Posted by vrcvanderbilt on Tuesday, October 15, 2013 in Events, HART, VRC.

Vanderbilt’s Department of Art welcomes an exhibition celebrating four decades of art by Susan DeMay, senior lecturer in ceramics. Career Highlights: 40 Years in Clay will be on display in Space 204 from Thursday, October 17, through Friday, November 22.

DeMay will present a gallery talk on Thursday, October 17, at 3 pm prior to the opening reception from 4 to 6 pm. Recognized for her distinctive glazes and glazing techniques, DeMay has brought together more than 40 works from public, private, and her own collections, including vessels and wall pieces, sculptural ceramics, and her recent mixed media work.

Also on view will be the burial urns of friend and mentor Sylvia Hyman, an internationally acclaimed ceramicist from Nashville. Hyman, who died late last year, had years ago requested that DeMay create her burial urns, incorporating the ashes from her cremation into the glazes. DeMay, an educator at Vanderbilt since 1985, has conducted workshops and exhibited extensively throughout the region. The author and subject of numerous articles for national and international publications, she is featured in five different Lark Book series. The preface of the latest book, The Best of 500 Ceramics: Celebrating a Decade in Clay, includes this statement: “Sixty-four prominent contemporary ceramic artists served as jurors for this special edition, each selecting what he or she found to be the most technically masterful, stylistically inventive, and historically important pieces featured in the Lark’s 500 Series.”

DeMay is also the owner of a studio production company, Made by deMay, which she started in 1985 after completing her master’s degree in Art at Tennessee Tech’s Appalachian Center for Crafts in Smithville, Tennessee. “The supportive and nurturing environment there helped me realize that I needed to set up my own operation,” said DeMay.

Several lines from Made by deMay have been sold through the Smithsonian Museum stores. Originally from upstate New York, DeMay received her undergraduate degrees in art and education from Eckerd College in Saint Petersburg, Florida, and her MS degree from George Peabody College in Nashville, the last class before the college merged with Vanderbilt in 1985.

Space 204 is the second floor gallery of the E. Bronson Ingram Studio Art Center, 1204 25th Avenue South at Garland Avenue on the Vanderbilt campus. Sponsored by the Department of Art, all Space 204 exhibitions are free and open to the public. Metered parking is available on Garland Avenue, alongside the Ingram Art Center. For more information, call the Department of Art at 615-343-7241.