We continue our introductions of the founders of Southern Crossings Pottery Festival; the second member of our creative team, our maven of marketing and design, Amy Chase.

Amy Chase was born in Cleveland, OH, grew up in Connecticut and moved to Murray, KY during middle school. Amy attended Murray State University where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts. After graduating from Murray State, Amy worked for a number of years as a graphic designer creating quilting books, but the pull of clay was strong, and she returned to her academic education at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale where she received her MFA in Studio Art.

Amy taught ceramics at Southeast Missouri State University before moving to Louisville in 2012. In 2014, Amy began working at Louisville Visual Art as the Creative Design Director. At LVA, Amy is a master of all trades, promoting the arts in the greater Louisville area, assisting in creating programing for LVA, and maintaining their website and design needs. Amy is extraordinary in her ability to have a large number of irons in the fire, yet successfully pulls off each event and task with skill and grace. During all of this Amy has maintained her studio practice and has exhibited regionally and nationally. Honored as “Emerging Artist” by American Style magazine, she has been featured in Ceramics Monthly and Clay Times. In 2017, Amy was the recipient of the prestigious Al Smith fellowship, recognizing professional artists from Kentucky for their achievements in the arts.

Amy’s ceramic interest lies in exploring relationships between objects and people, challenging the contingency between sculpture and function. The work leaves behind the traditional notion of utilitarian wares and seduces the viewer to embrace a different paradigm. Working with multiples, whether as a textured bowl sitting atop what appears to be a highly decorative pillow, or two objects that seem to be in the midst of a conversation, Amy’s work invokes the creation of community. Many pieces showcase an intricate canvas of texture and imagery. These layers of pattern and surface create a dialogue, not only between each of the objects in a particular grouping but also between the objects and the viewer. Inspired by the elaborate patterns of wallpaper and floor tiles of her childhood and the safety of her grandmother’s home, these soft colors and floral patterns juxtapose with the stark white of the porcelain. The surfaces of her vessels with studs or spikes contrast between visual softness and hardness reinforcing the complex relationship between people and the objects that stand in for them. The correlation between surfaces create a visual tension that encourages or contradicts the pairings of the individual objects in a piece.

Through the gift of the Al Smith Fellowship, Amy is developing a new and exciting body of work. We look forward to seeing this new work during SXPF 2019.