Joy Brown Workshop

Sculpting With Joy

Joy will be teaching the coil-pinch-paddle method she uses to create her large, wood-fired figure sculptures. She will demonstrate the basic techniques and lead participants in a hands-on sculpting exercise. Joy will also talk about living in Japan and her apprenticeship, how these affected her clay work, and how her work and life have evolved together since. Due to the hands-on nature of the workshop, only 15 participants will be enrolled.

The workshop and slide lecture are being held in conjunction with an exhibit of Joy's work at The Signature Shop gallery in Buckhead.

About Joy Brown

A child of medical missionaries to Japan, I spent eighteen years of my life there. After college in the United States, I returned to Japan to work as an apprentice in pottery for four years. In the rigorous discipline of a traditional Japanese apprenticeship, working with clay became a way of life.

During that time I was required to make thousands of cups, never firing one. Submission to the demands of this process tought me the technical skills, a disciplined concentration, and an understanding of and respect for the clay. It also taught me that my experience while working with clay is just as important as the finished piece. Whether it is a pot or a sculpture, ceramic or bronze, the piece will reflect the spirit in which it was made.

I now work in Kent, Connecticut, where I built a 28-foot-long Japanese style anagama wood-firing kiln. A year of my work is fired at once, in an intense 24-hour-a-day, week-long firing. The resulting warm rich colors and rugged texture are gifts of heat and ash to the clay, bringing life to the unglazed forms.

Joy Brown Resume

ONE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS

Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery, Kent, CT, 1989-2004

Elena Zang Gallery, Shady (Woodstock), NY 2003

Hiro Gallery, Wakayama, Japan, 2002

Kumagai Museum, Tokyo, 1994 Au Gallery, Osaka, 1994

Paris-New York-Bangkok Gallery, Thailand, 1994

Gallery Gianna Sistu, Paris, 1993

Paris-New York-Kent Gallery, Kent, CT, 1988

Departure Gallery, New York, NY, 1983-1991

Mingei Gallery, New York, NY, 1981

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Elena Zang Gallery, Shady (Woodstock), NY, 1997-2004

Signature Shop and Gallery, Atlanta, GA, 2003-2004

Munson Gallery, Chatham, MA, 2004

Seton Gallery, Univ. of New Haven, CT, The Fire Within, 2004

Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa, International Juried Wood Five, 2004

Germain Keller Gallery, New York, NY, Passionate Fire, 2003

Ohio Craft Museum, Columbus, OH, Clay, Wood, Fire, Salt, 2001

Worcester Center for Crafts, MA, Invoking the Source: The Ancient Feminine, 2001

Blue Heron Gallery, Deer Isles, ME, Thirty Stokers, 2000

University of Iowa Museum of Arts, International Wood-fire Exhibition, 1999

Odyssey Gallery, Asheville, NC, Wood, Salt, Soda: Atmospheric Fired Ceramic, 1999

Brookfield Craft Center, CT, Woodfire in America, 1996

Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN, Clay, Wood, and Fire, 1996

Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, CT, Containers, 1992

Wheeler-Seidel Gallery, New York, NY, 1990-1992

University of Iowa Museum of Arts, American Woodfire, 1991

AWARDS AND PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY

Ruth Steinkraus-Cohen Memorial Outstanding Women of Connecticut Award, 2003

One Earth, One Family wall mural commission, Hartford Hospital, Hartford, CT, 2002

Presenter, 1st & 2nd International Wood-fire Conference, Iowa University, 1991, 1999

Co-founded Still Mountain Center to foster East-West artistic exchange, 1998

Featured in The New York Times; The International Herald Tribune; House and Garden; Ceramics Monthly; Studio Potter; Woodfired Stoneware and Porcelain (Jack Troy); Whimsy in the Garden (Martin & Brown); 500 Figures in Clay (V. Gunter)

Ruth Chenven Foundation grant for kiln construction, 1986

Wakayama Museum award in ceramic sculpture, 1981

EDUCATION

Raised and schooled in Japan, 1951-1968

B.A. in Fine Arts, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL, 1972

Ceramic apprenticeships in Japan, 1975-1978

Researched kilns and potteries in Korea and Japan, including Okinawa, 1978