UM Hosts Ceramic Artists for Annual Archie Bray Day

MISSOULA – Three ceramic artists from the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena will demonstrate their techniques and lecture about their work Wednesday, Feb. 24, during the annual Archie Bray Day at the University of Montana.

Events will run from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and are free and open to the public. Artists Kyungmin Park, Michele Summers and Bill Wilkey will demonstrate their work from 10:10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 to 4:45 p.m. in the Ceramics Studio of UM’s Art Annex, located south of the Adams Center. A lecture and slide show of the artists’ work will be held from 5:10 to 6:30 p.m. in Social Science Building Room 352.

Park is a figurative ceramic sculptor who draws inspiration from childlike perspectives, contrasting the darker emotions and restricted psyche of adulthood with the boundless consciousness of children. Originally from South Korea, Park began studying ceramics while living in Seoul. In 2006, she transferred to the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2008. Later, following a studio assistantship with sculptor Christina Cordova in Penland, North Carolina, Park earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in ceramics from the University of Georgia in 2012.

Summers describes her work as a journal of her life’s journey through both lived and imagined experiences. She is fascinated with the complexity of the mind hidden beneath the surface of the body, and her work depicts the abstract spaces and characters that exist within the confines of the conscious and subconscious. Her work touches on topics of identity, perception, fantasy and yearning. Summers is originally from Portland, Oregon. She earned her BFA in ceramics from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2005 and her MFA in ceramics from the University of Minnesota in 2014.

Wilkey grew up in Johnson City, Tennessee. He earned his BFA from East Tennessee State University and his MFA from the University of Missouri in 2014. He exhibits his work nationally and was featured as a 2014 Emerging Artist by Ceramics Monthly. Wilkey’s functional pottery is made with an architectural aesthetic, and he uses atmospheric firing processes to finish the surfaces.

Archie Bray Day is sponsored by the Jim and Jane Dew Visiting Artist Fund and the UM School of Art.