David Crane
Medias Used or Areas of Interest:
Ceramics
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David received a B.F.A. from Northern Arizona University and an M.F.A. from Illinois State University. Since 1980 he has been a professor of art/ceramics at Virginia Tech. He served as head of the Department of Art and Art History there from 1995 to 2000. In 1997 he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from NAU. He is the recipient of a Virginia Museum Arts Fellowship and a SECCA-Seven Artist Fellowship Award. His artworks have appeared in many exhibitions at national and international galleries. Reproductions of his ceramic works have been published in books, catalogs and periodical articles. He has conducted numerous lectures and demonstrations. He is a juried member of Piedmont Craftsmen, Southern Highlands Craft Guild and member of 16 HANDS (an association of artist/craftsmen in southwest Virginia). With his wife, artist Janet Niewald, David lives outside Blacksburg, Virginia in Ellett Valley. They have built a home, studios and a small farm. Overlooking this grand valley, they enjoy developing gardens and keeping quarter horses.
The pottery that I make is intended for use in the kitchen and on the table, but it also can be at home on the mantle. The forms, decoration and technical methods are drawn from a diverse range of international historic and contemporary sources. It is my intent to assimilate these many influences with a personal artistic perspective to design and make unique, well-conceived individual functional ware. The ultimate goal and ideal is to create pottery with qualities that will enrich the users life.
I use a variety of forming methods (including wheel-throwing, altering and press molding) to create the forms. The surfaces are treated with slips, stains and glazes. The decoration is generally of two types: brushwork patterns with glaze and stain, contrasting surface (glaze, slip, clay) hard-edge resist, or a combination of these. The pots are then fired in a high temperature salt kilns using propane as a fuel. This firing method, coupled with atmospheric sensitive glazes, produces pots with a rich range of color and surface variation.
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