MARY ROEHM SOLO at Lacoste Gallery
April 12-30, 2008
Opening reception for the artist, Saturday,
April 12, 3-5 pm

MARY ROEHM SOLO is the artist’s first exhibition of a new body of work in over five years. It includes her recent series of black and white pods, punctuated sculptural forms for the wall, in addition to works highlighting the development of form and focus over her career.

“Sculptural truth has always been the objective of Roehm’s work. This is evident in her earlier large sculptural vessels, through the impossibly thin and pierced containers, which lead to the ripped and fused together thrown forms, and now most recently her purely sculptural punctuated wall pods.”
- Lucy Lacoste

Mary Roehm is known for her gravity defying, paper-thin vessels. Her signature pieces, large thrown bowls with small feet, seem poised between stability and flight. Some are “punctuated” and cut, further pushing the limits of the clay. Roehm’s extraodinary design and technical skills along with the subtlety and beauty of her work have led to residencies, exhibitions and travel in Japan, Korea and China. She is the Director of the Ceramics department at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Two Wall Pods, 40 inches long, unglazed porcelain

There is an exhibition of Peter Callas’ sculptural woodfired ceramics at Armstrong’s Gallery through April 8, 2008. The gallery is located at 150 East 3rd Street, Pomona CA 91766.

From the press release: Abstract expressionist painterly concerns and three decades of wood firing experience have created this meritorious collection of work by one of America’s foremost expressionist sculptors working in clay. New Jersey-born Peter Callas communicates his intuitions concerning nature and the human condition with sculpture, vessels and chargers in this mid-career overview of masterfully wood fired pieces. This gathering of forms, fired in a woodfire process, is a profound pronunciation of Peter Callas as a star in American ceramics. Says Peter Grilli, President of the Japanese Society of Boston in the book, “Peter Callas: A Thirty Year Odyssey”, “Freedom does not preclude influence, nor does it mean that an artist cannot learn from other sources. But, instead of being bound to slavish imitation, freedom allows the artist to absorb, digest, integrate, and ultimately to leap beyond his sources and create something dramatically new. This is the creative dynamic that Peter Callas has demonstrated so splendidly.”

Peter Callas sculptures, vessel, chargers and tea wares are on exhibition from February 26th, 2008 to April 8th, 2008 Armstrong’s Gallery, 150 East 3rd Street, Pomona, California 91766 . Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. March 8th, 2008. Visit Armstrong’s on line at www.armstronggallery.net. For more information, call (909) 623-6464.

On the gallery’s website, there is a slide show of Callas with Peter giving a voiceover about his approach to the creative process.

The American Museum of Ceramic Art will have an exhibition called Into the Woods, A Fiery Tale featuring the work of seven woodfire ceramic artists including Peter Callas and Jeff Shapiro.

The exhibit runs from March 8 to May 3, 2008.
There is an opening reception on Saturday, March 8, 6-9 pm.