Ceramics
An ancient art open to innovation, ceramics gives you a broad vision for craft, technology and invention. Intellectual curiosity and a passion for process are the essential tools for this major.
As you pursue the ceramics major, you will be grounded in conceptual issues and techniques of forming and firing, including sculptural building, throwing on a potter’s wheel, mold-making and slip-casting. You also will work with a wide range of clay bodies, glazes and kilns, all with an emphasis on professional practice that prepares you for a career in the arts. Glass has recently been introduced into the elective course offerings, and you will have opportunities to explore ways that glass and clay can be integrated in utilitarian and sculptural objects. Faculty encourage risk-taking as you master technique, inventing and blending processes as you define and create a body of work for exhibition.
An internship is required for ceramics majors, and students have had exciting experiences working as studio assistants for local, regional and international artists and in a variety of capacities in art centers, galleries and museums.
Ceramics department blog
Ceramics Faculty
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Cary Esser, professor and chair
A member of the KCAI faculty since 1996, Cary Esser, professor and chair of the ceramics department, specializes in architectural...
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A member of the KCAI faculty since 1996, Cary Esser, professor and chair of the ceramics department, specializes in architectural applications of ceramics, such as tiles, wall reliefs and installations informed by the traditions and motifs of architectural ornament
Esser's work is currently featured in the nationally traveling exhibition "Craft in America" with venues including the Mengei International Museum in San Diego, the Houston Center for Contemporary Art and the Cranbrook Art Museum. Her work is also illustrated in the book "Craft in America," published in 2007 by Clarkson Potter.
Her commissioned works include a collaborative metal and ceramic sculpture and wall panel for the Secretary of State Building in Raleigh, N.C.; ceramic murals in Heritage Park in Sanford, N.C.; and ceramic relief murals at the Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville, Md.
Esser has served on the National Council for the Education of Ceramic Arts board and was the on-site liaison for the 2002 NCECA conference in Kansas City.
Esser has presented lectures and workshops at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Peters Valley Craft Center and the Archie Bray Foundation. She has served on advisory boards for North Carolina regional art projects. She is a former artist-in-residence at Duke University and has taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Louisiana State University. She holds an M.F.A. degree from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and a B.F.A. degree from KCAI.
Contact: 816-802-3318 or cesser@kcai.edu
www.caryesser.com
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George Timock, professor
George Timock, professor, has a particular interest in double-walled vessels that are raku-fired and inspired by the landscape. His work...
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George Timock, professor, has a particular interest in double-walled vessels that are raku-fired and inspired by the landscape. His work has been widely exhibited in solo, group, invitational and juried exhibitions, including the Survey Exhibition of GTs Raku Vessels 1978-98, Goddard Gallery, Sedalia, Mo., 1998; the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York; "A Century of Ceramics in the United States," Everson Museum, Syracuse, N.Y.; and a one-artist show at Exhibit-A Gallery, Chicago.
His works are in several permanent collections, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. His work has been featured in publications including "Objects: U.S.A.," by Lee Nordess; "Raku Pottery; A Century of Ceramics in the U.S." and "Low Fire Ceramics, A New Direction in American Clay."
Timock received National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1974 and 1981.
A member of the KCAI faculty since 1973, he holds B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees from Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Contact: 816-802-3316 or gtimock@kcai.edu
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Paul Donnelly, assistant professor
Paul Donnelly, a native of Philadelphia, is a studio potter who uses slip cast and wheel-thrown techniques to create decorative yet...
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Paul Donnelly, a native of Philadelphia, is a studio potter who uses slip cast and wheel-thrown techniques to create decorative yet functional pottery. His work navigates between architecture, nature and popular culture to reveal notions of history and fashion and their place in the domestic landscape. He received his B.F.A. degree from Edinboro University and his M.F.A. from The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.
Before receiving his master's degree, he managed the ceramics department facilities at the University of Pennsylvania while also participating in the Artist in Residence Program at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and has been published in American Craft Magazine, Ceramics Monthly, Clay Times, 500 pitchers and Making Marks.
Recently, Donnelly was an invited artist at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, where he participated in a residency session titled "Crafting Content." During this session, artists worked collaboratively while examining conversations about the contemporary studio craft movement.
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Jessica Brandl, lecturer
Jessica Brandl, a native Midwesterner, works in photography, drawing, painting, installation and sculpture to retell stories of Middle...
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Jessica Brandl, a native Midwesterner, works in photography, drawing, painting, installation and sculpture to retell stories of Middle America. Set in landscapes with looming architecture, turbulent skies and misplaced objects, Brandl’s work exposes historical and eccentric places engulfed in psychological scenarios both sinister and sublime.
Surprising spatial arrangements and disjunctive scale shifts support a voyeuristic sense of seeing things from the inside out. Her current work consists of large-scale paintings exploring domestic narratives of Middle American-ness juxtaposed against U.S. and worldviews concerning the domestic home, prosperity and poverty.
Brandl attended Concordia University, studying drawing and painting. She earned a B.F.A. degree in ceramics and art history from the Kansas City Art Institute and an M.F.A. degree from The Ohio State University. Brandl is the recipient of numerous awards including the Fergus Scholarship Award, Fergus Installation Grant and The Greater Columbus Arts Council Community Arts Partnership Award 2009.
Currently, she is a studio artist and teaches sculpture and ceramics at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo.
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Tom Binger, studio technician and lecturer
Tom Binger earned a B.F.A. degree from the Kansas City Art Institute. He specializes in the use of ceramic tile and pictorial narrative...
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Tom Binger earned a B.F.A. degree from the Kansas City Art Institute. He specializes in the use of ceramic tile and pictorial narrative in kinetic wall sculpture. Binger has expert knowledge of mechanics, carpentry, kiln maintenance and service and metal fabrication and finishing.
He has taught several elective studio courses in ceramics, including “Dimensional Mosaics,” “Tile” and “Fundamentals of Ceramics.” Binger also teaches “Materials and Process I and II,” required of all ceramics majors, the courses focus on clay and glaze formulation and kiln theory.
He was an employee of and resident artist at the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine from 2001 to 2003. Binger has held his current position at KCAI since 2003.
He has participated in national exhibitions, including “Tile: Matter and Motif” at the Baltimore Clayworks in 2004 and numerous American Craft Council shows.
