AfroFuturism series about
human colonists in another galaxy.
Unexpected changes and challenges face the colonists after five hundred years in their new galactic home.
ORDER THE BOOKS
Selected Publications
A SMALL AND
DISTANT GALAXY
THE FIRST QUADRANT
SUSANNAH ISRAEL
Archie Bray 2024 Visiting Artist: Susannah Israel
Kyle Scott Lee: Patternmaster. Ceramics Now: October/November 2024
The “visual jolt” Kyle’s work delivers certainly brings delight. Color and design are what the work is all about, he says. The intense color and the profusion of repeating designs brings to mind the Pattern & Decoration movement. Speaking with David Ebony, curator Anna Katz says P&D was considered bold, flashy, and promiscuous. Why promiscuous? Because pattern is not specific to any medium or material, it was confronting the racial bias of historical categories of Western art. Pattern & Decoration set in motion an important contemporary change for ceramic practice. This is integral to the energy and freedom of Kyle Scott Lee’s studio work.
Kyle Scott Lee’s distinctive work has received much critical attention. He’s a prodigious workhorse with recent exhibitions at Radius Gallery, Companion Gallery, Bergdorf Goodman and the NY Historical Society Commission, Crafting Freedom: The Life and Legacy of Free Black Potter Thomas W. Commeraw. https://www.ceramicsnow.org/artworks/kyle-scott-lee-patternmaster/
Gottlieb Foundation 2023 Grant Recipient: Susannah Israel
Susannah Israel's gritty yet passionate view of humanity is drawn from city life. Born in 1954 in New York City, she attended Pratt Art Institute on scholarship as a high school senior. She was one of the first women paramedics in San Francisco, 1980 and earned her BA in Art and Chemistry (1987) and MFA (2000) at SF State University. Her work is widely exhibited and held in collections in the US and around the world. Career distinctions include awards from Center for Cultural Innovation, US Artists, NCECA, Fletcher Challenge Premier Award, and Virginia Groot Foundation, among others. Residencies include the Oregon Coast School of Art, Archie Bray Foundation, Mendocino Art Center, Black Bean Studios, Jentel Foundation, Boise VASP, and Mission Clay Art & Industry.
“I am an artist and activist in east Oakland, California. My practice is anchored in figurative sculpture, and my intention is to provoke responses of recognition and reflection. “Asphalt & Honey” (2022) re-engages with a world in turmoil, hearing gunshots and sirens all night, and people living in abandoned cars. It is an autobiographical, socio-political art intervention about life in post-industrial Oakland. Abstracted and architectonic, the sculpted figures stand in for live bodies, and the environment is graphically represented on their skins.”
https://www.gottliebfoundation.org/2023-grant-recipients-1
Susannah Israel. Ceramics Now July 2022.
"Israel’s expressive, abstracted work responds to themes and issues, which she considers to be the role of sculptors across time and around the world. The importance of gesture and compositional dynamics are the artist’s focus, creating the characteristic anatomical distortions and abstractions in her figures. Terracotta is her chosen material for the rich color. and she is influenced by diverse uses of red clay from Mexico, the Visayas, Japan and Italy." https://www.ceramicsnow.org/susannahisrael/
Staying In The Center. Studio Potter May 2022.
"I am a sculptor in clay, raised on the potters wheel. The traditions and esthetics of pottery were dominant when I was in high school. My first instruction was wheel-based; this was how to learn about clay in the early 1970s. Everything I first discovered on the wheel remains essential to me as a sculptor: working hollow is a crucial element and techniques I learned for attaching handles and spouts work perfectly for assembling sculpture. Deeper than these practical aspects, however, is my lifelong passion for the practice of making pots on the wheel. It all began one snowy winter in New York state..." https://studiopotter.org/staying-center
ASOLAS: working in quarantine. New Ceramics International Magazine pp 28-31, Issue 4/ 2021. Print.
The methods, materials and processes of this lockdown-inspired work are discussed firsthand by artist Susannah Israel.
Hiroshi Ogawa : a process of the soul.
