Work by Ceramics Student Featured in National Exhibition

Senior Sarah McNutt’s ceramic piece, Body Documentation, was accepted into the 2012 National Student Juried Exhibition, part of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts conference that approximately 5,000 people attend every year.

Forty student works were selected out of 593 pieces submitted by undergraduates, post-baccalaureate students, and graduates from across the country. The selected pieces will be on display in Seattle’s University of Washington’s Jacob Lawrence Gallery, March 6-31. 

Every year, the National Student Juried Exhibition holds an open call for entries. Applicants can submit up to two different works and are required to write an artist’s statement.

“I was incredibly excited when I found out I had been selected,” said McNutt, an All College Honors student who is pursuing a dual degree in ceramics and art education. “I was in the middle of my student teaching and was able to share with students the personal side of (the artistic) life.”

Body Documentation is a prone human figure made from low-fire clay with black oxide and pastels that is arching upward while being perforated with pins. McNutt described the concept behind the piece as “the physical catalogue of events we carry around in and on our bodies our whole lives—from illnesses to surgeries—and the scars that remain.”

 “Sarah is not only extremely talented, she has a very high grade point average and has worked hard to prepare herself for a future in the arts,” said Robert L. Wood, chair of design and coordinator of the ceramics program.

McNutt already has had her work shown in 15 local and regional exhibitions, but a national show of this nature is a boon for an undergraduate applying to master of fine arts programs in ceramics.

“Anybody who is anybody in the ceramics world will be at this conference,” said McNutt who graduates in December and then plans to spend the spring traveling the country and visiting graduate ceramics programs from Florida to Arizona.

The Buffalo community also has the chance to see McNutt’s piece, as it is included in the Art in Craft Media exhibit on display now through January 15 at the Burchfield Penney Art Center.