Brian Harper Clay: Biography

b i o g r a p h y .

before fall 08		I am currently an Assistant Professor of Fine Art and Head of the Ceramics Area at Indiana University Southeast. It has been a productive first semester here at IUS. The students and I have been working hard at fixing things up, re-arranging, and in general just working to build a better studio.
after fall 08		These first two images are of a room we are making into a mixed media ceramics area for plaster work, sandblasting, grinding, etc.
		This was a messy job, but the rewards of efficient space are well worth it.
before fall 08	after fall 08

		These were two little changing rooms off of the main studio that we converted into a larger studio for an advanced undergraduate.
before fall 08	before fall 08

		After everything was ripped out and the wall dividing the two rooms was removed, it made a great new studio for the student that is closest to graduating.
after fall 08

		The glaze room before and after the fall 08 semester.

layout of the IUS ceramics department		In April, 2008 I accepted the Assistant Professor of Fine Arts / Ceramics and Head of the Ceramics Area at Indiana University Southeast. After working at the International Ceramics Studio in Keskcemet, Hungary for a few weeks in the summer, I moved to New Albany, Indiana in the summer of 2008.

I taught ceramics at Baylor University in Waco, Texas for two years finishing after the spring 2008 semester. Baylor offers many types of firing including wood, salt, raku, pit, electric, low fire fuming, and have three gas kilns including a 40 cu ft. Bailey car kiln. Additionally, I was a part time Assistant Professor at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas for the spring semester of 2007.

		Before I moved to Texas, I lived in Iowa City and stayed there for one year after receiving my M.A. and M.F.A. from the University of Iowa in the spring of 2005. I continued carving ceramics after grad school and finished most of the work for my solo show at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the spring and summer of 2006.

I started graduate school at the University of Iowa in Iowa City in Septempter of 2002. Originally I went there for the wood firing program and while initially continuing my explorations into woodfire and my large sculptural forms, I ultimately moved into my current style of work which consists mainly of carving fired ceramics.

		In between undergraduate and graduate school, I had the great opportunity to be the assistant to the ceramic artist Don Reitz. It was a great change of pace for me and helped me see another side of ceramics I didn't see while in academia. It also proved to be a great blending of different teachers and mentors I've had over the years.

		I assisted Reitz on many jobs including the building of his anagama and kiln shed, as well as Don's train kiln. I also helped Don in every facet of daily life at the ranch, from firing kilns, to making clay, to cataloging his 40 years worth of slides.

		I had the extraordinary luck of being a student under Don Bendel while doing my undergraduate work at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. He is a mentor and influence to so many and I am no different. You can't really say enough about Bendel. I completed my B.F.A. in December 2001 and I was fortunate to be an advanced student during Bendel's retirement and the arrival of Jason Hess. I was also very lucky to study under Jason Hess while creating the work for my senior exhibition during my last year. Working with Hess was a great capstone to my undergraduate expereince and he continues to be a friend and influence.

While at NAU I also worked under the guidance of two other great teachers, Ellen Tibbitts and Paula Rice. I really was very lucky to have so many great teachers early in my ceramics career. My time at NAU included experiments in many types of firing methods including electric low-fire, low-fire salt fuming, high fire soda, salt and residual salt, raku, pit firing, low and high fire gas firing, and woodfiring of various kinds. My experiments continued into the building of many kilns, including two soda kilns, three anagamas, and I worked on and helped maintain several other kilns.