North Carolina Pottery Center New Artist-in-Residence
Posted on 05/15/18
Seagrove, NC - The North Carolina Pottery Center is pleased to welcome a new artist-in-residence, Julie Elkins. Funding for the center's artist-in-residence program comes from the Windgate Charitable Foundation which is based in Arkansas. Lindsey Lambert, the center's executive director, notes, "The center is pleased to have the support of the Windgate Charitable Foundation as we believe the center's artist-in-residence program is providing those individuals selected to be residents with a valuable opportunity to enhance their respective bodies of work through interaction with the local community of potters while at the same time helping us better promote awareness and appreciation of the ongoing tradition of pottery making in our great state."
Julie Elkins received a BFA in Craft and Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2002. She first gained recognition for her porcelain sculptures exhibited at SOFA Chicago in 2003. From there, her work made its way into permanent collections of The Mint Museum of Craft and Design, The Fuller Craft Museum, and the Kamn Teapot Foundation. Currently, she teaches ceramics at Virginia State University, and the Visual Arts Center of Richmond. She leads many creative workshops in the community, and was the Sculptor in Residence at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in collaboration with the Rodin exhibition in 2016. Julie is represented by the Eric Shindler Gallery in Richmond, VA and Sherrie Gallerie in Columbus Ohio.
Julie says, “Inspired by my childhood obsessions, I try to capture the magic I found in the shoebox dioramas I made when I was eight years old. I’d carefully build a little world inside a box with sticks and rocks and grass, cut a hole in one end and peer inside that thing for hours imagining that I lived there. Working with porcelain, I still build miniature worlds filled with layers of details. There is a range of subject matter within each work, and I like to think of each piece as a visual poem or story. Some poems are about the intricate entanglements of history, illustrated through interactions between southern architecture, trees, subterranean levels, and archeology. Others poems contain characters. I personify objects such as trees or houses to portray themes of social issues and the human condition. I aim to leave the viewer with that same sense of wonder and discovery I felt as a child while looking into that little shoebox.”
Exhibitions are made possible through the generosity of our membership, the Mary and Elliott Wood Foundation, the John W. and Anna H. Hanes Foundation, and the Goodnight Educational Foundation. This project was supported by the N.C. Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Thank you!
The mission of the North Carolina Pottery Center is to promote public awareness of and appreciation for the history, heritage, and ongoing tradition of pottery making in North Carolina.
The Center is located at 233 East Avenue in Seagrove, NC. Hours of operation are Tue - Sat 10 am - 4 pm. For more information, please call 336.873.8430, visit ncpotterycenter.org, or find us on Facebook.
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