“Walter Hyleck Retrospective 1967-2008” headlines trio of ceramic exhibitions opening at Berea College March 16th.
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3/10/08 |
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 For more than a century, Berea and Berea College have been known world-wide for crafts education and production and as the home of exceptional artists and crafts people. On Sunday, March 16, three ceramics exhibitions will open in the Berea College Art Department galleries that underscore these connections and showcase the work of ceramic artist and teacher Walter Hyleck, who is retiring from Berea College in May.
A combined opening reception is scheduled Sunday for 3-5 p.m. in the Traylor Galleries Lobby of the Rogers-Traylor Art Building. “Walter Hyleck Retrospective 1967-2008” is an exhibition of selected works spanning Hyleck’s 41-year career at Berea. The exhibition will be on display through April 28 in the Upper Traylor Gallery. Hyleck’s works have been included in more than 250 invitational and competitive exhibitions throughout the country, including exhibitions in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York City, and the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft in Louisville, and are in the permanent collections of the American Ceramic Society, Columbus, Ohio; the American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, Calif.; The Mint Museum, Charlotte, N.C.; Ceramic Art Gallery, New South Wales, Australia, and Brown and Forman International Lmtd., Louisville. Hyleck has lectured, presented workshops and been a visiting artist at colleges, universities and arts centers in the U.S and Canada, and was twice resident artist at the Edna Manley School of the Visual Arts in Jamaica. Awards include an Al Smith Artist Fellowship in 1989 from the Kentucky Arts Council and a grant from the Surdna Foundation. At Berea, Hyleck has held the endowed Morris B Belknap Jr. Professorship in Fine Arts since 1992. A native of Beloit, Wisconsin, Hyleck earned a B.A. degree in art and art history from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and an M.F.A. in ceramics and art history from Tulane University. In 1970, Hyleck founded the Ceramic Apprenticeship Program (CAP) of Berea College Student Crafts, and has directed the program throughout most of its 38-year history. The innovative program combines ceramics technical training with design, production and marketing opportunities under the mentorship of a resident professional potter and is open to students in any major. Measures of the program’s quality and influence can be found in resident potters who worked in the program as well as the Berea graduates who are now successful ceramics artists, crafts people and teachers in their own right. “40 Years of Ceramics Leadership: the Ceramics Apprenticeship Program at Berea College”focuses on this aspect of Hyleck’s work at Berea and the program’s impact on ceramics education. The juried ceramics exhibition includes works by 10 former resident potters and 26 former apprentices and art graduates from 1970 – 2007. The exhibition will be on display in the Lower Traylor Gallery through April 25. Participating former resident potters are Brooks Burgess; Jim Cantrell (Bardstown); Steve Davis-Rosenbaum, (Lexington); John Eden; Silvie Granatelli; Karl Kuhns and Debra Parker-Kuhns; George Parker; Geoff Pickett; Trent Ripley, and Phillip Wiggs (Berea). The former apprentices and majors are Larry Allen; Troy Amastar; Andrew Balmer and Patricia Burns; Carol Ann Bauer; Isaac Bingham; Hannah Cameron; Bonnie Campbell; Teresa Cole (Berea); Ben Culbertson; Charlie Cummings; Heather Delisle; Jeff Diehl; Amy Elswick (Louisville); Jeff Enge (Berea); Gerard Ferrari; Ann Hazels; David Huber; Rebecca Hutchinson; Sierra Ludwig Lehman; Michelle Lennington; Rebecca Lowery; Rosanne Nicholson; Jenny Lou Sherburne; J.R. Sherburne; Steven Summerville. The third exhibition “Caddo Pots Caddo Culture: traditional Caddo Pottery from the Collection of the Arkansas Archaeology Survey of the University of Arkansas with permission of the Caddo Nation” provides another perspective on the potter’s art and craft and its cultural context. The ancestors of the Caddo Indians were agriculturalists whose distinctive way of life and material culture emerged by A.D. 900, as revealed in archaeological sites in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma. Caddo pottery is considered some of the finest of the Woodland period. The exhibition in the Rogers Gallery through April 25 was curated by Stephen Driver, associate professor of art at Brescia College in Owensboro. The Art Department Galleries are located in the Rogers and Traylor Art Buildings at the corner of Chesnut and Estill St. on Berea’s campus. OPEN: Mon-Thurs 8 a.m.- 9 p.m., Fri 8 a.m.- 5 p. m., Sun 1-5 p.m. CLOSED on Saturdays and March 21, Mar 29 -Apr 7, May 16, and May 26 – June 16. |
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| CONTACT:
Art Department Contact: Tina McCalment, gallery director and museum educator Walter Hyleck can be contacted at (859) 985-3531 |
