Wide Rim Vase H 14.5" x W 8" x D 8.5"
I am entranced by pottery's ability to infiltrate art into life. Treated as a physically usable artform, pottery impels multiple and varied creative collaborations between an artist and those attuned to the aesthetic potential of actual use-whether it is with food, drink, flowers, or as storage containers.
Transforming the mundane into the atypical requires eloquent roughness, directness, and intrigue. There is value in tensioning the familiar with the unfamiliar, in reducing form to its essential elements, in pursuing an understated palette, and in creating a sense of incompleteness. Pottery as art is an insistent challenge that must skirt the opposed shoals of mere reassurance and fetishized ritual.
Biographical Information
Born in 1952. Full-time potter; episodic writer, sculptor, and photographer. Studio located in Warrenton, Virginia since 1989. Gas firing as well as with wood in an anagama (tunnel) kiln since 1983. He shares his studio with fellow potter and spouse, Catherine White. As artists they work separately, but share mechanical aspects such as mixing clay and firing their gas or wood kilns.
Commissions since 1983 for OMEN Restaurant, New York City (affiliated with OMEN, Kyoto, Japan). In 1984 obtained an M.F.A. in Ceramics from Columbia Visual Arts College, Columbia, Maryland. Began a prior career as a social scientist/engineer at the non-profit Urban Institute, Washington, D.C. First educated at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; obtained a Ph.D. (1977), M.S. (1975), B.S. (1974) all in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences.
Collections
Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, North Carolina
Renwick Gallery (Smithsonian American Art Museum) Washington,DC
The Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts, Florence, Alabama
The Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art, Alfred, NY
Selected Exhibitions (to be updated)
| 2002 | Southern Market Center, Lancaster, PA, “10th Annual Strictly Functional Pottery National.” Juried exhibit, First Place Award. |
| Middle Street Gallery, Washington, VA, “The Wood Show.” Invitational exhibit. | |
| Blue Ridge Windows, Warrenton, VA, “Transforming the Mundane,” Solo exhibit. | |
| GRACE Gallery, Reston, VA, “To Hold and to Have-Cups & Mugs,” group exhibit. | |
| Omen and Felissimo, New York City, traveling in Japan, “Twilight Talk,” (photograph) in “PeaceArt by 100 Artists” | |
| 2001 | Renwick Gallery (Smithsonian American Art Museum), Washington, DC "USA Clay." |
| Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster, PA, “9th Annual Strictly Functional Pottery National.” | |
| Blue Pony Gallery, Charlotte, NC, "To Have and To Hold," Invitational exhibit. | |
| Cort/Lefferts, Washington, DC, "Pottery," Exhibit with C. White. | |
| 2000 | gallery W.D.O., Charlotte, NC, "The Poetics of Austerity," Invitational exhibit. |
| Chester Springs Studio, Chester Springs, PA, "Impressions in Clay," Juried exhibit. | |
| Pewabic Pottery, Detroit, MI, "Plates and Platters," Invitational exhibit. | |
| Salve Regina Gallery, Washington, DC, "Warren Frederick and Catherine White." | |
| 1999 | Omen, New York, NY, "Plates" Exhibit with C. White. |
| Astra Design, Richmond, VA, "To Have and To Hold," Invitational exhibit. | |
| Studiolo Gallery, Iowa City, Iowa, "Different Stokes: The 1999 International Juried Woodfire Exhibition." | |
| Cort/Lefferts, Washington, DC, "Pottery," Exhibit with C. White. | |
| 1998 | International Museum of Ceramic Art at Alfred, Alfred, NY, "Premediated Function: The Corsaw Collection of American Ceramics," September 24, 1998 - February 4, 1999. |
| 1997 | Cort/Lefferts, Washington, DC, "Pottery," Exhibit with C. White. |
| Blue Spiral 1, Asheville, NC, "Hot Ice II: A Tea Ceremony," Invitational exhibit. | |
