NEHMA | Collection

Joe Davis

American, b. 1967

Nut Boll
2007

Porcelain with textured englobes
10 x 15 x 15.75 in.
Gift of the Nora Eccles Treadwell Foundation
2009.6

Though Joe Davis makes vessels of utility, things to be touched, held, and used for nourishment, the work that gleans exhibition attention has unique tactile sensibilities—real or faux. Works such as Nut Boll, which has a delicately cracked glaze, look like velvet from a few feet away. Davis maintains that no other ceramic material is as fine and responsive as porcelain. His often knobby sculptural works have a slip-cast bulbous base to which he attaches other slip-cast lumps and protuberances. These are “glued on” when the base and nodes are damp, and therefore sticky.

In 1991 Davis graduated from Ohio State University with a BFA in ceramics. Following graduation, he was Deborah Horrell’s assistant for a year in Columbus; then he became a studio potter, and a machinist for an archery company, for three years each in Clay City, Kentucky. He then moved to Eugene, Oregon, as a studio potter again prior to starting his MFA at Ohio University in Athens. Following graduation, he was an instructor and area coordinator for two years in Utah State University’s ceramics program. Most recently he taught at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon.

Billie Sessions, PhD.

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