Strange Days: Tom Bartel & Richard W. James

Tom Bartel is a ceramic sculptor who maintains a studio in Athens, Ohio where he serves as Professor and Ceramics Chairperson at Ohio University. He explores the human form as representational subject matter, manipulated to explore charged topics such as fertility, mortality, identity, sexuality, beauty and our attitudes toward them. Tom sees ceramics as a tool for confrontation where artists use this ancient and plastic media to make commentaries about the predicament of the human condition.

Richard W. James is currently an assistant professor of ceramics at Miami University, Oxford OH. Prior to this, he was the assistant professor of sculpture and ceramics at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi. Richard utilizes the traditional doll format of ceramic head, hands, and feet with a cloth body to create large-scale sculptures that employ found objects within the narrative. The mending of clothes and the construction of dwellings are two crafts handed down to him through his parents’ and grandparents’ way of life.