Alumni News
Zach Tate Presents Solo Exhibition at Arkansas State
Zach Tate (2013 MFA Ceramics) recently posted pictures of his exhibition at the Bradbury Art Museum at Arkansas State University (October 25th-November 30th). So we sent him a short set of questions to find out more.
It looks like a solo show, how did you snag this show?
I am currently a visiting faculty at Arkansas State University. The director of the museum had an open slot and is a fan of my work. He was curious if I would be able to and willing to fill the space for a solo show on short notice. I was happy and nervous to say "yes".
Is this show self-curated or by someone at the Museum?
It is self curated. 90% of the show was created within the last 3 months.
Judging from the installation photos I have seen on Insta, this work is at much larger scale than you have previously worked. Tell us about that choice and experience.
I made a conscious choice last spring to push myself in the scale of my work. I have been working with the idea of the vessel as an aspect of my work the last few years; in particular the ceremonial and fetishary nature of the cup. With the scale shift I wanted to push some of the details and intimacy of the cup in these larger pieces. It is certainly a work in progress but I am enjoying the process and the results from this shift.
Why “the killing fields” and if not specifically about the Cambodian killing fields, since you have not been there, why all the death imagery?
I have been fascinated with death since a young age. Aside from growing up in a "fire and brimstone" style Baptist Church, I remember first developing some understanding of death when I went to my great-grandmother's funeral when I was five. At seven I was given several carousels of slides from a missionary of his visit to Cambodia. The slides were images of human skulls in glass display cases and mass graves with skeletons piled up upon themselves. Years later the missionary asked for them back. I know now that these were pictures from Security Prison 21 and Choeung Ek.
Aside from the imagery having a profound effect on me, the history of the Khmer Rouge is extremely telling. The systematic killing of philosophers, intellectuals, and artists to silence speech and destroy culture and dissent is a chilling reality that Pol Pot and Mao used in southeast Asia. It left a contemporary blueprint for modern dictators to use as a means of control and subjugation. This cycle of history becoming contemporary and the failure of modern governments failing to deal with it is a real concern of mine.
How do you see yourself as a practicing artist?
I dedicate myself year round to making work. The art and processes of creating informs my teaching, and vice versa.
Amy Kim Wins TPS National Photography Award
Amy Yeminne Kim (2019 MFA Photography) has been selected as the recipient of the 2022 TPS (Texas Photographic Society) National Photography Award. Juror for the competition was Marni Shindelmann, a photographer working in the collaborative team Larson Shindelman and Associate Professor at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia. About selecting Kim's work to receive the top prize Shindelmann said, "This year's winner, Amy Kim, presented work that is timely in its discussion of the role of Texas in worldly economic issues. It exemplifies the role of photography in addressing global issues and crisis." Kim received a $2,000 cash prize award and a solo exhibition during FotoFest Biennial 2022, the international festival of photography in Houston, Texas.
The solo-exhibition opens on October 6th at Sabine Street Studios in Houston, and will feature Wolfcamp Catalogue, a photo book and installation that is Kim's current project. "The project," Kim says, "focuses on the oil industry of the Permian Basin. This West Texas region, situated over the Wolfcamp Shale, is the world's most lucrative oil and gas producer. Wolfcamp Catalogue visualizes the unrelenting developments of the region's oil industry and culture, its ecological implications, and the population's attitudes of American and West Texas pride." The exhibition continues through November 6th.
The Wolfcamp Catalogue exhibition trailer (see above) was first presented earlier this year in Midland on the University of Texas Permian Basin campus outside of the Engineering Building. Dr. Kevin Chua, Texas Tech associate professor of art history who served as curator and essayist for Wolfcamp Catalogue, said about the exhibition, "By recording traces and by following the medium, Amy Yeminne Kim grapples with the contingencies that haunt the world that has taken shape around that ubiquitous-yet-invisible, viscous substance we call 'oil'."
Amy Kim is a full-time faculty member and director of gallery at UT Permian Basin Department of Arts in Odessa, Texas. She is an American-born Korean, and has lived in South Korea and Michigan, and currently resides in Lubbock, Texas. Kim's work has been exhibited at the CICA Museum, Seoul, South Korea; Ping-yao International Photography Festival, Ping-yao, China; and Charles Adams Studio Project, Lubbock, TX. She is one of ten recipients selected by the Society for Photographic Education for the 2017 Student Award for Innovation and Imaging.
Madeline J Hernandez Exhibits in Mexico City Residency
Madeline J. Hernandez (2021 MFA in Painting) completed a 5-week residency program at El Sur in Mexico City in June with an exhibition of work displayed through out and on the residency building walls. "I was so glad to have gone there;" said Hernandez, "it was the first project in which I drew directly on the walls. More of the final exhibit installation can be viewed here.
Hernandez lives in San Antonio where she is a part time instructor at the University of Incarnate Word.
Chris Marin Exhibits at Broward College
CHRIS MARIN (2016 BFA in Painting & Drawing; MFA from California College of the Arts) has a solo exhibition on display at the Rosemary Duffy Larson Gallery at Broward College in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Paintings on Walls features work that explore identity through historical and pop culture references, seeking to reveal the duality of cultural and personal experiences. Chris Marin is currently an Assistant Professor of Practice and Artist-in-Residence at Louisiana State University.
The exhibition was curated by CAROLINA ALAMILLA (2019 MFA in Ceramics) who is currently Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Washington & Jefferson College. In her curator's statement she writes, "Marin's work is an open door to society's critical moments, the kind that can impede us or propel us forward as people. These scenes from the civil rights movement, the second wave of immigration, and pop culture are jam-packed with prominent figures yet the artist uses the color red to get away from race and to focus on the emotion."
