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November 18, 2023 at 5:00 pm |
Public Programs
Ceramic Workshop: Inspired by Raven Halfmoon with Bracken Fern Handmade Ceramics
Saturday, November 18 | 5 to 7 pm
$189 Members; $210 General Admission; $199 Students/Seniors
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Join us for a special workshop with ceramic artist Bracken Feldman, the founder of Bracken Fern Handmade Ceramics. Feldman will guide participants through a two-hour hands-on workshop on the long-standing tradition of coil building, a hand-molded clay technique used by artist Raven Halfmoon to create her monumental sculptures. Participants will learn to roll clay coils and connect them to create a functional ceramics vessel or a closed sculptural form, working closely with Feldman and her assistant on each step of the process. Included in this workshop is kiln-firing of the ceramic piece by Bracken Feldman. Participants will be notified of pick-up instructions two weeks after the workshop.
Raven Halfmoon: Flags of Our Mothers includes a combination of new and borrowed works by the artist that vary in size and content over the last five years. It debuts the artist’s largest sculpture to date, Flagbearer, a monumental female figure that is over 12 feet tall and weighs 2400 pounds. Halfmoon’s works reference stories of the Caddo Nation, specifically her feminist lineage and the power of its complexities. With inspirations that orbit centuries from ancient Indigenous pottery to Moai statues to Land Art, Halfmoon interrogates the intersection of tradition, history, gender, and personal experience. Born and raised in Norman, Oklahoma, she learned about ceramics as a teenager from Caddo elder, Jereldine Redcorn. Working mainly in portraiture, Halfmoon hand builds each work using a coil methos. Her surfaces are expressive and show deep finger impressions and dramatic dripping glazes – a physicality that presences her as both maker and matter.
Raven Halfmoon: Flags of Our Mothers is curated by Amy Smith-Stewart, Chief Curator of The Aldrich, and Rachel Adams, Chief Curator and Director of Programming at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. The exhibition is co-organized by The Aldrich and Bemis Center.
About The Instructor
Bracken Fern Handmade Ceramics is nestled in the foothills of the Hudson Valley. Each piece is handmade by Bracken Feldman who has been creating one-of-a-kind ceramics for the kitchen and home for over twenty years. From mugs to platters, pitchers to vases, or your soon to be favorite mixing bowls, Bracken feels that every ceramic created in her studio should be enjoyed and used on an everyday basis. Each piece is hand-formed on the wheel from a stoneware clay body, and then glaze fired to 2176˚F, yielding a product that is as enduring as it is special.
Related Exhibitions
June 25, 2023 to January 7, 2024 | Project Space, Klein Kenealy Gallery, Leir Gallery