NEHMA | Collection - Soda Fired Ewer

Sam Chung

American, b. 1970

Soda Fired Ewer
2010

Porcelain
8.5 x 7.5 x 3 in.

As a second-generation Korean American, Sam Chung creates pottery that references traditional Korean cloud motifs and juxtaposes the past with contemporary forms. Chung’s elegant orcelain pieces reflect the pottery of the Korean Koryo and Chinese Song dynasties. He is known for creating vessel-based ceramics that often begin on either the potter’s wheel or as slabs that are cut, manipulated, and reassembled. Near the end of the firing of this piece, when sodium ash (sodium carbonate) was sprayed into the kiln, sodium vapor combined with the silica in the clay to form sodium-silicate glaze. Soda fluxes the glaze and fades the color around the edges to intensify the linear dynamics of his work.

Sam Chung was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1970. His parents had immigrated to the United States from South Korea in 1967. Education was very important to the Chungs, and Sam knew early on that he wanted to be a ceramist. He did his undergraduate work at St. Olaf College, where he majored in studio art with a concentration in ceramics. After graduation he studied at the University of Minnesota in order to prepare a portfolio of work for graduate studies at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, where he received his MFA in 1997. Following graduation, Chung has worked at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado; Mesa Arts Center in Mesa, Arizona; and Northern Michigan University in Marquette. He accepted a position at ASU in 2007, where he is currently professor of art.

Billie Sessions, PhD.

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