JIM KRAFT

Education

1978-1979	Bachelor of Fine Arts, Ceramics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
1976-1977	Ceramics, Factory of Visual Arts, Seattle, WA
1970-1973	Bachelor of Arts, Ceramics, Northern Michigan University, Marquette, MI

Solo Exhibitions

2007	Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
		Butters Gallery, Portland,Oregon
2005	Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
		Hibberd McGrath Gallery, Breckenridge, CO
2005	Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
2004	Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
		Gallery Materia, Scottsdale, AZ
2003	Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
		Hibbard McGrath, Breckenridge, CO
2002	Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
		Freed Gallery, Lincoln City, OR
2000	Foster/White Gallery, Kirkland, WA
		Robert Kidd Gallery, Birmingham, MI
		Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
		Cole Pratt Gallery, New Orleans, LA
		Simon Edwards Gallery, Yakima, WA
1999	Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
		Freed Gallery, Lincoln City, OR
1998	Edward Cain Gallery, Port Townsend, WA
		Freed Gallery, Lincoln City, OR
		Cole Pratt Gallery, New Orleans, LA
		Simon Edwards Gallery, Yakima, WA
1997	Foster/White Gallery, Kirkland, WA
		Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
1996	Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
		Cole Pratt Gallery, New Orleans, LA
		Gallery at Salishan, Glenden Beach, OR
1995	Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
1994	Foster/White Gallery, Kirkland, WA
		Maveety Gallery, Salishan, OR
1993	Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
1991	Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
1990	Maveety Gallery, Salishan, OR
		Maveety Gallery, Portland, OR
		Franklin House Gallery, Port Townsend, WA
1989	Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
1988	Maveety Gallery, Portland, OR
1987	Gumps Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1986	Maveety Gallery, Portland, OR
1985	Contemporary Crafts Gallery, Portland, OR
1983	Oregon School of Arts and Crafts, Portland, OR

Selected Juried/Invitational Exhibitions

2004 	Toronto International Art Fair, Foster/White booth, Toronto, ON
2002	"Vessel Invitational 2002", Davidson Art Gallery, Seattle, WA 
		Roberts Wesleyan College, Rochester, NY.
		"Now in Residence", Allene Lapides Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2000	"Spokane Collects: Contemporary Ceramics", Jundt Art Museum, 
		Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA
1998	"Connections", Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, MA
		"From and For the Sea", Edward Cain Gallery, Port Townsend, WA
		"Ceramic Invitational XVIII", American Crafts Gallery, OH
		"The Best in Contemporary Clay", Miller Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
1996-97	"Magic Mud Northwest Invitational: A Traveling Exhibit of Contemporary Ceramics
1995	Vases and Beyond", Gallery Eight, La Jolla, CA
		Fifteenth International Art Competition, Special Award, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA
		"Crafts National 29", Zoller Gallery, Pennsylvania State, University Park, PA 
		"Ceramics USA 1995", Center for the Visual Arts, Honorable Mention, Denton, TX, Honorable Mention, Wichita National 1995, Wichita, KS
1993	"Group Clay Exhibition in Honor of the Northwest Clay Symposium", Foster/White Gallery, Kirkland, WA
		"Year of American Craft," Maveety Gallery, Salishan, OR
		"Recent Work by Gallery Artists," Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
1992-93	"Foster/White Gallery Ceramics Exhibition", Sea-Tac International Airport, Seattle, WA
1990	Fifth Annual Monarch Tile National Ceramic Competition, San Angelo. Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, TX
		"Contemporary Crafts", Graham Horstman Gallery, Denton, TX
		"An Exhibition of Contemporary Northwest Art Using Animal Imagery", Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, Port Angeles, WA
1989	"Clay and Clay Plus," Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
		Ninth Annual Northwest International Art Competition, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA
		"Clay '89", Langman Gallery, Willow Grove, PA
1988	"Clay and Canvas", Contemporary Craft Gallery, Portland, OR
1987	"Functional Abandon: Clay as Canvas", Safeco Insurance Co., Seattle, WA
1986	"Four Person Show", Himovitz/Salomon Gallery, Sacramento, CA	
		"Animals: Contemporary Visions", Robert Kidd Gallery, Birmingham, MI
1985	"Animal Sculpture", San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, CA
1984	American Ceramics National, Downey Museum of Art, Downey, CA
		"Clay 1984: National Survey Exhibition", Traver Sutton Gallery, Seattle, WA
1982/79/77	Pacific Northwest Arts and Crafts, Bellevue, WA
1981/79/77	Annual Washington State Painting and Sculpture Show, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA
		Edmonds Art Festival, Cash Award, Edmonds, WA
1980	Tacoma Art Museum Crafts, Cash Award, Tacoma, WA
		"Governor's Invitational Art Exhibit", Capitol Museum, Olympia, WA
1977	"Seattle Ceramics", University of Portland Art Gallery, Portland, OR
		"Marietta College Crafts Exhibition", Museum of History and Industry, Marietta, OH
		"Northwest Crafts Exhibition", Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA

