Precious Cargo, at the California State Library March 14-May 4th, 2022

Artist residencies are fertile foundation for artistic exploration and bringing together disparate disciplines. At the Kohler Arts/Industry Residency, anthropologist Dr. Adrian Van Allen and artist Marnia Johnston worked on separate yet similar paths using 3D modeling and printing technics with different areas of investigation. The residency created an artistic dialog that continues to strengthen the work of both artists.

Together, the bodies of work in the show, Precious Cargo, speak to the generative potential of collaboration across disciplines, across technologies -- such as 3D printing, industrial casting and hand-crafted ceramics -- and across timeframes that collapse colonial pasts with imagined futures.

I will be giving a lecture on using 3D printing to create modern lithophanes at the 2022 NCECA Conference in Sacramento California. I'll give the lecture on Thurs. March 17th at 11:30 at the Sacramento Conference Center. I'll cover a brief history of lithophanes (see an example above), my 3D printing process and I'll cover a couple of artists who work in the medium.

I've helped to organize two shows celebrating Ruby O'Burke's legacy, the studio she founded and the artists who help to grow her original vision. The first show will be at Ruby's Clay Studio at 552 A Noe St. in San Francisco for the month of March. The second will be a show concurrent with the NCECA National Conference held in Sacramento this year. The NCECA show will be at the Sheraton across the street from the Sacramento Conference Center in the Bevis Room. The opening will be Wed. March 16th from 4-6pm.

Josh and I dropped off work at the Portland Museum of Contemporary Craft for the Craft Advanced Research Projects Agency or CARPA. CARPA focuses on advancing the development of craft and is headed by Carol Lung, Otto Von Busch and Sara Clugage. The show will open January 29th and will continue until July 2nd 2016. If you are interested the CARPA program, check out more information on the museum's website.

I've been selected to participate in the AICAD 2015 Symposium at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, Nov. 5-7th. I'll be giving a talk in association with the Exploring Science in the Studio program on Friday November 6th. Looks like there will be an amazing lineup of artists and Natalie Jeremijenko is the keynote speaker. Donald Day, Nathan Lynch and Susan Anker will be there as well! I'm so honored to be invited to be a part of this. For other speakers, times and locations check our their website.

I've been invited to give a lecture at San Jose State's Department of Art and Art History on Sept. 29th from 5-6pm. The lectures are usually held in Art #133. I'll be talking about the conceptual history of my current work and the processes used to create a ceramic robot. For more information about the lecture or San Jose State's lecture series check out their schedule. In case you couldn't tell, I'm excited about talking at my alma mater!

My ceramic rover and the work of several of my studio mates will be honored in the California Now exhibition at the Richmond Art Center. It's a showcase of contemporary and innovative works in clay, glass and enamel created today in California. The jurors chose the works that they felt melded technical excellence and content and pushed boundaries of their prospective craft. The reception is Saturday June 13th from 5 to 7pm and the show runs through August 23rd. Hope to see you there!

The multi-species salon book will be out soon and Dr. Eben Kirksey has launched a website to host content that extends beyond the book. Much of my previous curatorial work is also listed on the website and you can visit it here.

I'm currently at Anderson Ranch through April 15th working on a ceramic version of the rover. If you're anywhere near Snowmass CO, stop by!

The working model of the TE+ND rover will be displayed at the MOP Project Gallery in Sydney for the Intra-Action Exhibition in conjunction with a conference at the University of Sydney. The show will include work by Kathy High, Andre Brodyk and so many others. If you're in Sydney, take pix for me and post them! More info on the event can be found at http://intraactionart.com/

I was invited to show at Healdsburg Center for the Arts at their 2013 Clay and Glass show! I'll be showing some ceramic horns from "A Conversation Through Time." Opening reception is on Sat. July 6th from 5 to 8pm. More information can be found here. Super excited, let me know if you can make it!

I'll be premiering a working model of the TE+ND Rover at this year's Makers Faire! Come by my booth and drive the rover around. I'll also have some information on the project, happening at the Exploratorium this summer! Makezine also posted a nice interview with me. Check it out at http://blog.makezine.com/2012/04/11/maker-faire-bay-area-tend-rover-interview/

I have brand new work in the New Visions show at Kala! The opening is Friday May 18th from 6pm to 8pm. I've pasted a bit about it below. For the full press release check out http://www.kala.org/exhibitions/current.html

The Visions from the New California award is an initiative of the Alliance of Artists Communities and is generously supported by the James Irvine Foundation. Each year the awards program celebrates six outstanding California visual artists from diverse communities. The awardees are artists whose work may as yet be unfamiliar to a wide audience, but whose compelling visions help define California. Since 2004, the program has awarded funded residencies to forty-three artists working in a wide array of media and processes. Participating California residency programs include Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Exploratorium, Headlands Center for the Arts, Montalvo Arts Center, 18th Street Art Center and Kala.

