January 25, 2008
School of Art and Design to host visiting artist
CARBONDALE, Ill. — The School of Art and Design at Southern Illinois University Carbondale welcomes visiting artist Brad Schweiger, a ceramicist from Ohio, for workshops, a lecture and a gallery exhibition at the end of the month.
Schweiger offers a lecture that is free and open to the public at 6 p.m. on Jan. 31 in Lawson Hall, Room 171. Lawson Hall is off of Lincoln Drive on campus. The lecture, he said, will be about his work and the influences on it.
The Surplus Gallery in the old Glove Factory at 432 S. Washington Ave. hosts a ceramics exhibition Feb. 4-8 featuring about a dozen of Schweiger's ceramics.
"It's just a sampling," he said. "(The pieces) echo some of the work I will actually make during the workshops."
The workshops are for SIUC students in the ceramics program and are set for Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.
Schweiger is associate director for the School of Art and a professor at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. His gallery exhibits include the Seto Ceramics and Art Glass Center in Seto, Japan, the Second Cheongju International Craft Competition in Korea, the International Wood Fired Ceramics Invitational at the University of Iowa Museum of Art, the George E. Ohr Cultural Art Center in Biloxi, Miss., and the International Ceramics Symposium and Exhibition at Kunstlerhaus 188 in Halle, Germany. In addition, Schweiger's work is included in international public collections.
He regularly gives workshops to demonstrate his wheel-thrown, then altered techniques. He has visited more than 60 colleges, universities and art institutions for these workshops.
Pattie Chalmers, assistant professor of ceramics at SIUC, invited Schweiger. Schweiger said the two met when Chalmers was a visiting artist at Ohio University.