Ceramics Alumni Represent in San Angelo Competition
Six ceramics alumni and TTU faculty member Von Venhuizen were selected into the 24th Annual Ceramic Competition & Exhibition at the San Angelo Museum of Art. Juror, James Watkins, selected 116 works by 116 artists from all over North America. The show is on display in the Museum's galleries from April 8 to June 26, 2022. All the selected works can be viewed on the Museum website.
Danville Chadbourne (San Antonio, TX) 
Primarily a sculptor in clay and wood, Danville Chadbourne (1973 MFA) works in a range
of materials in both two- and three-dimensional formats. Over the years he has created
a complex body of work unified by a primal iconography. “My work is concerned with
the evocation of spiritual or primal states. I use relatively simple sculptural images,
sometimes static, like monuments, other times active, dynamic forms that suggest ritual
usage. I use materials and processes that imply cultural attitudes that are harmonious
with nature and the passage of time.” Chadbourne's sculpture is collected in over
thirty public collections and over 200 private collections.
Susan Budge (Pattison, TX) 
Susan Budge (1982 BFA) has been making ceramic sculpture for forty years. She received
a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Texas Tech University in 1983, a Master of Arts
degree from University of Houston in 1987 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from University
of Texas at San Antonio in 1999. Budge's thirty year teaching career began with Artist
in Education Grants from the Texas Commission on the Arts. In 1995 she became Department
Head of Ceramics at San Antonio College where she earned tenure, full professor, was
awarded the NISOD excellence in teaching award and established an endowed ceramics
scholarship fund prior to retirement in 2015. Budge now lives in the Houston area
where she continues her studio practice and teaches ceramics at the Art League of
Houston and the Museum of Fine Arts Glassell School. Budge is best known for her Eye
Spy sculptures which are abstract and usually monochromatic. Her work can be found
in public art collections around the country.
Martie Geiger-Ho (Bradford, PA)
Martie Geiger-Ho (1994 MFA, 2003 PhD in Fine Arts) worked as assistant professor of
art and taught ceramics, sculpture, and art history at University of Brunei Darussalam,
University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, Hong Kong Baptist University, and Mississippi
University for Women from 2001-2018. Geiger-Ho has participated in more than 90 regional
and international art exhibitions including 16 solo exhibitions. Geiger-Ho co-founded
Hong Kong Mural Society (HKMS) and I-Kiln Studio in 1997. She organized the first
large scale raku project in Hong Kong with the grant support from the Hong Kong Arts
Development Council, and co-directed the pilot public housing mural project and muralist-in-schools
project in Hong Kong (1996-99). During her expatriate life in Hong Kong and Brunei,
she participated in many local, invitational and juried exhibitions, and received
several fellowships and research grants from universities and arts councils. Her
artworks have been exhibited in venues such as Museum of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts,
Guangdong Museum of Art, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, The Museum of Fine Arts (Santa
Fe), Kunstquartier Bethanien, Manitoba Crafts Council Gallery, Hong Kong Visual Arts
Center, Museum of Site, University of the Philippines Visayas, Poh-Chang Academy of
Arts. Her ceramic work has been exhibited and collected in the United States, Hong
Kong, Brunei, China, Japan, Thailand, Philippines, Canada and Germany.
Ian F. Thomas (Slippery Rock, PA) 
Ian Thomas (2006 MFA), an Assistant Professor of Art at Allegheny College, has exhibited
at The David Winton Bell Gallery, Virginia Museum of Art, Fuller Craft Museum, Hunter
College, Bellevue Museum, Harvard University, and the Nasher Sculpture Museum. His
work has been exhibited in China, Slovakia, Dubai, Tel Aviv as well as across The
United States. His works have been included in over a dozen publications. Additionally,
he has presented lectures/workshops at over 25 institutions including Harvard University,
Hunter College, Virginia Commonwealth University, Cornell University, Queens College,
and Syracuse University.
Wesley Harvey (Atlanta, GA)
Wesley Harvey's (2007 MFA) current body of artwork examines gay male sexuality through
the lens of queer theory using appropriation of imagery and objects. His work addresses
the social and cultural issues and implications of homosexuality in a society that
is becoming more accepting of what used to be a scarlet letter worn only in the shadows
of back alleys and dimly lit rooms. Harvey has exhibited his artwork both nationally
and internationally and is also a curator. His artwork can be found in various publications
including Ceramics Monthly, Art in America, 500 Contemporary Ceramic Sculptures, and
The Essential Guide to Mold Making & Slip Casting, and more. His artwork is included
in permanent and private collections in the United States, South America, China, and
Italy. In the spring of 2017, Wesley had artwork in the Whitney Biennial exhibiting
as a participating member of Debtfair, an installation and project of Occupy Museums.
He currently lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia and is a Lecturer in Ceramics and
Graduate Coordinator at the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design at Georgia State
University.
Nicolle LaMere (Katy, TX)
Nicolle LaMere (2017 MFA) works with ceramics and elemental materials to create sculptural
objects and installations. Ideas pertaining to existence take the form of spheres
and voids, via vessels. After graduation, she participated in the Land Art of the
American West program, traveling over 6,000 miles and camping throughout Texas, New
Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. LaMere has completed multiple technical ceramic
research grants, the most recent being the NCECA Graduate Student Fellowship (2015).
She was a Houston Center for Contemporary Craft Artist in Residence in 2020. LaMere
currently awaits departure as a one year guest artist to The Shigaraki Ceramic Culture
Park, for the artist in residence program in Shigaraki, Japan. LaMere is an art instructor
at Art League Houston. LaMere's vessel, Void Peel, made of porcelain, symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, was a prize winner in
the Best Vessel-as-Metaphor category.
Associate Professor Von Venhuizen's stoneware piece titled, One Day. It's like a miracle. It will disappear. 03-27-2020, received a Merit Award.
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