7 Weeks and Counting

The year is 2003 and the Chairs for Ceramic Showcase are Natalie Warrens and Margie Adams and the OPA President is Michael Fromme.  The OPA took a huge step organizationally in 2003 by being awarded non-profit 501(c)(3) status.  As a non-profit organization, the goal is to continue to offer the membership community and the general public as many educational opportunities as are possible.  Besides the educational opportunities that are offered, the most powerful validation for the non-profit status is that the OPA is an all volunteer organization.   And these musings on life and art appeared in the OPA newsletter:

"For art to become universal and free, one must be God to create it, a King to pay for it, and a slave to make it."  Constantin Brancusi, Sculptor, 1876 - 1957

"The jurying process is not impartial.  As someone said, 'There is nothing fair in life and this is an example.'  Juries are but the sum of their parts.  Maybe someone is in a bad mood.  Maybe they're recovering from rich food at lunch.  Maybe your slides are sandwiched in between ones that are better or worse.  Strange things happen when people are in a room together."  public forum

"There cannot be a crisis next week.  My schedule is already full."  Henry Kissinger

And Best of Show 2003 is Kathryn Finnerty.  Kathryn writes about her process, early influences and how she and her work have grown and what influenced that growth:

Best of Show 2003
Kathryn Finnerty

"I am drawn to the historical traditions of European decorative ceramics.  My work is ornately decorated with surface patterns and images integrated in the form of each piece.  Earlier work focused on patterns and ornamentation that defined form with this decoration.  My concentration was with a close-up, intimate, and confined sense of space much like the spaces that I physically inhabited living in a city.  Moving from an urban center to acreage in central Oregon has expanded by perspective and presented me with the opportunity to discover a natural world outside of my previous daily experience.  From my studio windows I witness a pastoral landscape particular to the Northwest, lush and green, wet and moist.  There are quail living in our hedge-row, starlings nesting in the eaves of our barn, hawks that soar over our pasture and the owls that hoot from the woods at dusk.  I see the coyotes cross the fields on the edge of our property, hunting for vermin, hummingbirds flutter in our garden in search of nectar and a Great Heron resides in our pond in the summer months.  All of this delights and nourishes me daily and I have found it impossible to resist the tug to draw on this abundance for inspiration in my creative process.  This landscape has found a way to impose itself into the existing framework, drawing my attention and the viewer's eye deeper into the pieces."