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Current Exhibitions
Six McKnight Artists
May 15 – July 5
Gallery M & A
New work by 2008 McKnight Fellowship recipients Andrea Leila Denecke (Scandia) and Marko Fields (St. Paul) will be exhibited in Gallery A. Gallery M will feature the work of four McKnight Resident Artists: 2007 recipients Lee Love (Japan/now living in Minnesota), Greg Crowe (Australia), Alyssa Wood (North Carolina) and 2008 recipient Margaret O'Rorke (Oxford, England).
An opening reception for the artists is scheduled for Friday, May 15, 6 - 8 pm.
Andrea Leila Denecke received a B.A. from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa; a diploma with honors from the Tekisui Museum of Art, Ceramic Art Research Institute, in Ashiya, Japan; and an M.F.A. from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. A 1998 McKnight Residency recipient and a 2004 Fellowship recipient, Denecke has exhibited her functional and sculptural ceramic work throughout Japan and Minnesota. Her work is part of several public collections including Franconia Sculpture Park, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and Seto City Cultural Center in Seto, Japan. Denecke states: “I create objects which evoke memory responses or instill a meditative state based on stimuli which have influenced me.”
Marko Fields is currently a resident artist and professor of ceramics, drawing, design, and film at Concordia University in St. Paul. He received his B.F.A. and M.F.A. in ceramics from Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, and is currently the publications director for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA). In addition to exhibiting his work throughout the country, Fields' ceramic sculptures and pots have been featured in such publications as 500 Teapots, 500 Figures in Clay, and Wheel Thrown Ceramics (all published by Lark Books). He has also contributed his own writing to Ceramics Monthly and Ceramics: Art & Perception. Fields is “enamored of the metaphor of the vessel, particularly teapots or bottles, as they contain, serve and pour, significant activities when humans gather. Clearly, the sociology of vessels intrigues me.”
Greg Crowe was born in England and immigrated to Australia in 1963, where he has maintained a home and studio since 1980. He earned an associateship in architecture and a B.A. in ceramics and design from Curtin University in Perth, Australia. Crowe's ceramic work has been included in solo and group exhibitions throughout Western Australia, Ireland, and Japan. In 2002, he was a guest artist at the home of Jeff Oestreich as part of the Upper St. Croix Valley Potters' Tour, where he also co-taught one of NCC's first woodfire workshops. Crowe has lectured and presented workshops in Singapore, Ireland, Canada, and at various TAFE colleges throughout Australia (vocational education and training providers.) In his ceramic work, Crowe strives to combine both texture and the “plastic responsive nature of clay” in a meaningful way, completely integrating “surface and form, clay body and throwing.” 
Lee Love was born in Osaka, Japan and raised in Michigan. He moved to Minnesota in 1983 to study with the late Zen teacher, Dainin Katagiri Roshi. Love's ceramic education has been supplemented with classes at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, under the direction of Curt Hoard and Mark Pharis. Additionally, he has traveled extensively throughout Japan, studying pottery. Following a three-year apprenticeship with Living National Treasure Tatsuzo Shimaoka in Mashiko, Japan, he built a wood kiln and set up a studio in Mashiko, where he continued to make pots and started writing a book about craft, Zen practice, and beauty. Love received a 1996 Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grant, a 1998 Jerome Foundation Asian American Renaissance Career Development Grant, and a 1999 Jerome Travel and Study Grant. His functional pots can be found in NCC's sales gallery, and have been exhibited throughout the Twin Cities, as well as in Washington and Japan.
Margaret O'Rorke lives and works in Oxford, England. She holds two National Diplomas in Design—one in painting from the Chelsea School of Art and one in pottery from the Camberwell School of Art. O'Rorke has produced her own work from her home studio in Oxford since 1980. Her porcelain sculptures have been featured in such publications as Ceramics Review, Ceramics Monthly, Naked Clay (A & C Black) and Ceramic Technology for Potters and Sculptors (A & C Black). Additionally, she exhibits her work throughout England, China, and Finland. O'Rorke states: “the translucency of fine high-fired porcelain has led me...to throw forms which give light. These ideas stem from the nature of the material, forms that can grow from the potter's wheel, the process of firing and a sense of adventure with light and space." In addition to the McKnight show, she has two additional upcoming exhibitions in the U.S.: another at the Clay Center in November, and one in conjunction with next year's NCECA conference in Philadelphia. 
Alyssa Wood lives and works in Davidson, North Carolina. She received her B.F.A. and M.F.A. in ceramics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has lectured extensively throughout North Carolina, as well as in Minnesota and Texas. Recent solo and group exhibitions have included Housekeeping, Stretch Gallery in Pineville, North Carolina; Altered Books: First Edition, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, Texas; At Home and Away: Intimate Portraits, Webster University, Louisville, Kentucky; and Works of Art on Paper, Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, Long Beach, California. Prior to her residency at NCC, Wood was an artist in residence at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois. Wood uses ceramic tiles as a canvas for her drawn and sculpted portraits of “objects we take for granted like forks, knives and spoons, chairs, scissors, and baby buggies.”