Bruce Howdle Ceramic Exhibit : Animals In Motion and Wild Things In The Human Habitat.
Artist’s StatementAfter a college career focused in the fine arts with an emphasis in clay, I founded a studio in the middle of the USA and vowed to make it work. Motivated to maintain my identity by my instructors in four universities, I avoided areas of the arts that compromised individuality for the ubiquitous commercial style that looks the same from east to west. My style, surface, and method make my work my own. It is more important to me to maintain the spontaneity of the surface than the identity of the subject portrayed. I want to see the clay and the gesture of the subject expressed through how I worked the surface. To me it is all about the surface.
Over the years my work has become increasingly more colorful and more playful. My themes have expanded to encompass animals in motion, under-water worlds, human aspirations and human history. Part of what I do is also engineering. I have designed installations that wrap around building corners, follow large curved surfaces, and adorned plaster, brick and stone walls.
Working in clay I have derived a profound respect for the earth and what it has to offer. The malleability of clay allows me to create virtually any image in as much or as little detail as I wish out of the simplest material and with confidence that it will last hundreds, even thousands of years.
In the decades I have been working in clay I have often thought about the days as a boy when I saw the rusted remnants of old cars, barbed wire and old machinery thrown in gullies to help slow erosion from farm fields. As young adults we knew these dump sites as places where wild animals used our refuse for shelter and as a hunting ground. I was aware even then of the contrast between nature and the rusted remnants of human activity.This exhibit is about animals in motion and wild things in the human habitat.
Education
1976 • MFA, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ Major: Ceramics
1974 • MA, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ Major: Ceramics, Minor: Education
1969 • BS/Ed, University of Wisconsin-Platteville, Platteville, WI Major: General Art, Minor: Education
Exhibitions
2016 · A Healing Arts Exhibition, The Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson,WI, Exhibitor
2015 · Wild Things In The Human Environment, Monroe Arts Center, Monroe, WI; solo show
2014 · Wild Things In The Human Environment, Howdle Gallery, Mineral Point, WI; solo show
2014 · Ring of Fire, Sugar River Gallery, Verona, WI; Exhibitor
2014 · Perceptions of the Material World, Harry & Laura Nohr Gallery, Platteville, WI; Exhibitor
2014 · Generations of the Paoli Clay Family Show, J Nikolai Art, Milwaukee, WI; Exhibitor
2014 ·Elevating Clay; From Wheel to Wall, Overture Center for the Arts, Madison WI; Exhibitor
2003 • Slane Scholar Solo Exhibit Bradley University, Peoria, IL; Lecturer and Exhibitor
1996 • Clay AZ Art XVIII, Flagstaff, AZ; Lecturer and Exhibitor
1984 • West Bend Gallery of Fine Arts, West Bend, WI; Exhibitor
1984 • NAU Western Regional Conference, Flagstaff, AZ; Lecturer & Exhibitor
1983 • Marietta Representative Show, Elements Gallery, New York, NY; Exhibitor
Major Commissions
2014 Six residential commissions from 25 to 40 sq ft
2013-14 Wild Things In The Human Environment, series of 11 murals for exhibitions
2013 Various residential commissions from 15 to 25 sq ft
2012 Cornish Society, Mineral Point Public Library, Mineral Point, WI, Immigrant Pioneers, (three panels total 9’w 3.5’h)
2012 Private residence, Cassville, WI, Fell Pony (8’w x5.5’h)
2011 Culver Corp., Prairie du Sac, WI, Cranes, (three panels from 3’h x 3w to 3”hx6’w)
2011 Rider Transit Center, Concord, NC, Public Transportation Retrospective, (five panels from 3’ x 4’ to 5’ x 6’)
2010 Private residence, Galena, IL, Eastern Canadian Moose, (5.5‘hx9’w)
2009 The Fort Group, St. Augustine FL, Mermaid with Dolphins, (8’6”h x 12’w),
2008 Peru State College, Peru, NE, (five window sized panels on façade of building)
2008 City of Menasha, Working the Locks, (7’h x 8’w)
2008 Café 4, Mineral Point, WI. Wisconsin Tuscan Landscape, (4’h x6’w)
2007 Sheboygan Public Ed Fnd, Sheboygan, WI ,Landmarks of Sheboygan ( two 3’h x 40’w)
2006 Crocodile, private residence, Mineral Point, WI (5’h x 8’w)
2000 Stafford Schools, Stafford, AZ, K-12 Activities, five 6ʼx4ʼ
2000 NAU, Flagstaff, AZ, Elk and Havolina in Mountain Landscape, 7ʼ6”x7ʼ
2000 Private Residence, MN, Native American Wildlife Scene, 8ʼw x25ʼh
1985 McDonaldʼs Corporate Office, Oakbrook, IL, Life-Sized Pig & Corn
1980 Inter-North, Omaha, NE, Four Vases with Varying Themes, average height 42”
1979 Iowa Beef Processors, Dakota City, NE, Cattle herd, 9ʼ4”x27
PUBLICATIONS
2012 · Mural Magic, The Fell Pony Express, Vol. 11, No. 1
2005 · World Contemporary Public Ceramic Art, Zhang Yushan, Hunan Fine Arts Press
2003 • The Craft and Art of Clay, by Susan Peterson (third edition)
2003 • Working with Clay, by Susan Peterson (second edition)
2002 • Ceramics: A Potterʼs Handbook, by Glenn C. Nelson and Richard Burkett
(sixth edition)
1999 • Art Calendar, November
1998 • Working with Clay, by Susan Peterson
1996 • Ceramic Art and Perception, Issue 23
1991 • The Craft and Art of Clay, by Susan Peterson
Bruce Howdle
225 Commerce St. Mineral Point, WI 53565
608-987-3590
bruce@brucehowdle.com