ABOUT
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BIO
James Tingey is a studio potter whose work explores ideas of utility, process, material and landscape. His work incorporates a straight forward visual language to address function, and the vocabularies of utility and wood firing to investigate the intersection of processes and control. James is Raw Materials Technical Specialist and Grinding Room Manager at NYSCC @ Alfred University.
A native Oregonian, James received his Master’s of Fine Art with a concentration in Ceramics from Ohio University in 2012.
Prior to joining NYSCC he has held appointments at LH Project (OR), Vincennes University (IN), and Brookhaven College (TX).
He has exhibited his work widely in over 75 invitational and juried shows, and received awards from Strictly Functional Pottery National, Clemson Ceramics National Exhibition, and Studio Potter Magazine. James has been Visiting Artist at Clark College (WA), Gonzaga University (WA) Lane Community College (OR), Kendall College of Art and Design (MI), University of Kansas (KS), and Louisiana Tech University (LA), and a Presenter at 2016 Waubonsee International Woodfire Conference, and 2017 NCECA Conference, in Portland, OR. He completed a yearlong residency at Galeri Estudi in Barcelona in 2003, and Pleasant Hill Pottery in 2012-2013. His work as been featured in Woodfired Ceramics: 100 Contemporary Artists, 500 Cups, and 500 Teapots: Volume 2, both by Lark books, the 2011 NCECA Journal, and Ceramics Monthly Magazine.
James Tingey is a studio potter whose work explores ideas of utility, process, material and landscape. His work incorporates a straight forward visual language to address function, and the vocabularies of utility and wood firing to investigate the intersection of processes and control. James is Raw Materials Technical Specialist and Grinding Room Manager at NYSCC @ Alfred University.
A native Oregonian, James received his Master’s of Fine Art with a concentration in Ceramics from Ohio University in 2012.
Prior to joining NYSCC he has held appointments at LH Project (OR), Vincennes University (IN), and Brookhaven College (TX).
He has exhibited his work widely in over 75 invitational and juried shows, and received awards from Strictly Functional Pottery National, Clemson Ceramics National Exhibition, and Studio Potter Magazine. James has been Visiting Artist at Clark College (WA), Gonzaga University (WA) Lane Community College (OR), Kendall College of Art and Design (MI), University of Kansas (KS), and Louisiana Tech University (LA), and a Presenter at 2016 Waubonsee International Woodfire Conference, and 2017 NCECA Conference, in Portland, OR. He completed a yearlong residency at Galeri Estudi in Barcelona in 2003, and Pleasant Hill Pottery in 2012-2013. His work as been featured in Woodfired Ceramics: 100 Contemporary Artists, 500 Cups, and 500 Teapots: Volume 2, both by Lark books, the 2011 NCECA Journal, and Ceramics Monthly Magazine.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I create work that is a material articulation of relationships, origins, and roles of functional objects and interactions between landscape and utility. Utilizing a vocabulary of functional ceramic objects, my work explores material and process as a vehicle to articulate relationships between object and containment, body and environment. My works incorporate a straight forward visual language to address function, and the vocabularies of utility, material transformation and interaction to investigate intersections of process and control, utilizing form and material to dictate surface. Connection of the user through transforming material into objecthood that focuses a lens that values labor, skill, design, material, and process. Ultimately, I look to aesthetic and creative models of aspirational design as an unrealized potential of democratizing craft.
Integral to the production and development of my work is an active engagement in research of material, process, and kiln technology rooted in the historical lineages of ceramic vessels. My research approaches these topics through a variety of modes; investigations of clay and glaze chemistry and formulation; utilizing a range of traditional forming methods, prototyping, mold making, slip casting, wheel throwing, hand building to create my utilitarian ceramics. Haptics, ergonomics, the human body, and an understanding of historical and contemporary utilitarian objects inform the physicality of the objects I produce.
I am interested in the interactions between material, atmosphere, and form. Surfaces serve as a record of an object’s origins, materially containing the interactions of time and process, which operate as indicators of change. These residual marks engage the viewer through the traces of touch and the history of the object. Through implied function and familiarity of form, I want my work to exist as an object of utility and as a record of activity and encoded labor. I’m interested in the ability of functional ceramics to oscillate focus between the immediate utility of the object and how it functions in a broader context of class, history, technology, labor and environment.
I create work that is a material articulation of relationships, origins, and roles of functional objects and interactions between landscape and utility. Utilizing a vocabulary of functional ceramic objects, my work explores material and process as a vehicle to articulate relationships between object and containment, body and environment. My works incorporate a straight forward visual language to address function, and the vocabularies of utility, material transformation and interaction to investigate intersections of process and control, utilizing form and material to dictate surface. Connection of the user through transforming material into objecthood that focuses a lens that values labor, skill, design, material, and process. Ultimately, I look to aesthetic and creative models of aspirational design as an unrealized potential of democratizing craft.
Integral to the production and development of my work is an active engagement in research of material, process, and kiln technology rooted in the historical lineages of ceramic vessels. My research approaches these topics through a variety of modes; investigations of clay and glaze chemistry and formulation; utilizing a range of traditional forming methods, prototyping, mold making, slip casting, wheel throwing, hand building to create my utilitarian ceramics. Haptics, ergonomics, the human body, and an understanding of historical and contemporary utilitarian objects inform the physicality of the objects I produce.
I am interested in the interactions between material, atmosphere, and form. Surfaces serve as a record of an object’s origins, materially containing the interactions of time and process, which operate as indicators of change. These residual marks engage the viewer through the traces of touch and the history of the object. Through implied function and familiarity of form, I want my work to exist as an object of utility and as a record of activity and encoded labor. I’m interested in the ability of functional ceramics to oscillate focus between the immediate utility of the object and how it functions in a broader context of class, history, technology, labor and environment.