Shepherd + 1: Clay Vessels 2025
An exhibition of ceramics by Terry Shepherd and paintings by Philip Carlton.
Sponsor
Sponsored by Chuck and Patti Shear / Shear, Inc.
Key Dates & Reception
Exhibition Dates: –
Opening Reception:
About the Exhibition
Terry Shepherd, The Art Center’s Director of Ceramics, has led the Ceramics studio since 1984. With a career spanning 54 years, Shepherd is a highly respected ceramic artist and educator, having studied and collaborated with Paul Soldner and other notable ceramic artists. Prior to returning to Grand Junction in 1983, Shepherd co-founded his first studio in El Jebel, Colorado, where he worked from 1972 to 1983. Each year in December, Shepherd exhibits new work along with an invited artist. This year he has invited Philip Carlton, a Fruita-area oil painter, to exhibit work alongside his. Known for his plein air paintings of contemporary landscapes, Carlton is a signature member of the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association.
Shepherd’s part of the exhibit features a wide variety of ceramic forms and firing processes, a majority of which are highly crafted functional stoneware vessels. This year’s exhibit emphasizes altered sculptural forms fired in alternative low-fire salt-vapored processes, evincing an attitude of embracing the natural fumed results of the action of the flames and kiln atmosphere. Shepherd fires much of his work in alternative firing processes such as low-fire salt-vapor, Raku, and saggar firing. His high curiosity and pursuit of serendipitous results leads him to take risks and allow the firing process to be a major player in the final color and shading of his clay forms, often with surprising embellishment. He embraces the notion of “with confident means, unexpected results.”
Exemplifying this experimental attitude are his low-fire salt-vapored and saggar-fired works. This work requires deliberate placement of pieces in the direct flame path of the kiln, where vapors from sodium, copper, and other metal oxides caress the surface of the clay. This process results in sublime and dramatic embellishment, recording the drama of the flame path and creating lush shading as reduced copper and other elements—such as salt-brined grasses and steel wool—interact with the clay and slip.
In contrast, his functional work in glazed stoneware and porcelain is a testament to his expertise. It illustrates his demands for high craftsmanship and celebration of gestural abstract brushwork in design and color.
Shepherd explains, “I like the work to communicate a personal and visual language of the maker and firing process while celebrating the strength and essence of form and lively spirit of clay and its ability to dress up, titillate our senses and embellish life as enhanced by the hand. I aim to make work that excites and brings joy and mystery to the viewer.”
Guest Artist: Philip Carlton
About this year’s guest, Shepherd says, “I’m pleased and honored to have Philip Carlton exhibit his work with me. He has shown work before at The Art Center, and I like his approach to painting landscapes. He has a very personal and expressive interaction in his rendering of landscape painting.”
Of Carlton’s work it has been said, “He sees working from life as more than just a novelty or exercise. His plein air paintings capture the passage of time over many hours in the field, while his studio work combines experience from multiple locations and days. Every part of a scene is painted when the light and color feel most elegant, making for images which often transcend the limits of reality and break the rules of light and color.”
Every painting that Carlton makes is an essay on how a photograph alone cannot truly record the human experience of being lost in the vastness of the West. Painters can do what photographers cannot. In paint, Carlton explores the flow of time and lets colors evolve into the surreal. An impression of a sunrise is the totality of a morning, not a brief memory of a singular moment.
Carlton’s work has been shown in a wide array of exhibits and in many publications, including in Plein Air Magazine: “Philip Alexander Carlton – Paintings with a Why” (Oct/Nov 2017).
About the Artist: Terry Shepherd
Shepherd’s work is in many private and public collections nationwide, including The Soldner Center for Art and Innovation (Aspen, Colorado) and HopeWest Hospice resident facility (Grand Junction, Colorado). He has conducted many workshops in various parts of the U.S. and was an invited artist in Standing Room Only, the 2004 annual exhibition at Scripps College in Claremont, California. This exhibition honored the legacy of Paul Soldner—artist, educator, innovator and inventor—whose pioneering work profoundly influenced the development of twentieth-century ceramic art and the emergence of Western Raku.