| Pewabic Pottery, Detroit, MI "Plates: Salon Style," Invitational exhibit. | |
| 1996 | Omen, New York, NY, "Plates" Exhibit with C. White. |
| Blue Spiral 1, Asheville, NC, "Wood-Fired Clay: Ancient Techniques, Modern Interpretations," Invitational exhibit. | |
| Longwood Center For the Visual Arts, Farmville, VA, "Virginia Clay," Invitational exhibit. | |
| 1995 | Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts, Florence, AL, "1995 Monarch National Ceramic Competition." |
| Chester Springs Studio, Chester Springs, PA, "Hero Pots." Invitational exhibit curated by Jack Troy. | |
| Market House Craft Center, Lancaster, PA, "Third Annual Strictly Functional Pottery National," April 29 - May 25. | |
| 1994 | Anton Gallery, Washington, DC, "Pottery Is Pure Art." Three person exhibit.. |
| Market House Craft Center, Lancaster, PA, "Second Annual Strictly Functional Pottery National," April 30 - May 26. | |
| San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, TX, "Ninth Annual San Angelo National Ceramic Competition," April 14 - May 29. | |
| 1993 | Lill Street Gallery, Chicago, IL, "Seventh Annual Great Lakes National." |
| Tenri Gallery, New York, NY, "Modern American Potters," May 15 - June 10. Five person exhibit. | |
| 1992 | Arrowmont, Gatlinburg, TN, "Utilitarian Clay: Celebrate the Object." In "Invited Clay Artists Exhibition," August 19 - October 24. |
| Bedford Gallery, Longwood College, Farmville, VA, "Virginia Clay Invitational Exhibition," May 18 - June 30. | |
| Hand Workshop, Richmond, VA, "Function and Metaphor: Dinnerware by Artists." | |
| 1991 | Lill Street Gallery, Chicago, IL, "Fifth Annual Great Lakes Show." |
| San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, TX, "Sixth Annual Monarch Tile National Ceramic Competition"; also selected as part of smaller exhibit traveling to the Kennedy- Douglass Center for the Arts, Florence, Alabama. | |
| Foundry Gallery, Washington, DC, "Erasing the Lines: The Crafts as Fine Art/The Fine Art in Crafts." |
Published Articles
| “The Inescapable, Indivisible Essence of Pottery,” The Art of African Clay: Ancient and Historic African Ceramics, Douglas Dawson Gallery, Chicago, 2003, 6-10. |
| Transforming the Mundane, Sketchbook Press, 2002. |
| Spokes of Tradition,” Ceramics Monthly, October, 2002, 32-34. |
| "A Potter's Workbook by Clary Illian," (Book Review), Ceramics Technical, No. 11, 2000, pp 108-110. |
| "Comment on Different Strokes Conference," Ceramics Technical, No. 11, 2000, pp 96-98. |
| "The Poetics of Primitive Pottery," Ceramics: Art and Perception, No. 20, 1995, pp 45-47. |
| "Viola Frey" (Review), American Ceramics, 6(2), 1988. |
| "Stephen DeStaebler" (Review), New Art Examiner, February 1987. |
| "The Politics of Pottery" (Editor), Ceramics Monthly, January 1987. |
| "Andrew Lord" (Review), New Art Examiner, May 1986. |
| "Don Reitz" (Review), New Art Examiner, September 1985. |
| "An Aesthetic of Function," New Art Examiner, September 1985. |
Bibliography
| “Warren Frederick, Platter” The Art of Contemporary American Pottery, Kevin Hluch, Krause Publications, Iola, WI, 2001. |
| "Warren Frederick, Cocoon Vase," Wood-fired Ceramics: Contemporary Practices, Coll Minogue and Robert Sanderson, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2000, page 134. |
| "Warren Frederick, Storage Jar Without Neck," The Best of Pottery, Jonathan Fairbanks and Angela Fina, Rockport Publishers, Rockport MA, 1996, page 118. |
| "Utilitarian Clay: Celebrate the Object," Andrew Glasgow, Ceramics Art and Perception, 1992, No. 10, pp 83-87. |
| "Function and Metaphor," Ceramics Monthly, October 1992, page 20. |
| "Artistic feast: Dinnerware to devour," Ann Holiday, The Richmond News Leader, January 10, 1992, p 22. |
| "Function, Metaphor and Standards," Paula Owen, In Function and Metaphor: Dinnerware by Artists, Hand Workshop, Virginia Center for the Craft Arts, December 1991. |
