Artist Results

record 1 of 1

Dan Anderson Ceramicist American (St. Paul, Minnesota, 1945 - ) active Edwardsville, Illinois View objects by this artist.

Anderson is a regional artist  who attended the University of Wisconsin (B.S. in Education, 1968) and  Cranbrook Academy of Art (M.F.A., 1970).  Currently he is Professor, Head of Ceramics, Department of Arts and Design at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.  In addition to functional/traditional pottery, Anderson is an expert on photo imagery and decals on ceramics and is noted mainly for his work based on vessels in the form of water towers, barns, silos, and most recently, oil and gas cans.
Public collections include: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cranbrook Museum of Art, Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Weisman Art Museum, The Everson Museum, Archie Bray Foundation and the Carnegie Museum of Art.

"My artwork, an amalgam of vessel and industrial artifact, is ful of irony -- handmade replicas of man-made objects, soft clay renderings of metal objects, aged and impotent reminders of a once-powerful age.  The oil and gasoline cans represent the machinery that once threatened to devalue the work of human beings.  Now they seem just like the hard-working humans they served--stoic, dignified, straight-forward, but plumb wore out.
The usefulness of machines in their original states is limited--as the products of progress, they're doomedto obsolescence--but by recreating them in a "primitive" medium, I believe they will endure through the ages.  They have been transformed for eternity inot art.  In this way, too, I have taken the aesthetic and political ugliness out of industry, reminding everyone that change can be both hurtful/traumatic and positive/healing.  Once again underscoring the power of art ot uplift the human condition.
By firing the oil and gas cans in my anagama kiln, I am convinced taht instead of merely heating the clay, the flame and ash have the capacity to alter and enhance my clay cans.  The etched surface, created by a sustained three to five day firing, imbues a "poetic" richness.  What an interesting conspiracy: man/woman, clay and fire."
--Dan Anderson, Artist's Statement

(http://www.lawrenceartscenter.com/ceramicsshow/Dan-Anderson-bio.html    4-25-08)
Education
1968 b.s. Art Education, University of Wisconsin-River Falls
1970 m.f.a., Ceramics, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Artist information
Dan Anderson recently retired as head of ceramics at the department of art and design at Southern Illinois university in Edwardsville, Illinois. he is a frequent workshop presenter, having lectured and demonstrated at over 60 different places in the last two decades. Dan Anderson has taught at southern Illinois University Edwardsville for the past 32 years, pouring his heart and soul into the ceramics program, bringing it up to the well-known program it is today. Mr. Anderson has had exhibitions all over the world, and won awards and fellowships from the national endowment for the arts, the Archie Bray Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council.

Artist statement
"My artwork, an amalgam of vessel and industrial artifact, is full of irony-handmade replicas of man made objects, soft clay renderings of metal objects aged and impotent reminders of a once powerful age. the oil and gasoline cans represent the machinery that once threatened to devalue the work of human beings. now they seem just like the hardworking humans they served-stoic, dignified, straightforward, but plumb wore out. The usefulness of machines in their original states is limited - as the products of progress, they are doomed to obsolescence - but by recreating them in a "primitive" medium, I believe they will endure through the ages. They have been transformed for enternity into art. in this way, too, I have taken the aesthetic and political ugliness out of industry, reminding everyone that change can be both hurtful/traumatic and positive/healing. Once again underscoring the power of art to uplift the human condition. By firing the oil and gas cans in my anagama kiln, i am convinced that instead of merely heating the clay, the flame and ash have the capacity to alter and enhance my clay cans. The etched surface, created by sustained three to five day firing, imbues a "poetic" richness. What an interesting conspiracy: man/woman, clay and fire."


Your current search criteria is: Dan Anderson