Building with Clay

I stopped in for a quick visit to the Northern Clay Center's current exhibition, called "Architecture and Ceramics: Material, Structure, Vision."

I had seen a cool photo of one piece accompanying Mary Abbe's review of the show in the Star Tribune -- it was an architectural model of a hypothetical building for the Northern Clay Center itself, based on the pots of artist William Daley, and done as a collaboration between Daley and his architect son Thomas Daley.


When I saw the photo, I had assume the model was ceramic, but it's not -- it's a very nice, regular-materials architectural model.

All of the works in the show are interesting, but the ones that really caught my fancy the most were by Dan Anderson.


Anderson's pieces range from tea sets (like the one above) that look like groups of industrial or agricultural buildings, to objects that are almost recognizable as pots, like the one at right, but that are still decorated with motifs of aging commercial culture.

I love the faded colors and generally aged look Anderson captures in his glazes.

I'm a sucker for models and miniatures in general, but the melding of the form with with ceramics was particularly appealing.

The show is up through June 29.