The Saturday, May 11th art show at the Carthage Junction Depot will feature Ceramic Works by Carolyn Ford. The Carthage Junction Depot is located at 185 Gordonsville Highway.
The event is free and open to the public from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
On display will be pieces from Carolyn Ford’s ongoing body of work commemorating nostalgic traditions from trades, crafts, and skills to vividly descriptive Southern colloquialisms and long-winded yarns.
Carolyn grew up here in middle Tennessee, in her teens relocating to the family’s Smith County farm. From family members telling about ghosts and aliens to whittling strangers on the courthouse benches stretching tales about the fish that got away, listening to storytellers left an impression and would inspire her future work. Today, Carolyn works from her studio in South Carolina but still draws inspiration from her Smith County roots.
“I work with clay as a cathartic response to my tangent-filled thoughts. Drawing inspirations from Southern traditions of spinning yarns, I narrate my experiences. The physicality of working with clay, the risk and surprise, and flexibility of the medium are all part of the process. My disks, plates, and tile works are unified by the use of the circle or tondo format: a portal, a cycle, and a repeated pattern. These pieces are a part of a larger series representing my wanderlust and the importance of experiences. Travel fills one with new ideas as well as a reflection or appreciation of home. Parallels can be made when investigating customs, storytelling, language, euphemisms, music, skills, and heritage. As traditions loose priority, I immortalize the foundations of my Southern roots cultivating a stronger love and gratitude of the Southeast. These nostalgic images represent family traditions, and origin stories paying homage to the love and labor put into establishing the legacy of the land while maintaining colorful humor through irreverent colloquiums.”
Carolyn Ford attended Middle Tennessee State University where she earned her BFA with an emphasis in Ceramics, Drawing, and Painting. There she studied abroad and exhibited in Italy. She then earned her MFA from Washington State University in Ceramics and Drawing. Ford has worked at Limestone University since 2003 where she is a Professor of Art and served as the Chair of the Art Department for ten years. Actively creating while teaching, her works have been exhibited nationally and internationally. She was a part of the Asheville Art Museum’s inaugural reopening exhibit Appalachia Now where six of her pieces were purchased for the museum’s permanent collection. Ford earned sabbatical spending research time as an artist-in-residence at Mission Clay Art and Industry in Phoenix, AZ where she has carved three two-ton pipes for public art. One of her works is currently on display in Napa, California as the Rail Arts District Terracotta Corridor public art exhibit along the Napa Wine Train tour. Ford has been a featured demonstrating artist for Laguna Clay, one of the largest ceramic clay manufacturer and distributor in the United States
If you can’t make it to the exhibit, you can find out more about Carolyn’s illustrative and functional works on her website www.carolynfordart.com
