EMERGE Artist in Residency
The ACCESS Fund recognizes three paths of need: 1) emerging print and clay artists, 2) RWS member artists working in any medium needing assistance to revive their practice due to health, or other emergency situations, and 3) established artists working in any medium who are ready to grow their body of work.
The EMERGE Artist in Residency is the first level of scholarship. EMERGE seeks to elevate and support recent graduates or those with advanced experience or training with a focus in either printmaking or ceramics by providing access to the RWS studios as well as the respective department’s equipment and community.
The program has two sessions each year.
Session 1 - September 1st, 23 - January 30, 24
Session 2 - March 1, 23 - July 30, 24
RWS will host one to two artists per cycle (up to four artists per year).
2023 Winter EMERGE Artists in Residence
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Ian Colwell
Winter 2023 EMERGE AIR; print
Ian is an incoming artist-in-residence as a part of the RWS Emerge program for the second session of its inaugural year. Ian primarily works in printmaking and has been using digital programs like Procreate and Adobe Photoshop to replicate some of the work that they usually make in the absence of access to a studio equipped with traditional printmaking tools and equipment, “I find that with working digitally, the tablet and stylus has the opportunity to replicate what you find in print, however, I miss the components of what can happen when you put a monotype through a press–you can see all those different layers of colors and modify transparencies physically instead of on a screen. I miss the adventitious nature of print.”
They fell in love with MECA&D over six years ago when a representative visited Ian’s high school. While earning their degree they explored majors in painting and ceramics before falling in love with printmaking at the last minute, “I felt as a printmaker I could not only paint and sculpt, I could do many multifaceted things within my practice.” Ian loves the backwards and forwards thinking process required in printmaking. They graduated from MECA&D in 2020 and now works as an Admissions Counselor, giving presentations about the Bachelors of Fine Arts program in high schools across New England.
Typical postgraduate growing pains have been heightened by the pandemic; Ian took a year-long break from printmaking to allow time to mourn their senior year. Inspiration and income were a challenge during this time and it was hard for Ian to be motivated to get to the studio. Ian took a step back to focus on the small things in their day to day, taking videos of themselves brewing coffee or photos of things like a crack in the pavement on their way to work. These small moments built up enough inspiration for Ian to pick up a tablet and start recreating the works they were making in a studio setting on a digital lens. The format lacks printmaking details like how the oil sits on different parts of the paper or the sheen of the graphite on different layers, but it’s been a great way for Ian to create studies and get back in the mindset of making art. Ian recently completed a two-month fellowship at Pickwick Independent Press, funded by a professional artist grant from MECA&D awarded to current students and alumni.
Ian looks forward to experimenting and playing in the studios at RWS, to silencing the inner critic, and working in a non-academic art space. They’re not taking themselves too seriously, like they did in college, and look forward to experimenting with monoprinting, bringing with them a new love of zines, risographs, and printed ephemera. They plan to make more sculptural based forms while in residence. The content of this series will explore Ian’s experience as a non-binary artist operating in a binary world, “The objective is not for people to understand what that feels like, but to build enough confidence to take up space in a world that doesn’t have a lot of representation of non-binary or gender non-conforming artists.” The work’s purpose is to give Ian agency, take up physical space, and create ‘representation monuments’ that function as portraits. The portraits will take on a sculptural form with printed material applied to wooden structures.
Ian hopes to have a collection of work at the end of the residency to show at a gallery and use for residency and fellowship applications. Ian is looking forward to making art again and hopes to be a practicing member of the RWS print department at the conclusion of the program.
To learn more about Ian’s work and process, contact them via email at iancolwell42@gmail.com or on Instagram (@print_jock).
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Joe Holtzman
Winter 2023 EMERGE AIR; ceramics
Joe will be joining RWS as an Emerge program ceramic artist this winter. He is a recent graduate of MECA and currently works production at Georgetown Pottery.
Joe fell in love with clay when he was nine years old ad his parents gave him modeling clay on a long car ride. He made a figure that he carried around and played with like an action figure and after that trip he started carrying modeling clay with him wherever he went. He made miniature people, snails, turtles, and hands. Even now, when gets dressed in the morning he makes sure he has his phone, wallet, watch, and modeling clay.
Although he took many art classes with his mom as a kid it wasn’t until high school that Joe was introduced to ceramics. He had an excellent ceramics teacher and took the class six times in four years. Joe knew he wanted to go to a liberal arts college so he could keep playing with clay and ended up at Bennington where he learned from a professor who was a student of Peter Voulkos. He didn’t take much from this experience at the time, but it an impression on him and his work.