Review of nine woodfiring artists (Triton Museum) reposted in honor of this amazing artist.
https://omocpress.wordpress.com/2021/08/03/hiroshi-ogawa-a-process-of-the-soul/
Cavier & Bananas: Ishmael Reed and the Big, Beautiful Art Market. KONCH Magazine Spring 2021
"By framing the art world through the neo-slave narrative, Reed tears off the veils of whiteness in which its sacred canons are shrouded. Thus he provides an opportunity for change from within the system, which arts professionals urgently need to recognize."
https://omocpress.wordpress.com/2021/03/27/378/
Ray Gonzales: 'Telling' Stories. Ceramics Art & Perception, No. 109. 2018
"On the tenth of June in 2017 I took the train from Oakland to Sacramento, a longtime favorite route for me. Rain was falling as we wound the marshlands and the sugar cane factory. The cars were full, and people were talkative, laughing and joking with strangers. I recognized five spoken languages, received a gift of tacos and cookies, and thought about the way common struggle in California has shaped our recent history. It is important, essential, that we stand together. For this to have lasting results, we first need to understand our history, and the work of artist Ray Gonzales is a torch held high for that understanding."
https://www.mansfieldceramics.com/cap-articles/telling-stories-ray-gonzales-at-axis...
Alan King: Point Blank. Introduction to King’s book of poems. 2016
"Point Blank, published this year by Silver Birch Press, is a book of poems by Alan King. It has been a deeply provocative read. King was born in the United States in the 1970s to Caribbean parents, at the time when I was coming to adulthood, as a teen parent, during the Rainbow years in the San Francisco Bay area. It was a dizzying time of altruism, hope and change that was to be sold down the cash river in the coming decades. King writes about growing up in those times, detailing the crash without missing the sweetness, the struggles and the triumphs.
Point Blank begins with the poem Hulk. Immediately I am signaled, briefed and enlisted as a young Black man walks down a residential street at dusk. I know this world, but any reader who does not will also be so informed. For the Hulk in the poem is not the monster. He is at the mercy of the monsters."
https://alanwking.com/books/point-blank/readers-testimonials/
Margaret Keelan: Reality Twice Removed.” Susannah Israel: la casa de sí
Ceramics Art and Perception, No. 103 pp 70-75. 2016
"Margaret Keelan's clay sculptures present us with a marvelous visual contradiction. These figures are the texture of desiccated old wood, coated with cracked and peeling paint, yet their poses are natural and their gestures are evocative. Examining them closely, we infer a long history and a lifetime of experience. Why work with wooden doll images? Keelan says "I loved the weathered wood look, a metaphor for growing older and 'weathering' down to our essential being." The Spanish word for doll is muneca, meaning both doll and wrist. Here the hand certainly activates the doll, in this case not by manipulating a puppet but through the creation of form. Keelan says, "I can only tell the truth of my own story--how I perceive the world. how my perspectives change. It must be an authentic experience."
Tiffany Schmierer: Urban Quotidian. Ceramics Art and Perception, No. 95, pp 71-73. 2014: Print
Jennifer Brazelton: Essential Structures. Review by Susannah Israel. 2013
https://www.susannahisrael.com/jennifer-brazelton-essential-struct
Jon Gariepy: Stormy Weather. New Ceramics: the European Ceramics Magazine, No 3, pp 8-11. 2012:
Transcendent: Michelle Gregor, David Kuraoka and Don Reitz. Ceramics: Art and Perception No. 88 pp 50-53 2011: Ceramics-Art-and-Perception-International-Issue-88-2012-Transcendent.pdf
Into the 21st Century: The Association of Clay & Glass Artists. ACGA: San Carlos. 2011: Print
“Atmospheric Firings: the Tradition of Acceptance. Exhibition review. ARTSHIFT: San Jose. http://artshiftsanjose.com/index-p=5096.html
Intersections & Influences. Catalog essay, Ceramics Annual of America. John Natsoulas Press: Davis pp 2-8. Print: 2010
David Kuraoka: Legacy of Fire. Review of the artist’s retrospective, Pence Gallery
https://www.susannahisrael.com/legacy-of-fire-david-kuraoka
Deep Impressions: Richard Akers. Neue Keramik: No 3. pp 17-19. 2008: Print
Shalene Valenzuela: Believe It Or Not. Davis, California: John Natsoulas Press,
Pursuing the Creative Spirit. Studio Potter Mar. 2002: Print
Woodstoke 2000. Ceramics Technical Issue 12 2001: Print
