Bio
Joseph Sand (b. 1982, Austin, MN) graduated from Austin High School in 2001. He trained as a sculptor at the University of Minnesota, receiving a B.F.A. with honors in 2006. During his undergraduate courses, he studied art for one year in Italy, followed by another year in England, after receiving a very competitive, college¬wide scholarship. While in England, he worked alongside many prolific potters, including Svend Bayer and Clive Bowen, which heavily influenced his direction as an artist, taking up functional pottery as a means of personal expression. He completed a three-year and a half year apprenticeship with Mark Hewitt in 2009 and now resides in Randleman, North Carolina. Joseph built a 40-foot anagama kiln and makes functional and sculptural ceramics full¬time. He fires his large, wood¬fired kiln three times a year, and the majority of his work is sold on his property during kiln opening sales. Joseph's work is also represented in several galleries across the United States. His functional work combines the styles of traditional, Southern alkaline glazeware and East Asian design, among others
Artist Statement
My ceramic work is created in the heart of North Carolina: Randolph County. In 2010, I built, brick by North Carolina brick, a 40-foot-long, 8-foot-wide kiln on my property outside of Randleman. This unique kiln not only allows me to wood-fire a large body of work, but to infuse my pottery quite literally with the spirit of the Piedmont Triad.
If you look closely at my work, you will see the red North Carolina clay I use to shape everything from coffee cups to large sculptural outdoor planters. I fire the kiln with pine slab offcuts from a local sawmill. Three times a year, I invite the community to kiln openings so they can see my work, talk with me, meet my wife Amanda and our two young sons, and take home a piece of authentic North Carolina pottery. The best part of my potter’s life is meeting my
customers face to face and witnessing their excitement and pleasure in viewing, holding and owning—or giving as gifts—my work.
I’m grateful to Pittsboro potter, Mark Hewitt, for allowing me to apprentice with him for three and a half years. Because of my training with Mark, who is originally from England, I learned how to create functional pottery in the English tradition, including incorporating the fluid, slip-trailed lines and rounded form I admire. My work has also been influenced through my exploration of the South’s historic alkaline and salt-glazed pottery as well as colorful glazes. My glaze experimentation relates directly to my love of nature, reminding me of the diverse properties of the elements.
Having worked and trained primarily on the wheel, since 2015 I have expanded my work to include hand-built sculptures—some as high as five feet tall. Just as I do with all of my ceramic work, I use locally dug clay bodies and select local clays for glazes that I know will react well in my kiln. The challenges and rewards of working with this off-the-wheel technique adds to my love of my work as a ceramic artist and helps me connect even more to this place I call home: the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina.
Bio
Influenced by the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts Movements. I love the idea of uniting organic and geometric forms into designs that flow and follow the spirit of these two movements, which strive to bring beauty to the everyday. My tiles are appropriate as murals, kitchen and bath backsplashes, countertops, sinks, tubs, table tops, and fireplace surrounds. Each hand-made, hand-glazed Bosetti Art Tile project is as unique as you are. The tiles can be used indoors or out.
I earned a BFA from Pratt Institute in 1982, where I learned to take a painterly approach to clay. Between school and settling in NC, I sailed the high seas from the islands Saint Pierre et Miquelon to the Bahamas, landing in Beaufort, NC. Over the years, I've lived in Beaufort, Asheville, and now Raleigh, and I've gone from sculpting to pottery to art tile and then back to re-explore and hone my skills. My red clay romance has been good company throughout my life.
Artist Statement
I make ceramic art tiles inspired by the flora and fauna I see around me. These subjects are filtered through my childhood, where a violin was always playing. My brother is a concert violinist. That's what gives my work its lyrical feel and sense of motion. The imagery is intentionally happy. When you see it, I want you to smile, breathe deeply, feel a sense of celebration, and reconnect with the beauty around you. That's also what I'd like to bring to your home in the form of a custom kitchen backsplash, fireplace surround, or a bathroom remodel but using your imagery. Your mural can be based on your garden, a memory shared by your family, or an outstanding vacation.
Bio
Lucy touched clay for the first time in 2009, beginning a wonder-filled journey into the creative process that she had been dabbling in all her life.