Feeling he was being pushed toward academics when he wanted to focus on the arts, Joe took time off from school and moved to North Carolina where he worked for a potter for about a year. He ended up doing a lot of grunt work but says that it felt right. He stayed a couple of months longer, throwing production work for others and returned to school when he realized that residencies require more formal training and experience. He made a day trip up to Portland and was impressed with MECA’s range of kilns and equipment and liked that art majors had their own studios, so he put in an application and was accepted almost immediately. Joe graduated from MECA earlier this year and named his central thesis piece after Voulkos.
Joe scaled up his work during his studies and found his voice when he took a free choice assignment and threw pots and built them together. Working this way, using the wheel as a tool and building larger pieces, really hooked him. He continued pursuing this idea the following year and then the work changed from sculptures back into fully formed pots that he would cut up and build into abstract vessels. Making symmetrical, well-constructed pieces satisfied his ‘potter’s brain’ while the spontaneity of building abstract sculptures fulfilled his creative drive.
Joe has since jumped back into production work; he pours plaster, casts in porcelain, makes clay, and trims and sprays pieces. He recently started throwing for Georgetown Pottery as well, which includes making fifty shapes of someone else’s design. He is satisfied with his job, but it has a different feel from creating for oneself, and it’s physically demanding with a tight schedule–they fire a packed kiln each week.
He still likes to throw some of his favorite forms from his earlier work, including a mug, soup mug, and a bowl. Originally, these forms weren’t intentional; when he started out they were dictated by the weight of the lump of clay–one pound of clay became mugs and two pounds of clay became bowls–and these are the forms he still makes are the shapes that came out well. The original pieces don’t have all the technical qualities of a trained ceramicist, but even now he views them as real, finished pieces. Now he has the training to emulate those shapes with better forms. Joe hopes to continue working with some of these earlier ideas while in residence at RWS. He plans to scale them down to make the pieces more accessible and functional.
Joe’s work is available for purchase at CIA Cafe in SoPo and Needfire Apothecary on Fore Street. He was invited to be included in these shops by being in front of MECA&D during every First Friday Art Walk. Contact Joe via email at joseph.holtzman@gmail.com.
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Meet the innagural Summer 2022 EMERGE AIR & the Winter 2023 EMERGE AIR here.
2022 Summer EMERGE Artists in Residence
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Rachael Murphy
Summer 2022 AIR; print
Massachusetts College of Art and Design & University of Maine Orono '22.
BA in Art Education, minor in Art History, and a BFA in Studio Art with concentrations in printmaking and painting.
Murphy primarily works in large-scale woodcut prints but enjoys exploring other media when an opportunity or inspiration presents itself.
Murphy aspires to establish a broader understanding of the art world through multiple degrees of study and professional opportunities. She has four years of experience researching and framing artwork through a seasonal position with Liros Gallery, in Blue Hill, Maine. The artist also worked as a curatorial intern with the Zillman Art Museum during her undergraduate studies. She is also actively assisting with an ongoing, large-scale collection management project for active artist Harold Garde. These experiences exposed Murphy to a diverse group of artists, past and active, who use both two-dimensional and three-dimensional media.
Murphy’s artwork oscillates between realistic imagery and abstraction. The artist brings intricate beauty to subjects that appear ordinary or mundane. Her artwork is a vehicle for processing personal interactions with the world, simultaneously layered with broader issues and themes. She is currently focusing on a series of large-scale woodcut prints that address environmental issues and wildlife conservation in Maine ecosystems.
The artist recently exhibited in the University of Maine’s Annual Student Exhibition where her woodcuts received multiple awards including Best in Show. Her prints were also featured in the 2022 issue of Spire: Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability.
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Ryder Kallweit
Summer 2022 AIR; ceramics
University of Southern Maine '22
Studio Art; Entreprenuership
Kallweit, a recent graduate of the University of Southern Maine, received a BA in Studio Art with a concentration in Entrepreneurship.
His studio education has focused on ceramics, but they also create photos, digital designs, prints, and music. Inspired by graphic art, hip-hop, world history, mind puzzles, sci-fi movies, the fragility of existence, and sensational food they tend to make utilitarian pieces with relating wall art, but would like to explore more sculptural art with clay. Kallweit also wants to develop pattern work on dishware and create wall pieces that complement the dish sets.
During his senior year, he received a disciplinary award for artistic growth in ceramics and has plans to carry the same prolific sense to the EMERGE artist in residency.
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