West Chicago
Host: Laurie Pollpeter Eskenazi at her studio in the garage adjacent to her home
Laurie has been drawn to all things vintage; old button boxes, quilts and other traditional needle crafts made by woman across the globe. She is fascinated by the mosaics and textiles produced in places like Spain, India, and Morocco. These things inspire her. She believes that work made by hand is infused with a part of the maker and that energy is passed on to the collector. Laurie creates objects rich in texture, pattern, and color. Her work possesses a feminine, playful touch that speaks to contemporary sensibilities with a touch of nostalgia woven in.
Andrew Krueger is a self-taught potter from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, with a deep fascination for the intersection of art and material science. His work explores the delicate balance between a simple form and a complex surface. Specializing in vivid and bold crystalline glazes, Andrews glazes are a result of zinc crystals forming on the surface of the pot during the firing process. His pots are a reflection of his ongoing artistic journey, which is everchanging.
Samantha creates functional, comfortable pots that she hopes will become an intimate part of your daily rituals. She designs each pot to create depth, tension, and comfort to inspire you to slow down and listen. Samantha is originally from Wisconsin and currently resides in Arlington Heights, IL.
Mary is a potter, mold maker, and slip caster. Through excessiveness and exaggeration, she turns an ordinary object into an uncanny oddity. These pots generate a tension between grotesque and enchanting– delicate and ornate, yet rigid. Mary refers to this body of work as playfully macabre.
For CJ each piece is a reflection of a specific memory or set of memories, and the emotions and associations that come with them. The feelings and thoughts that they evoke, through subject matter and environment, is an attempt to reach the viewer and connect with their own memories to gain a deeper understanding of the way in which memory shapes our lives.
Peter’s focus for making pottery these past thirty years has been about wandering within the material. He is better at asking questions than he is at providing answers. If there is a defining goal for him over this time, it’s been to make drawings that are pots and pots that are drawings.
Natalya creates whimsical, one-of-kind ceramic sculptures. They are hand build from white earthenware clay or stoneware clay. Intricately textured and decorated with hand painted layers of colorful a food safe glazes and under glazes.
Reiko is a second generation ceramic artist who works with sgraffito and Mishima techniques. Incorporating the Iowa prairie through the lens of a lagomorph.