In 2014, she along with her husband and their three dogs, permanently relocated back to the mountain range in which she was raised as a child and teenager. Since living in Brevard, North Carolina, she has allowed her artistic voice to lead her into many different yet collaborative mediums. She will tell you that each medium, every trip down the preverbal “rabbit hole” brings a new dimension and depth to her work as an artist and creative individual.
In 2016, with the help of a grant from the Regional Art Grant Program and an award given by the Community Foundation of Henderson County, Lucy was able to spend almost a month at Ghost Ranch, located in Abiquiu, New Mexico, learning the hand building process of the San Ildefonso and San Juan Pueblos. This experience would exponentially change the trajectory of her life as a person and an artist. 2017 brought her to open a working artist studio and gallery located in Brevard with another artist. At the beginning of 2020, she took sole ownership and transformed the gallery into a multi-dimensional art gallery, representing over 40 local and regional artists.
Bio
Hannah Cupp grew up enjoying crafting and exploring the woods around her house in northern Georgia. When working toward her BFA from Clemson University, she fell in love with clay and the process of creating art that brings people joy when used in day-to-day life. Following college, Hannah moved on to be a resident at StarWorks as well as the North Carolina Pottery Center. She currently works with potters in Seagrove, NC learning the trade while also working in production pottery to hone her skills throwing on the wheel. Having a background in drawing and a passion for the ceramic process, she found a way to focus these two mediums into a single practice. Hannah creates functional forms decorated with gestural and delicate line drawings intending to have a contrast between the delicate lines and the harsher volatile surface the atmosphere from wood firing creates.
Artist Statement
Memory is a fickle thing, forever holding place in your mind but never reliable in every detail. Growing up in a region in the process of becoming more industrialized, I am familiar with seeing forests and fields being bulldozed down to be replaced by outlet malls. There is always a hint of what used to be, with small plants trying to grow through the concrete or the remnants of the trees peeking from behind the buildings. I have nostalgia for what was there, but if asked to describe or draw the forest that used to be, it would not be close to accurate to the original scenery. I would draw what I associate with greenery, not leaves of specific shapes but what is iconography of trees, bushes, and fields. Seeing the plants and trees in front of me is the only time when I can identify what used to be.
I create functional forms covered with gestural and delicate lines intending to have a contrast between the delicate decorations and the harsher volatile surface the atmosphere from wood firing creates. When creating pottery, I use abstracted imagery of flora in the background juxtaposed with more concrete or detailed recognizable plants in the forefront. The third layer of surfacing comes in during woodfire with wood ash and color variations affecting the images, adding the aspect of warped and sometimes missing memory of the greenery around us. In relation to obscuring memory and drawing, gestural drawings of leaves become abstracted and there are small wood ash-covered areas within the image that questions what used to be there and what is now in its place. I use functional ware as a meditative device; having familiar interactions with the object and its decorated surface.
Concord, North Carolina
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Bio
"My passion for clay and pottery began in 1974 at Shippensburg State College, Shippensburg, PA. I was a frustrated Accounting/Economics major and became fascinated by the art being created outside of the Arts building as I walked between classes. I graduated in 1975 with a degree in business and 12 credits of art, including an independent study in Raku Kiln building. After graduation, I returned to our family business. Mary and I were married in 1975 and later moved our family to North Carolina. It had been 18 years and the clay was still tugging at my heart. I purchased a wheel and a used electric kiln in the late 1990s.
As I grew in my craft, Mary has been very supportive and involved. She enjoys hand-building and glazing. Through the years we have made countless Christmas ornaments for her elementary students. We now have a shop in our backyard with all the necessary equipment, including a gas studio kiln and a larger gas reduction kiln that I built. I mix my own glazes from 1970s formulas that give us our desired look. I am mostly self-taught, but have been blessed to have Sid Luck as a mentor. He has been very gracious in passing some of his knowledge and skills down over the years. Some of our pieces are salt glazed from Sid’s groundhog kiln.
Retirement has given us the time to create and expand our talents. We continue to work on our skills to create pieces that are functional, pleasing to the eye, and a bit quirky. Our three sons and their families, including 10 grandchildren, enjoy our craft and continue to encourage us as we play in the clay."
