Build me Up, Tear me Down, Why Don’t You Love Me Babe Like There Is No One Around: MoNA Ceramic Invitational 2025.
Hello dedicated docents!
Our director Stefano Catalani put together resources for those of you who want to dig deeper, learn about the 12 artists selected for the first MoNA Invitational and feel ready to confidently inspire visitors by sharing meaningful content. Below this listing is a table giving for each artist date of birth and where they are presently located.
1. Ariana Heinzman
Bio:
https://www.arianaheinzman.com/biocv
https://www.arianaheinzman.com/whodat
2. Iván Carmona
http://seattle.winstonwachter.com/artists/ivan-carmona/
3. Tip Toland
http://www.tiptoland.com/About-Tip-Toland.html
This is a review of Tip Toland’s first solo museum exhibition—Melt the Figure in Clay—at Bellevue Arts Museum. Curated by Stefano Catalani.
https://www.thestranger.com/visual-art/2009/01/15/976576/tip_toland_melt_the_figure_i
Here’s two reviews of Toland’s exhibition at the Portland Museum of Art:
https://www.portlandmercury.com/Feature/2014/03/26/12093313/on-empathy
4. Patti Warashina
https://pattiwarashina.com/home.html
Here’s a wonderful opportunity to see the evolution of Patti Warashina’s work: https://pattiwarashina.com/section/445735.html
Here’s a video of the artist describing her process and practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gyh9c7Yb-s
A wonderful short essay on her work: https://www.amoca.org/blogs/patti-warashina/
Please know that A Procession is on public display at the Seattle Convention Center and it is a who’s who of the mid 1980s Art scene (the A in A Procession is for Art) in the PNW.
A recent article on Patti’s irreverent feminism and sarcasm: https://iexaminer.org/catching-up-with-wildly-original-seattle-based-ceramic-sculptor-patti-warashina/
Seattle Times review of the retrospective co-curated by Stefano Catalani at Bellevue Arts Museum: https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/bam-hosts-a-dazzling-patti-warashina-retrospective/
5. Ryan W. Kelly
https://ryanwilsonkelly.com/home.html
https://www.theclaystudio.org/artists/ryan-kelly-teach
https://amcecreativearts.com/project/ryan-w-kelly/
6. Dirk Staschke
Important article on Staschke’s interest in Vanitas’s painting and his process:
Review in the Seattle Times: https://artdirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/TST_Article.pdf
Review of Staschke’s exhibition at Bellevue Arts Museum: Do you recognize anything?
7. Daniel Duford
https://www.reed.edu/faculty-profiles/profiles/duford-daniel.html
https://www.oregonlive.com/art/2010/06/heidi_schwegler_daniel_duford.html
https://www.markmoorefineart.com/artists/daniel-duford
8. Holly Hudson
https://smithandvalleegallery.com/blogs/exhibits/holly-hudson
9. Chris Theiss
http://www.matzkefineart.com/artists-2/chris-theiss-clay/
http://faculty.skagit.edu/news3.asp?pagenumber=2455&dept=7&yrq=B124
Here’s a definition of sgraffito used by Theiss: https://www.britannica.com/art/sgraffito
10. Timea Tihanyi
https://www.timeatihanyi.com This is the rather comprehensive website of the artist. Don’t be overwhelmed by the feeling that there is so much to learn: I would start reading this page: https://www.timeatihanyi.com/about and then take a stroll through the other pages maybe starting with https://www.timeatihanyi.com/sculptures
I also recommend reading this: https://between-science-and-art.com/timea-tihanyi-mathematics-and-3d-printing-ceramic-objects/
And here some additional sites:
https://art.washington.edu/people/timea-tihanyi
https://artisttrust.org/artists/timea-tihanyi/
11. Claudia Fitch
https://www.gregkucera.com/fitch_bronze.htm
https://www.claudiafitch.com/artistbio.html
https://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/public-art-commitment-adds-passion-to-stadium-1091561.php
12. Emily Counts
https://artistsdontschool.com/blogs/artists/emily-counts
https://www.oregoncontemporary.org/emily-counts-sea-of-vapors
Ceramic Artists included in the MoNA Ceramics Invitational 2025
| Artist | Born | Studio |
| Ariana Heinzman | 1991 | Vashon Island |
| Patti Warashina | 1940 | Seattle |
| Emily Counts | 1976 | Seattle |
| Chris Theiss | 1967 | Mount Vernon |
| Daniel Duford | 1968 | Portland |
| Ivan Carmona | 1973 | Portland |
| Tip Toland | 1950 | Seattle |
| Ryan W. Kelly | 1979 | Bellingham |
| Timea Tihanyi | 1969 | Seattle |
| Dirk Stachle | 1971 | Portland |
| Claudia Fitch | 1952 | Seattle |
| Holly Hudson | 1975 | Bellingham |
The text below is from Ceramics in the Pacific Northwest, LaMar Huffington, Published for the Henry Art Gallery by the University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 1979
Early Influences in Northwest Ceramics Development
Although the northwestern United States was settled late, the area was uniquely blessed from the earliest days with a combination of attributes conducive to the broad development of ceramics. The superbly handcrafted objects produced by the Indians of the Northwest Coast before the new settlers arrived engendered progressive attitudes toward the value of the so-called decorative arts. The large Asian population brought a tradition of decorative objects of enduring beauty and refinement, and the Asians, as well as Scandinavians, Balkans, and Mexicans, brought their culturally significant folk arts in all media. Dr. Richard E. Fuller, founder and director of the Seattle Art Museum, had begun, with his mother, Mrs. Eugene Fuller, a major collection of Asian objects for the museum, which opened in 1933. Included in the wide range of objects they gathered were fine examples of early Asian and Near Eastern ceramic wares and, later, superb examples of Japanese folk ceramics.
All of these factors created among Northwesterners an awareness of and an appreciation for beautifully designed and well-crafted objects. The individuality and experimental attitudes characteristic of Westerners might have also contributed to a dynamic environment for the making of handcrafts. Rich deposits of native clays and minerals in all four Northwest states would provide a necessary source of materials for future creative studio potters.
Still an outpost in many ways before World War II, the Northwest was nonetheless exposed to and its artworks affected by aesthetic and design philosophies prevalent in the eastern United States, just as the East had earlier been affected by events in Europe.
Before 1900, William Morris and John Ruskin, leaders of the Arts and Crafts Movement in England, had struggled to ward off the machine in favor of handwork—an obviously humanizing philosophy that was felt in the United States at a later date.
In 1919 in Weimar, Germany, Walter Gropius, an architect, founded the Bauhaus School, which represented as an ideal the fusion of art and industry and emphasized humanistic ideals. It stressed designing objects and architecture to conform perfectly with their functions and to make use of materials to the best advantage. It concentrated on removing the traditional Western barrier between the crafts and the fine arts and advocated close collaboration between the arts and technological mass production for the social good. Although Bauhaus objects and architecture exhibited characteristics in common (pure, machine-like geometric lines and forms, generally), the enlivening aspect was one of philosophy rather than style, and its philosophy was to influence the call for high-quality product design in the United States. Bauhaus faculties, forced to flee Europe before World War II, transferred their bases to the United States, and helped to integrate, through their design theories, the major and minor arts throughout American systems of higher education, giving more respectability to such media as fired clay.
Northwest Art Study Resources 