information about Margeret, visit her web site at http://www.margaretbohls.com.

Nan Coffin’s clay career began in central Indiana in the mid-1970’s. She is a self-taught potter, although many influences have come from other potters, books, trade journals, and the many clay workshops and conferences she has attended. Nan moved to southern Indiana in the mid ‘80s and started Log Creek Pottery and studio gallery. At Log Creek Pottery she made a variety of functional wares, from majolica to stoneware and porcelain woodfired pottery. In 2001, Nan relocated to San Diego where she continues as a studio potter, sharing clay and kilns with her potter husband, Richard Burkett. Nan also worked with the Studio Potter Network, helping to coordinate efforts of studio potters, guilds and organizations. More recently she has been the Vice President of the San Diego Potters' Guild.

Bernadette Curranis a studio potter in Pennsylvania. She received her BFA from Pennsylvania State University and a MFA in Ceramics at Ohio State University. She has been awarded fellowships from Baltimore Clayworks in Maryland; Chester Springs Studio in Chester Spring, Pennsylvania, and the Moravian Pottery & Tile Works in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She has exhibited widely and has given workshops at many schools and art centers around the country, and is currently teaching drawing and ceramics in the Philadelphia area.

Leah Leitson received her M.F.A. in ceramics from Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge in 1996 and her undergraduate B.F.A. in ceramics from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred, New York, in 1984. She completed residencies at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT. and Banff Center for the Arts in Alberta, CN. She is a member of the Piedmont Craftsmen, Inc. and the Southern Highland Craft Guild. She is a studio potter, has led many workshops through out the U.S., including Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC, Arrowmont School of Crafts, Gatlinberg, TN and currently full time faculty at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC.  Leah works exclusively in porcelain. Her work is predominantly inspired by the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century decorative arts, particularly utilitarian table wares and Sevres porcelain, as well as being inspired by plant forms in nature.