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Cable Years

50/50: The Cable Years

Early Years

Teaching

Achievements

Conclusion

Greetings,

Ceramics is alive and thriving at UND. The Ceramics Department, now the ceramics area within the Department of Art and Design, will celebrate its centennial in 2010. There are only a handful of clay programs in the USA that can boast that length of history. If you’re viewing this site, chances are you were a part of that history and success of our program.

There are a number of activities being developed to celebrate the centennial. The principle one is the retrospective show titled 50/50: The Cable Years/The Contemporary Years. An attempt is being made to contact all former clay students that are active in ceramics in some way. Over 600 students took a beginning level ceramics class and at least one additional clay class from me in the last 40 years. If your clay experience has had an impact on your life in any way, we’d like to hear how. If you have been active in clay over the years we are particularly interested in hearing from you for several reasons:

The 50/50: Cable Years/Contemporary Years Centennial Exhibition will open the centennial celebration on April 18, 2010 and be held at the North Dakota Museum of Art. The North Dakota Pottery Collectors Society will hold their convention in Grand Forks June 10, 2010, coinciding with the close of the exhibition.

Professor McCleery’s upper division student records are not available. If you know of any of her students that are involved in clay, please send their address or relay this letter or web site to them: www.pottery.und.edu. Katie retired in 2005 and returned to her home state of Michigan where she has built her dream home.

Assistant Professor Wes Smith is from Tennessee and began teaching ceramics at the University of North Dakota in 2006. He received his BFA at the University of Tennessee and his MFA at Texas Tech University. From 2003-2006 he was an Artist in Residence at Tennessee Tech University’s Appalachian Center for Craft. Wes has been a great addition to the ceramics area and the Department of Art and Design.

The new outdoor Myra Kiln Yard on the southwest corner of the Hughs Fine Arts Center is being developed. It’s an ambitious project, which began with the donation of over 30K dollars of high temperature firebrick. Wes and I co-authored several Myra Foundation grants to further facilitate the kiln yard. The site already includes a cone 12 wood fired kiln, a wood fired raku kiln and a soda kiln. A new salt kiln stands where the Don Reitz salt kiln was. (It’s in the reitz spot.) Plans are to have the Myra Kiln Yard enclosed and covered to make it more winter/classroom friendly. Any offers of support toward the completion of the project would be greatly appreciated.

A number of additional events are in the planning stages including a big name visiting artist (or two), a centennial commemorative and more. You are warmly invited to attend any of the centennial events. Please fill out and return the contact information sheet attached at the end of this letter or go to our web site and email the information to us. If you know of any former UND “claymates” that are active, please share how we may contact them or forward this information to them. My email address is: Donald.miller@und.nodak.edu

It’s time to celebrate our great run. We’d love to hear from all of you that have been stuck-in-the-mud since leaving the University of North Dakota.


Sincerely,

Professor Don Miller