WAUKESHA – An exhibition of ceramic work by Jeff Noska and Barbara Reinhart opens November 24 in the Fine Arts Center Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha and will remain on display through December 22. Located in the Fine Arts Center on campus at 1500 N. University Dr., the gallery is open from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Tuesday - Thursday, during special events, or by special arrangement. Admission is free. For a private viewing, phone University Relations at (262) 521-5445.
There will be an artists’ reception on Thursday, December 6, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., including violin music by Priscilla Meddaugh, assistant professor of Communication & Theatre Arts.
Although both previously taught at UW-Waukesha, Noska and Reinhart joined the tenure-track faculty just this last summer, hence the exhibit’s title, “Recently Fired by the Recently Hired.” They share a faculty position, allowing both to continue to work on their own.
Co-director for the construction of the wood-fired kiln at the UW-Waukesha Field Station on Waterville Road in Oconomowoc, Noska will include pieces he fired in it. These vessels exploit the wood kiln’s directional heat flow and deposits of ash accumulated during the four-day firing process.
Work that Reinhart will display consists largely of hand-built and low-fired ceramic sculpture. Some pieces come from her recent series in which she investigates the relationships between trees and humans both formally and conceptually. She brings together painted and textured surfaces by applying slips, stains, and non-fired materials.
Reflecting the shared nature of their position as assistant professors and of their lives as a married couple, the artists also will exhibit a collaboratively conceived and constructed wood-fired sculpture.
A graduate of UW-Superior with concentrations in ceramics and woodworking, Noska earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1984 and then established his Composite Clay Studio in Dousman. While he, along with Christopher Davis Benavides, led the class that built the wood kiln in summer 1997, he started teaching regular classes here in 1998. In the past he has been a visiting artist at UW-Milwaukee and the Art Institute of Chicago and an artist in residence at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine.
Reinhart, who graduated from Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa, also studied at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, at the University of Toulouse, France, and at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. She completed her MFA at UW-Milwaukee and taught at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and Carroll College before joining the faculty at UW-Waukesha. |
