James Haggerty
Elementa Naturae #15
161477
OPENING RECEPTION 1st THURDAY, AUGUST 2 FROM 5 - 8PM
Sullivan Goss is proud to present an exhibition of new ceramic sculpture by Santa Barbara’s own James & Linda Haggerty in context with the Art Nouveau, Arts & Crafts, and Mission Revival exhibition of color etchings, NELL BROOKER MAYHEW: Selected Works.
When Santa Barbara ceramic artist James Haggerty began to clean up the thick blanket of ash that the Thomas Fire had deposited in his yard last December, he thought that perhaps the ash would make an interesting glaze, so he filled up a container and brought to his studio. Months later, he and his wife decided to create a special body of work about transformation and rebirth, where all of the glazes used contained Thomas Fire ash as well as Montecito Mud. There are over 600 common elements and compounds that can be used for the formulation of glazes alone. Each brings their own unique qualities when added to a glaze, including the ash from the Thomas Fire. The technical mastery of glaze chemistry needed to bring a foreign substance, born of tragedy, into a glaze recipe that will produce beautiful colors and textures under intense heat is very nearly magical.
Every piece by James begins as a wheel-thrown vessel form, but some are then suspended upside down on an armature, where they are sculpted using gravity and the flow of water. The results will remind some viewers of the flowing lines and organic shapes of Art Nouveau, while some of the idiosyncratic shapes will recall the work of the Mad Potter of Biloxi, George Ohr. This is a new series for the artist whose forms are usually contemporary notions of Arts & Crafts and midcentury vessels.
This exhibition also includes seven strong pieces by Linda Haggerty. Usually known for more graphic and design oriented ceramic processes like sgraffito (drawing by incision with a pointed tool) and glazes applied as though they were painted, in this exhibition she has hand-built a number of pieces that employ strong metaphors about transformation, rebirth, and emotional healing. These forms can be ancient, as in the kylix form in Rise & Soar or drawn from drawn from her childhood as in Three Wishes. There are metaphorical symbols like the phoenix feather in Metamorphosis and visual metaphors as in Paradigm Shift.
A portion of the proceeds from the work sold will be given to the Unity Shoppe, which long term disaster assistance services.
Come to the opening. Explore, acquire, network, and celebrate!
Ask any witness about the devastation wrought by the Montecito mudslides, and there’s a strong likelihood that you’ll hear a description of the mud itself: the “big stewing soup of it,” as T.C. Boyle memorably put in his short story “I Walk Between the Raindrops” in the July 30 issue of the New Yorker. In Phoenix Rising, the new exhibit at Sullivan Goss, An American Gallery (11 E. Anapamu St.), ceramic artists James and Linda Haggerty are asking us all to take another look at the mud and ash distributed by January’s debris flow, but not because they want to take us back to the scene of the disaster; instead, they want to imagine a way forward.
