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d X's carved in earth,s and spiritual spaces:elena, Montana, hasral work spread overIAlignments offers aand depth of his

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acted to the roughlyas transmitted by hisnd himself fascinated,(Frank Stella, Robertert Smithson's headyilities of postmodem, he was profoundlyy Neolithic standingn temples, stadia, and

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aqueducts. The works of contemporary earth artists (AndyGoldsworthy, Nancy Holt, Richard Long) grew increasinglyimportant to his approach, as did the eccentric structures builtby Barcelona visionary Antonio Gaudi. Harrison's eclectictastes were to lead him far from his pottery roots and halfwayback again.

When he entered the University of Denver's graduateprogram in ceramics in 1979, Harrison was ready to stepoutside the tradition of vessel making and to begin to exploreother possibilities in his ceramic work. Today, Harrison seeshis move from pottery to sculpture as a natural evolution, but

at the time, he recalls, it was difficult,even painful. "I've always loved clayas a material, and Ilove the traditionalforms," he says. "When I first beganmaking sculpture, especially when Iincorporated non-ceramic objects, it feltas if I was somehow betraying myfamily." His sense of loyalty, however,couldn't still his exploratory urge, andhis artistic excursions have led him touse, besides raw clay and fired ceramicartifacts (manufactured bricks, shardsfrom other artists' pots, commercialvases, teacups, and tiles), such disparatematerials as galvanized culvert pipe,granite capitals from discarded columnsand other architectural fragments, redvolcanic rock, wooden beams and poles,Styrofoam, concrete, and aluminum-wrapped television cable.

At the same time, Harrisonretains his allegiance to ceramics. Hecurrently serves as president of the boardof directors for the Archie Bray

Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, and he is a past boardmember for the National Council on Education for theCeramic Arts [NCECA]. Some of his most recent works-especially his miniature stack forms, seen in this exhibition-are all clay, a return to roots, however temporary, that delightsand surprises him.

ALIGNING THE STARSHarrison finds himself drawn to spiritually resonant sites

and spaces, and his gallery installations echo and honor thecathedrals, ruins of Roman temples, and Celtic megaliths hevisits during frequent European travels. His installations,which manipulate space in powerful ways, might be calledthe reliquaries of a private religion, and the relics they

Cullumned Spiral, 1989, Kohler, Wisconsin

contain-despite their undeniably personal nature-somehowspeak eloquently to many who visit them. Like a handful ofother contemporary ceramic artists-interestingly, this groupincludes Bobby Silverman, Louis Katz, Rebecca Hutchinson,Richard Swanson, and Richard Notkin, all of whom live atleast part-time in Harrison's current hometown, Helena-Harrison has made the installation an integral part of his work.During the past twenty years, his installations have beenfeatured at Alberta College of Art Gallery, Calgary; the BanffCentre School of Fine Arts, Alberta; Holter Museum of Art,Helena' and the University of South Australia Art Museum,Adelaide. An early installation, his Four-X Transposed, wasfeatured in Gonzaga's Ad Gallery in 1982, while he was anassistant professor at the school and head of the ceramicsprogram.

Certainly, the centerpiece and center point to his currentGonzaga exhibition Celestial Alignments represents theculmination of this aspect of Harrison's work. Incorporatinghis usual mix of materials, surrounded by four spiralingwooden columns and dramatically lit from above, the central"stack"-at nine and a half feet tall-stretches to the heavens.The stack, with its ziggurat crown of cut steel, is constructedof culvert pipe and enshrouded in galvanized wire fencing.The shroud, in turn, is wrapped with television cable sheathedin pliable aluminum and filled with multi-colored shards oflocally manufactured tile, a tribute to ceramics and to hard-working western farmers who pile rocks in the comers oftheir stony fields.

To enter this sacred space, you must pass down a narrowcorridor (birth canal, passageway to a burial chamber) andthrough Celestial Archway, a Styrofoam arch that alludes inits decoration to Van Gogh's Starry Night and in its form tothe weightier, earth-bound arches Harrison has erected acrossNorth America and in Australia and Europe. In this exhibition,see also his miniature arches and the five-foot-tall, black-and-

yellow striped arch; they are,perhaps, models for past orfuture large-scale siteworks, butat the same time, on their ownrelatively diminutive terms,they command attention.

