Charles Umlauf

Charles Umlauf was an American sculptor, and teacher and mentor to St. Edward's own Walle Conoly. Umlauf is best-known for his exaggerated figurative sculpture.

The exaggeration of certain aspects of Umlauf's figures gives them an expressiveness that is often lacking in static sculpture, making the working more dynamic and emotionally charged. His work feels perfectly at home in the sculpture garden where many of his sculptures now reside.

Paul Soldner

Paul Soldner, an American ceramic artist, was a student and contemporary of Peter Voulkos. An innovator and avid explorer of new pottery techniques, he is popularly known as the Father of American Raku.

Soldner was a teacher who focused in a from-scratch approach to teaching, emphasizing a basic understanding of clay, as well as glaze chemistry and kiln-building. He was responsible for inventing a type of low-temperature salt-firing and went so far as to found his own ceramic equipment manufacturing company to produce and sell his inventions.

While he produced a significant amount of functional-ware, he was well known in the ceramic abstract expressionist movement and produced a number of works consisting of conglomerations of wheel-thrown pieces, that were attached to one another in abstracted organic constructions.

Peter Voulkos

Peter Voulkos was an American ceramic artist who helped pioneer the abstract expressionist movement in ceramic arts. His work often appears heavy, messy, and chaotic.

I enjoy Voulkos' work because it shows me that ceramic art doesn't always have to be clean and neat and pristine. His work reminds me that sometimes art can have a greater impact if it's fast, messy, gestural, and primal.

Teresita Fernandez

Teresita Fernandez is a contemporary sculptor based in New York. Her work is usually made up of acrylic, glass, graphite, and metal and most often is representative of forms common in nature.

Fernandez is another artist who I identify with closely, as her work draws inspiration from nature, mainly forms, shapes, and movements that occur in nature, while staying simple and minimalistic.

You may recognize Fernandez's work from the site-specific installation in the atrium of the Blanton Museum of Art called Stacked Waters, which was a special commission.

Robin Hopper

Robin Hopper is a contemporary Canadian potter, and a pioneer in pottery instruction. The definitive expert in glaze chemistry and authority in clay and pottery, Hopper has written a number of instructional texts on ceramics, one of which, The Ceramic Spectrum, is currently used as a required text book for ceramics classes at St. Edward's.

Hopper has been an invaluable resource for me as a student in ceramics. His techniques have helped me improve my own creative process and his knowledge of glaze chemistry has given me a much better understanding of the processes that turn simple powdered minerals into brilliantly colored surfaces.

Hanz Coper

Hanz Coper was a German-born British studio potter who worked during the later half of the 20th century. Coper is known for creating vessels that were wheel-thrown, then altered to create very simple, minimalistic forms.

Coper prefered very neutral colored and rough surfaces on his pieces. He is well-known for using Manganese oxides in his glazes, the mishandling of which many believe was directly responsible for his death from heavy-metal poisoning.

I've been told on several occasions that my own pottery is reminiscent of Coper's work, which is what led me to look at his work in more depth. We both follow similar processes in creating our work and share a love for stark minimalism. I however handle toxic materials with a bit more care, so hopefully I will not share his ultimate fate.

Andy Goldsworty

Andy Goldsworthy is one of my all-time favorite artists. A British sculptor and photographer, Goldsworthy defines my idea of environmental art. All his artwork relies on the manipulation of found natural objects. It is simultaneously minimal, complex, profound, and impermanent.

Goldsworthy's ability to manipulate nature and turn it into gorgeous works of art is incredible. His choice to then leave these works to the whims of the elements and observe how they change is truly awe-inspiring.

Goldsworthy has a unique vision which allows him to mimic elements he sees in nature with different elements, such as the above image using sticks to mimic the ripples in water, or rearranging various colored leaves to create a flawless color gradient.