Kala Gallery is proud to present Visions from the New California, a two-venue exhibition series shared with 18th Street Art Center in Santa Monica. The combined exhibition series features eighteen Visions from the New California from 2010, 2011 and 2012.

I was just awarded the Visions from the New California residency at the Exploratorium. Details to follow. For more info on the Visions from the New California check it out here

My studio, Red Brick, will open its doors during the Mission Open Studios, April 16th and 17th. Come check out my studio and the current projects all of us are working on. I also have juried into the Mission Artists show at Flax Design on Market. The Flax juried show will be up until May 1st. Stop by and check it out!

My work will be included in the 2011Feats of Clay at the Lincoln Arts Center, Lincoln, CA. The Lincoln Arts & Culture Foundation will present its twenty-fourth annual juried competition of ceramic works April 23 - May 29, 2011 featuring artists residing or working in the United States, Mexico & Canada. This celebratory exhibition of contemporary ceramic art (sculptural, non-functional, functional) will be held on the property of the renowned Gladding, McBean Terra Cotta Factory, and displayed inside an original 35-foot beehive kiln and in the historic architectural design studio. Access to the exhibit is by tour only.

In the Spring of 2011 the Salon is coming to a repurposed office space at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City and will be open during the College Art Association's Annual Conference. Rather than being a static exhibit, the Multispecies Salon is starting a new lifecycle of growth and decay.

Saturday, December 18 through Sunday, March 13
This exhibition will be in the Solari Gallery at The Museum of Art & History at The McPherson Center, Santa Cruz. The juror is the museum’s curator, Susan Hillhouse. The show displays a broad survey of work created by ACGA artists today with 119 works by 59 artists.

I've created a new installation for one of my favorite places, Paxton Gate. It's located on the left hand side as you enter the store. Stop by and check it out, Paxton is full of fantastic stuff.

I've been a co-curator and artist in the latest MultiSpecies Salon. This year we are using a kind of curatorial swarm to create three shows. Check out the exhibition description below and the website for more on the over 70 artists' works on view.

The Multispecies Salon 3 will use art to address a series of interrelated questions about nature: Which species flourish, and which fail, when natural and cultural worlds intermingle and collide? What happens when the bodies of organisms, and even entire ecosystems, are brought into schemes of biotechnology and dreams of biocapitalism? And finally, with particular relevance to New Orleans: In the aftermath of disaster--in a blasted landscape that has been transformed by multiple catastrophes--what are the possibilities of biocultural hope?

I haven't been to DIYbio gatherings (or anything else) because I've been making new work and I'm having an opening. The show is at Ruby's Clay Studio on Sat. June 12th from 4-9pm. My buddy Lee and I have been working on an ardunio (micro controller) piece that will be in the show too. Come out for some art, wine, good eats and get out from behind your laptops. Ruby's is at 552 A Noe St. in the Castro. If you can't make the opening, the show will be up until Tues., June 22nd. Stop by any time.

I'll be with SWARM in India for the Indian Institute of Technology's Techkriti '10 conference on technology, science, art and entrepreneurship. We will be giving demonstrations of our semi-autonomous flocking robot art project as well as giving a presentation to two thousand curious engineers. Techkriti '10 takes place in Kanpur, India from Feb. 11-14th.

Update:
Just found out that we will be sharing the stage with Nobel Laureate Douglas D. Osheeroff (Physics), Director of SETI Paul Shuch, Director General of CERN Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer and Nobel Laureate Oliver Smithies (Medicine).

The Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek will be showing some of my work in the Objects of Virtue exhibition from Dec. 2nd to Jan. 31st 2010. The show has some wonderfully crafted work from artists all over the US. The show was juried by Julia Galloway, who will also be giving a demonstration and will discuss the place of functional pottery in the contemporary art world at the gallery on Nov. 30th. Not to be missed!

I will be presenting a co-authored paper with Dr. Eben Kirksey at the Anthropological Associations annual conference in Philadelphia Dec. 5 and 6th entitled SF Boarderlands.

I have some work in the Jingdezhen International Contemporary Ceramics Exhibition 2009. The exhibition will be held in Jingdezhen Ceramic Art Exhibition Hall in conjunction with the event of the Jingdezhen International Ceramic Fair from Oct. 18th to Oct. 22nd, 2009.

October 16, 2009 - January 2, 2010
Falkirk Cultural Center, San Rafael, CA
gallery hours: Monday – Friday 1 - 5 pm, Saturdays 10 - 1 pm, Closed Sundays
The juror is Dorothy Saxe, a renowned collector of clay & glass.
Falkirk Cultural Center is an 1880 historic Queen Ann Victorian. It offers a gracious homelike setting with three wonderful gallery rooms with high ceilings, bay windows and fireplaces complete with mantels.