CONVERSINGWITH A SITE:ARCHES ANDSTACKS

In 1980, while workingat the Omaha Brickworks,Harrison created his first site-specific sculpture, carving an"X" into a clay hillside at thebrickworks. He was fascinatedby the notion that theNebraska weather would be his

collaborator, each storm subtly or violently altering hishandiwork, but at the same time he began to consider thepossibility of constructing something more permanent: a shrine,an instant ruin, a provocative folly.

Another old brickyard would offer Harrison his firstopportunity to leave just such a permanent mark. Between 1983and 1985, Harrison spent his time working at the renownedArchie Bray Foundation, formerly the Western ClayManufacturing Company, on the outskirts of Helena. There hefound plentiful space, materials for the asking, and institutional,financial, and moral support for new, more ambitious works.

Harrison built his first semi-permanent piece-entitled Tile-X-on the grounds of the Bray brickyard in 1984. He had earliercreated another hillside "X"-Montana X-on a piece ofproperty belonging to Robert "Irish" Flynn, a University ofManitoba professor of ceramics and Archie Bray alumnus whohas recently retired to Helena. A pyramid-like structure built ofdiscarded ceramic drain tile manufactured at the Bray brickyardand bound together with metal strapping, Tile-X is situated on anorth-south axis, extends twenty-five feet along each axis, andstands twenty-two feet high. Tile-X is tall and broad enough to

Red River Passage, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba

compete visually with the brickyard buildings nearby, and itechoes-in abstract form-the brooding face of MountHelena directly to the south.

Tile-X was a breakthrough piece for Harrison; by itsvery size and scale it gave him the confidence to attempt stilllarger projects, to hone his construction skills, to indulge hisfantasies. One of Harrison's dreams was to build a monumentto the potters and ceramic sculptors who were his comradesat the Bray, and in the spring of 1985 he beganto construct A Potter's Shrine.

As a clear turning point in Harrison'swork, A Potter's Shrine presented a number ofdaunting challenges. He was incorporating newforms (the shrine's brickwork floor was to be aCeltic cross-a kind of "X" -placed within acircle). He had to learn the art oflaying bricks,not just for the complex floor, which featuresthe cross set in a herringbone pattern, but forthe walls and archways as well. And he had toovercome many logistical difficulties, foremostamong them, the unpredictable Montanaweather and a chronic shortage of time to devoteto the project.

Despite the obstacles, Harrison brought hisproject brilliantly to completion. Both socialand spiritual space, A Potter's Shrine trulyresonates with its site. In its brickwork, it echoesthe original studio buildings built in the early1950s by Rudy Autio, Peter Voulkos, and otherBray pioneers, and it mimics-in its circularform and acoustical qualities-the brickyard'scrumbling, but elegant beehive kilns,constructed before 1916. As unofficial curator of the shrine,Harrison asked Bray residents to contribute to what he sawmore and more as a collaboration, and many Bray residents-past and present-have complied, placing imperfect examplesof their works on the shrine's walls, ledges, benches, andfloor. Finally, the Bray's board asked Harrison to place RudyAutio's bust of Archie Bray, founder of the foundation andits guardian angel, within the shrine. Deeply honored by therequest, Harrison placed the bust, sculpted by Autio in theearly 1950s, facing west, "at eye level in a position where hecould oversee 'future developments."

Since that beginning in the mid-1980s, Robert Harrisonhas created nearly thirty site-specific works. A 1988 work,also at the Bray, established Harrison's emerging vocabulary.EntitledAruina, this row of five unruly brick columns standsat the northwestern corner of the Bray grounds. Connectedby tile-and-brick covered arches, the columns ofAruina framethe nearby Scratchgravel Hills and, with considerable wit,play with the conventions of classical architecture. Aruina ismade up of modern industrial materials-concrete, stoutcardboard tubes (the interior architecture of the columnsthemselves), and bricks from the adjoining brickyard. Shardsfrom discarded polychrome sculptures by Japanese artist

Michio Sugiyama---embedded in the spiraling patterns ofbrickwork-add touches of energy and color.