Special Awards

1978-79 Recipient of two Ford Foundation Grants

Commissions

Publications

Public Collections

Technical Statement

- Dry colorants are rolled, using a rolling pin, onto a 25# slab of clay on a canvas covered "ware" board (thick plywood).

- Next day. Strips are cut from the clay slab, sections are torn from the strips and building is started. Or, for the coil sections, clay is hand extruded from a wall mounted extruder, rolled in dry colorants, sections are torn off and building begins. Only ca. eight inches can be built each day as time is needed to allow the clay to set up enough to handle the weight of the next day's work. Three, four or five pieces are built at a time.

- While building, each torn piece is adhered to the piece beneath it with a "mortar" made of 50% clay slip and 50% clear glaze. During firing the glaze addition helps the small sections fuse together, making the piece stronger. Each torn piece is also adhered to the piece beneath with a "divit" or two pushed through with a thin wooden skewer. Like a plug going partially through and connecting the top to the bottom piece. An internal rebar of clay.

- After the building process is complete the object must dry completely which can take up to two weeks depending on the humidity in the studio. Then it is bisque fired to cone 04.

- Removed from the kiln the object is painted with a dark brown clay slip.

- Next day, when the slip has dried, it is wiped off with a sponge and water. This slip stays in the cracks of the clay and accentuates the texture and adds more color.

- Next day three coats of clear glaze are brushed on the interior of the object. One coat of clear glaze is brushed on the exterior.

- Next day when the glaze is dry it is wiped off the exterior with a sponge and water. Enough of the glaze stays in the cracks and on the surface to give it life, but not gloss.

- Then it is fired one more time to cone 04.

- Next day it is removed from the kiln.

Artist Statement

I believe there's magic in the human ability to make something that didn't exist before our making it, and that the act of making deepens our humanity and our understanding of ourselves. The general aim of my work is to extract the great potential from the elements involved in ceramic art and bring those elements into material existence in one form. My working process is simply to muck around with my mind, heart, and hands to explore this mystery of man and material. The impetus for my own art is a deep need to create, to express myself, a need that for me is best satisfied--visually and psychologically--by working with clay, by unfolding its own "statement" in form, texture, and color.

My work is manifest principally in the vessel form. I believe the vessel is probably the purest sculptural form, but my attraction to it is visceral and spiritual, not conceptual or academic. The vessel form and its making serve as a metaphor on several levels--the material is the stuff of the earth, of warm colors and geological texture; the form itself is sensual, womb-like, consisting of an inside and outside, with the rim representing the dimension where inside and outside meet, where one becomes the other. And because these are open forms, you can see inside where the core of the thing is. On another level, these pieces are related to self-identity: the outside identity of facade--of texture and color--containing an imprinted leaf inside, symbolizing the core identity of the object.

Similarly, the black lines on the vessels work on different levels. I believe the line drawing in itself is strongly, intimately connected to the written word. I love the look of the written word on a page, a feeling that goes back to my early love of books and reading when I was a young boy. I've incorporated the line in my vessels as an "homage" to the written word, as a reflection of the peace and serenity I associate with lines of words on a page. But it also works on a geological level, as an element on the vessels' surface texture, which is also geological, symbolizing the line of the horizon, or a line in a cave--and incorporating the strength and power of both.