About Us

www.gabrielcraigmetalsmith.com
www.conceptualmetalsmithing.com

Gabriel Craig is a metalsmith, writer, and craft activist. His studio work has been exhibited nationally and internationally since 2006, and his writing has appeared in Metalsmith and American Craft magazines. In addition to founding his own blog, Conceptual Metalsmithing, in 2008, Craig is the Editor-in-Chief of the forthcoming National Student Craft Zine. In 2008, he received a graduate research grant from the Center for Craft, Creativity & Design to pursue research on 19th Century ironwork. Craig received his BFA in Metals/Jewelry from Western Michigan University in 2006 and his MFA in Jewelry and Metalworking from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2009. He is also an adjunct faculty memberin Metalsat Houston Community College. Together with his partner, Amy Weiks, Craig shared a studio at HCCC through August of 2010.

Inspired by nature and the genetic instinct of all creatures to procreate and evolve, Kelley Eggert’s intimate ceramic sculptures invite the viewer to marvel at the intricacy and complexity of their parts. “Sex is why most of the planet’s organisms exist. Sexual reproduction is the key to evolution and the strongest instinct encoded in the genetics of all living things. . . My ceramic sculptures exploit the ways in which the plant and animal kingdom procreates.” Humans, however, with their intelligence they have improved the experienced and even developed tools for the activity. Others that seek to get kinky in bed do it with sex toys

The artist’s clay forms are created utilizing hand-building techniques, including building solid and with slabs, coiling, pinching and pressing clay into plaster molds. The clay is low fired with underglaze and luster and finished with cold surfaces such as acrylic paint, nylon flocking, silicone, plastic resin and monofilament.

Eggert holds an MFA with a concentration in ceramics from the University of Florida, Gainesville, and a BA from the University of Akron, in Akron Ohio. In addition to receiving the University of Florida Alumni Fellowship, she was also awarded two Albert K. Murray grants and won the Peter Pugger Award at the 2007 NCECA Regional Student Juried Exhibition. She currently teaches adjunct at Lone Star Community College and Houston Community College.

Jeff Forster creates uniquely textured ceramic objects that reference sustenance, ritual and ceremony. By using modern packing materials as molds and leaving evident the barcodes on these molds, Forster’s art brings together the handmade quality of traditional arts and the mass production of consumer items.

While some of his pieces might actually be used, others quietly allude to the idea of function: “With this reference to function, formal quality and implied age, my hope is that these objects carry connotations of ritual or the sacred. The irony lies in that these precious objects come from industrial materials. . . While these molds are mass-produced, my pieces are one of a kind, even if produced from the same mold.”

Forster holds a MFA in Ceramics from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Illinois, and a BA in Art Education from Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. He currently teaches at North Harris Community College and is a member of ClayHouston, National Council for Education of the Ceramic Arts, and College Art Association. In 2009, he was selected by Helen Drutt English to be the Center’s Helen Drutt Studio Fellow.

Christopher Gorman, a metalsmith and native Houstonian, draws his inspiration from current events, quantum physics, and observations on urban life. His jewelry and metal pieces could be described as exquisite, and, at times, delightfully medieval in appearance. The complex level of detail in his work also reflects his interest in “the interconnection of micro-level arrangements and how they organize into macro-level complexes.”

After earning a BA from Wheaton College and a Masters from University of St. Thomas, Christopher studied metalsmithing at Jay’s Creative Jewelry School in Aloha, OR, and is currently a student at the Glassell School of Art. His work may be found in numerous private collections and has been shown in several Glassell School of Art Student Exhibitions, as well as CraftTexas 2008 at HCCC. Christopher is a member of the Houston Metal Artists Guild and the Society of North American Goldsmiths.

Peter Masters’ ceramic vessels evoke forms both natural and cosmic–marine organisms, rock formations, stars, planets, or asteroids. These stunning sculptures are usually made from porcelain and earthenware, many with lustrous glass glazes and precisely patterned surfaces. Masters says, “In concept, the forms transcend any recognizable species. The environments in which these forms might exist may be earthly, but certainly not domesticated. . . Their origins could indeed be cosmic–defying a satisfactory explanation and inviting lingering speculation.”Masters holds a BA in Art/Design from the University of Alberta, Canada; a Bachelor of Education in art at the University of Calgary, Canada; and a MFA in Ceramics from University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. He has taught ceramics and lectured all over the world, in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Hungary, England, and Denmark.

Metal artist, Rebecca Roberds, loves the challenge of creating organic, free-flowing enamel works from metal—a cold, hard and seemingly inflexible material. Inspired by both microscopic and macroscopic forms, such as a beautiful but deadly virus or satellite photos of land forms, her works explore color, texture and abstract composition in a way rarely seen in the medium of enamel. While at HCCC, Roberds hopes to take her work to a new level, concentrating on the creation of larger scale sculptural works for the first time. Roberds studied at the School of Fine Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and at the Glassell School of Art in Houston. She also holds a science degree from Rice University. After working as a geologist for many years, Roberds, who learned the art of enameling from her mother at a very young age, walked away and returned to her first love—art.

www.amyweiks.com

Amy Weiks is a nationally exhibiting artist with an artistic background that is materially and technically diverse. This diversity has greatly influenced the way she makes work, often moving fluidly from one material or process to another and blurring the lines between traditional media. It is the intimacy and interactivity of the object that draws her to jewelry and metalsmithing. While a desire to communicate her ideas through the objects she creates tends to dictate material choices, she also works very intuitively, often playing with a material or process until an idea emerges and aesthetic decisions become more conscious and deliberate. Some of her material choices include precious and non-precious metals, fiber, thread, beads, and paint.

Weiks received a BFA in Photography from Western Michigan University in 2004. She has also studied at prestigious institutions such as the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland (printmaking) and Virginia Commonwealth University (jewelry/metals). At HCCC, she shared a studio with her partner, Gabriel Craig, through August of 2010.