With Aruina as starting place, Harrison began to elaborateand improvise. He created other colonnades; his CullumnedSpiral, 1989, at the Kohler Sculpture Park in Wisconsin andBlack Mountain Colonnade, 1994, on his own property areprime examples. He turned increasingly to a simplifiedvocabulary: the arch, the column, and the buttress.

In 1995, at his alma mater, the University of Manitoba,Harrison and a group of students fashioned a work-Red RiverPassage-that marked, in his view, the epitome of his effortsto "mix and match shapes, textures, and colors." In this work,by some species of alchemy, Harrison has brought togetherseamlessly, while retaining a pleasurable tension, an arch castof stabilized adobe and covered with tiles, a brick column,and a curving buttress (almost a wall) of galvanized metal.Perhaps it is the paved area, set with manufactured cobblestone"bricks," that unites the work-and gives it its social dimension,allowing visitors a zone of peace, a place for meditation orrepose.

Other particularly significant Harrison archwayscompleted in the last decade include Penland Arch, 1994,Penland School, North Carolina and Medaltarch, 1999,Medalta International Artists in Residence Program for theCeramic Arts, Medicine Hat, Alberta. Unlike the siteworksHarrison has built in the American West, where the landscapeis austere (and Harrison responds with rich, saturated colors),Penland Arch is black and white, an elegant Yin/Yang symbolcarved out of the vegetal chaos of a dense North Carolinaforest. Medaliarch, too, contributes something new toHarrison's oeuvre: a tiny brick building with its own

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Harrison's experience as a resident at the Kohler Arts Centerin Wisconsin. There, working with the Kohler porcelain claybody (intended for bathroom fixtures), he cast from his ownmolds pots, figures, and natural objects (leaves, shells) thathe then shattered and reassembled, setting his shards intobeds of plaster and containing them in found window frames.Harrison soon began building custom frames, breaking hiscomplex images into odd shapes. Referring to the historiesof architecture, ceramics, painting, and sculpture, bothwestern and eastern (witness such titles as Rococo TeacupIcon, The Three Graces: Chinese Memories, Tang MeetsYuan, and The Birth ofvenus DeMilo), these works fulfilledHarrison's desire to create small-scale, highly personal relics/icons that might lend spirit to rooms and galleries. The highpoint, and most complex manifestation, of this body ofwork-and also included in this exhibition-is BroadwaterDivider: Starry Night Revisited, a screen that giddilyexpresses, and meditates upon,Harrison's love affair with arthistory (and especially itscelestial visionaries), as wellas his delight in collage andthe purely kitsch aspects ofceramics. Here, and elsewherein these wall works, Harrison'searly austerity and classical!modernist rigorhave transmogrified intocelebrations of vertiginousmovement, glittering surface,and postmodern playfulness(see his Palladian Dream:Rococo Reality for a clearexpression of this tensionbetween the two strains inHarrison's sensibility).

one end of the arch,ans have dwelt here.ison to yet another

te in the Creating theference hosted by the, he spent eight days

of work. Havingalmost exclusively,pect-challenge andith wet brick clay.

mode of carefullying only one material

materials, Harrisonof the last decade,

pleting the arch and'ubiquitous Britishory, designing andstack, based on theys of Hampton Court, on the stack formsand David Shaner., the most seminal

ed Chimney Stacks-in the coming year

g the chimney form,stones and Romanr Harrison, a singularity for infinite andgland, Harrison hasn the Bray grounds

d onsite); and duringin Lancashire, Great

project sponsored bymney stacks he callsith wet brick clay, he

ith a knife. As withn two parts-a broad,ul chimney. Harrisonbottom out of his

med the articulateder moving, Chimney

ally, of Brancusi'sient traditions ofnd lends a spirited

g.t its heart, Celestial

acks, plus four stacks,tand four feet tall.

Palladin Dream:Rococo Reality, 1991

AMBITION AND EVOLUTIONPerhaps more than any other clay artist of his

generation, Robert Harrison-following the lead of suchmentors and heroes as Peter Voulkos and Rudy Autio-hasskillfully and unselfconsciously brought trends fromcontemporary "fine" arts into the often-ghettoized "craft"of ceramics, successfully blurring and rendering meaninglesssuch false distinctions. Celestial Alignments, a long-deservedretrospective of nearly thirty years' sustained work,brilliantly documents-and celebrates-the ongoingfecundity of Robert Harrison's imagination and hissignificant contribution to the health of ceramic arts today.

