Julia Galloway ::: Utilitarian Pottery

Exhibition at the Schaller Gallery

The ideas in this exhibition are two-fold.

First, I welcome the viewer of this website into my home, on each piece of pottery, row by row, I have drawn my actual surroundings – starting with the clouds in the Montana sky on large teapots, into my living room, kitchen and so on, until lastly, on small sugar bowls covered with images of my bed room and abstract drawings of neurons from memory and dreams. All of these oddly drawn images are actually my home, each drawing full of details of where I live. I hope the specificity of these images becomes universal to the viewer though it’s intimacy of domesticity in the same way that pottery is understood, pitcher for juice or a mug for coffee.

Second, I am using the structure of the Schaller Gallery website and our instinct to read from left to right to support this idea of moving into a place, of telling a story, to enhance a narrative. This is a digital installation. The pottery is designed for this website and uses this structure to help the viewer to understand the ideas in the work.

All of these pots are utilitarian and rooted in domesticity. The goal of this work is to have pottery of my kitchen get to your kitchen. And hopefully to bring comfort, or at least a special moment of recondition where we call home.

All pottery is made from porcelain clay, fired in a soda kiln to mid-range temperature, cone 6, with blue and black inlay slip. A second very low glaze firing using platinum and gold lusters is common. The pottery is of an average and useful size, small cups about 2.5 x 2.5 x 5 and pitchers 9x10x18. 2016