Additional Information:

​

James May North presents: New work by Marshall Maude and textiles by Mary Anne Jordan. Curated by Jimmy Eddings, this exhibition brings together two of his mentors while he attended graduate school at the University of Kansas. Opening Reception is Friday, October 4th 5:30-8:00. Show runs Oct 3rd- Nov 16th.

 

Bio, Marshall Maude:

Marshall Maude is a ceramic artist and Associate Professor of Ceramics at the University of Kansas. Marshall has designed, built, and fired wood kilns around the world. He has exhibited his work in solo and group shows nationally and in China, Denmark, Korea, and New Zealand. In 2013, Marshall was an artist-in-residence at the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute in Jingdezhen, China, and in 2014, at Guldagergaard – International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark. He is not on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. He does own a telephone and a hammer and concentrates his energy in the studio and on livin’.

​

Statement, Marshall Maude:

I believe the most fundamental questions, those of origin and finality that humanity asks itself are unanswerable, yet this inquiry is central to every aspect of our lives. It is the quest to answer what remains unanswerable. With every discovery, new questions arise and the mysterious expands.

 

Clay, which is weathered and decomposed rock, is an amorphous material that invites the exploration of origin and finality. Using this material and traditional ceramic technologies, practices, and objects as constants, I delve into a direct, visceral relationship with firing process, construction, and basic forms such as the slab and the vessel to re-contextualize them.

 

Some constants in my work are the drive to examine paradox, a passion for the wood-fired surface, a love for the spontaneity of gesture, a subversive humor and the constant forward momentum of striving to push the clay to the edge of impossibility where it may collapse, implode, crumble, or find an inexplicable rest.

 

Connections to the work of past makers, such as the amphoras of nameless Greek workmen or the tea bowls of Japanese masters, the blue-and-white paintings of Chinese Ming Dynasty decorators or the drawings of the Anasazi potters signify a continuum and an infinite timeline. I contrast ceramic history and processes with new technologies and ideas, not to challenge but to embrace. A reincarnation of concept, image, pattern, and form reinforce my intention to look again, as inquiry without answer.

​

 

Bio, Mary Anne Jordan:

Mary Anne Jordan is a Professor in the Textiles/Fibers Program in the School of the Arts at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas.  She received her MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art, and BFA at the University of Michigan.  Her work has been shown nationally across the US and internationally in Japan, Poland, South America, France, Canada.  In 2005-2006 Jordan was a Research Fellow at the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska. She has taught workshops at Arrowmont, Haystack, Penland, Splitrock, and the Quilt and Surface Design Symposium.  Jordan’s work has been published in various exhibition catalogs, magazines and journals such as Fiberarts, Surface Design Journal, American Craft. Jordan is currently serving as Chair for the Department of Visual Art at the University of Kansas.

​

Statement, Mary Anne Jordan:

I am a quiltmaker.  In my current work I try to challenge and embrace the strong traditions of quiltmaking, of sewing, and contemporary art. My work is inspired by the processes and resources involved in the development of my work and ideas.  My interest and research in textiles has taken me many places conceptually in my work, and physically in the US and the world and it will continue to lead me to places yet to be explored.

 

The large universe of possibilities has always informed my work as an artist: current events, popular culture, life at home, observations from nature, and close encounters with art (of both the great, and not-so great kinds). 

 

I have always had an affinity for textiles, and my research on a wide range of textile traditions has been a great source of inspiration. A short list of influences includes the appliquéd and embroidered Kuba cloth skirts from Central Africa; the complex weave structures of Ancient Peru; the extensive traditions and histories of textiles in Asia (in particular the sublime color and pattern combination of textiles from Japan, Korea, and Central Asia).

 

Evidence of the personal mark and human body is of utmost importance in my work. This evidence is often portrayed through a “careless” mark (a crooked seam, a frayed edge,) or evidence of use and history such as the marks left by a wet glass, stained fabrics, holes, drips, splatters and smears. 

 

My work (including the processes and techniques employed to create the work) recurrently alludes to issues of domesticity and domestic life. At the same time, I hope the work expresses a sense of “defiance.”  I make marks carefully, then deliberately allow and preserve the marks that “happen” in the process of making things by hand: drips, stains, blemishes, bleeding dye. The planned and happenstance… each day we make decisions, large and small; and likewise, each quilt results from the questions I pose, the decisions I make, and the process of the making. 

​

​

​

Press Links:

https://news.ku.edu/2019/09/27/flags-rags-and-signs-art-mary-anne-jordan

​

https://news.ku.edu/2019/09/27/modern-ceramicist-masters-earth-wind-and-fire

​

Available works for purchase

​