Harrison's oeuvre is"scarcely stilllifes."

e collages of ceramicd leaf emerged out of

Rick Newby

Rick Newby is a poet, editor, and critic living in Helena, Montana.

EDUCATION

TEACHINGAPPOINTMENTS

AWARDS

RELATEDEXPERIENCE

SELECTEDONE PERSONEXHIBITIONS1992-2001

SELECTEDCOLLECTIONSCOMMISSIONS1995-2000

PUBLICATIONS

WEBSITE

ROBERT W. HARRISON

Master of Fine Art, Ceramics, University of Denver, 5/1981Bachelor of Fine Art, Honors Ceramics, University of Manitoba, Canada, 5/1975

University of South Australia, Visiting Scholar, Adelaide, South Australia, 7-10/1992Lecture Tour of Australia, 10-1111992The Banff Centre for the Arts, Acting Head, Ceramics Department, Alberta, Canada, 9/1988-5/1989Lecture Tour of the British Isles, 1111987-1/1988The Banff Centre for the Arts, Assistant Head, Ceramics Department, Alberta, Canada, 9/1985-87Archie Bray Foundation, Ceramics Instructor, Helena, Montana, 1-5/1985Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington, Assistant Professor of Art, Ceramics, 9/1981-7/1983University of Denver, Colorado, Graduate Teaching Assistant, Ceramics, 6-7/1980, 1-3/1981

Montana Arts Council: Individual Artist Fellowship, 6/1990Manitoba Arts Council Grants: 9/1977, 79-80, 80-81Canada Council Grant: 9/1977

Board of Directors Appointment, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, Montana, 1993-2002;President of the Board 1999-2001; Facilities Chair 1996-2001

Board of Directors Appointment, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA);Director-at-Large 1993-95; Publications Director 1995-98

NCECA International Slide Program Coordinator 1991-94

Celestial Alignments, Jundt Art Museum, Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington, 1-4/2001.New Wallpieces, Bebe Kezar Western Eclectic Gallery, Whitefish, Montana, 6/1996'New Wallpieces, Galerie Barbara Silverberg, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 3-4/1993Architecture Without Walls, Gallery Installation, University of Australia, Adelaide, Australia, 10/1992Art and Architecture, Gallery Installation, Holter Museum of Art, Helena, Montana, 3/1992

Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts Collection: Bray Stacks: Narley and Pearl,Helena, Montana, 2000

Rufford Craft Centre: Ironbridge Archway, Newark, otts, United Kingdom, 2000Medalta International Artist-in-Residence Program Collection: Medaltarch,

Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada 1999University of Dallas Collection: Constantin Arch, Dallas, Texas, 1998City of Helena, Montana Public Art Commission: Queen City Gateway, Helena, Montana, 1997City of Scottsdale Percent-for-Art Commission: Tournament Players Club Bridge, Scottsdale, Arizona, 1997Kansas State University Collection: Tuttle Creek Archway, Manhattan, Kansas, 1996Taunt Collection Commission: Zephrus Ignis Cratera, Helena, Montana, 1996Georgia State University Collection: Atlannarch; Atlanta, Georgia, 1996Mansfield Collection: Gulgong Square, Gulgong, NSW, Australia, 1995

Ceramic Review: The International Magazine of Ceramics (UK); Issue No. 184,7-8/2000.Extruded Ceramics. Ashville, North Carolina: Lark Books, 2000.Architectural Ceramics for the Studio Potter. Ashville, North Carolina: Lark Books, 1999.Large-Scale Ceramics, Ceramics Handbook. London: A&C Black Publishers, 1997.Ceramics: Art and Perception (Australia); Cover and Feature Article, Issue No. 10, 1992

Issue No.1, 1990.Ceramics Monthly; 9/1995,111995, 12/1993,5/1992,411990,3/1986,3/1982.American Ceramics Magazine, Issue 9/3, 1991.

http://robert.harrison.net

Exhibit C~ra:for:J. Seotf~inodeDesign:~Bera:ldAlmanza:.lL~Pnotographs: Courtesy oIthe artist®Jundt JirtMuseum

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EXHIBITION SPONSORED BY QUARRY TILE COMPANY