"Thinking with Animals"

Animals have been subjects in art and ceramics throughout history and across all cultures. These creatures have been used as symbols, archetypes, and to speak to the human relationship with nature. Animals provide a universally understood way to examine ideas that may be difficult to discuss or understand in any other form. The artists in "Thinking with Animals" are a diverse representation of gender identity, culture, backgrounds, and career stages. Likewise, the range of building techniques demonstrated in the work on display includes slip casting, paper clay, solid building, hollow building, wheel throwing and mixed media.

"Thinking with Animals" came together after CMA hosted Taylor Robenalt’s solo exhibition in 2020, Symbolic Narrative. Taylor described a small exhibition she was working on with a few fellow ceramic artists (Ariel Bowman and Shelsea Dodd) for the upcoming NCECA conference. After looking over the synopsis of the exhibition, we started working on building a larger scale exhibition for CMA. Taylor, Ariel and Shelsea each selected artists whose work they felt reflected the theme of the exhibit and those artists were then encouraged to invite one to two fellow artists of their own selection. The exhibit grew from there and we are excited to have this incredibly diverse celebration of over 50 ceramic artists in our galleries to share with our visitors.