Del Harrow is the 2016–17 Viola Frey Distinguished Visiting Professor at CCA

San Francisco, Calif., September 12, 2016 — California College of the Arts (CCA) is pleased to announce that artist Del Harrow is the 2016–17 Viola Frey Distinguished Visiting Professor.

Harrow is a ceramic sculptor who explores issues of production and mechanization. His multidisciplinary art practice spans sculpture and design, elegantly integrating work made by the hand with digital modeling software and computer-controlled machines. Ceramics authority and critic Glen R. Brown, in Ceramics Art and Perception, said Harrow’s large-scale mixed media art and installations invite “a profound consideration of what it means to be a contemporary sculptor in clay.”

This fall Harrow will teach Craft Theory and other courses. He will give a free public lecture at Nahl Hall on CCA's Oakland campus on September 21 at 7:30 p.m. He will also present a solo exhibition, Equivalent Volumes, at the College Avenue Galleries on the Oakland campus September 20 – October 1.

Watch the lecture

Harrow is also noted for his interest in the relationship between ceramics and architecture, and in 2011 he created an intricate geometric clay “tapestry” on the exterior of the Denver Art Museum made with CAD software and a computer-controlled mill. A frequent lecturer on the intersection of digital fabrication and craft in contemporary art and education, he will have access to the Viola Frey Archives at Artists' Legacy Foundation in Oakland, a resource for scholars, curators, and the general public interested in Frey’s innovative use of clay.

The Viola Frey Distinguished Visiting Professor Endowment was created to honor the life and work of groundbreaking sculptor Viola Frey (1933–2004), who helped to revolutionize the field of ceramics with her monumental, boldly colored glazed clay sculptures. Art critic Ken Johnson in the New York Times wrote that she “expanded the traditional limitations of sculpture.”

A CCA alumna, Frey joined the faculty of the college in 1965, serving as professor and then as chair of the Ceramics Program through the 1990s.

The endowment brings leading artists to teach as CCA distinguished visiting professors. Participating artists have included John Bankston, Kota Ezawa, Rob Epstein, John Zurier, Mario Ybarra, Cheryl Dunne, Deana Lawson, Kristina Podesva, Anthea Black, Dario Robleto, Pratibha Parmar, and Edith Garcia.

About Del Harrow

Del Harrow lives and works in Fort Collins, Colorado. He is an associate professor at Colorado State University, where he teaches sculpture, digital fabrication, and ceramics. He has exhibited in the US and internationally, most recently at Milwaukee Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He is included in the permanent collection of Archie Bray Foundation and Contemporary Craft Museum. Harris is represented by Haw Contemporary in Kansas City, Missouri, and Harvey Meadows Gallery in Aspen, Colorado.

He earned his BS at University of Oregon and his MFA at Alfred University.

About Viola Frey

A recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, Frey was a tactile, physically inventive, and multidisciplinary artist who worked across media — painting, works on paper, and sculpture. She is credited with having helped to enlarge the path for artists who worked in clay. Bruce Pepich of the Racine Art Museum in Wisconsin told an interviewer: "It all started in 1984 with her first solo show at the Whitney. She [Frey] was one of the key people who cracked the barrier between craft and fine art, putting ceramics in between painting and sculpture, to consider it as fine art.”

Frey taught at CCA for nearly 35 years, eventually becoming full professor and chair of the Ceramics Program. During her tenure, she guided the design and building of the Noni Eccles Treadwell Ceramic Arts Center on the Oakland campus. In the late 1990s she was awarded the status of professor emeritus and in 2000 received an honorary doctorate of fine arts. She received her BFA from California College of the Arts in 1956.

A new website, violafrey.org, was launched in August 2016 for artists, researchers, and scholars interested in her work.

About California College of the Arts

Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts (CCA) educates the creative leaders of tomorrow to make powerful contributions to society. CCA’s distinctive project-based educational model emphasizes interdisciplinary experimentation, risk-taking, and innovation.

CCA offers a rich curriculum of 22 undergraduate and 13 graduate programs in art, design, architecture, and writing taught by a faculty of expert practitioners. Students study a wide range of disciplines—from animation to architecture, fashion design to film, illustration to industrial design, and poetry to painting. Coursework is guided by CCA’s founding vision that connecting artists to social, economic, and political life deepens the power of creative work and can change our world for the better.

CALENDAR EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE:

2016–17 Viola Frey Distinguished Visiting Professor Del Harrow
Public Lecture
September 21, 2016, 7:30 p.m.
Nahl Hall, 5212 Broadway (at College Avenue), Oakland

Exhibition: Equivalent Volumes
September 20 – October 1, 2016
College Avenue Galleries, 5241 College Avenue (at Broadway), Oakland

Cost: Free