{"id":87,"date":"2021-08-24T15:37:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T15:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/?p=87"},"modified":"2021-10-20T13:44:31","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T13:44:31","slug":"pottery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/pottery\/","title":{"rendered":"History Informs Artist\u2019s Ceramics Exhibit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite a long, dynamic history, ceramics is usually excluded from art history classes. When Nebraska ceramic artist Margaret Bohls sought to help her students appreciate ceramics as a historic art form, her research ultimately informed her own work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That exploration led, most recently, to Italian Studies, a collection of three groupings of vessels Bohls created based primarily on pre-Roman Etruscan civilization. Her collection was exhibited in spring 2021 at the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney, Nebraska.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Italian Studies resulted from a 2018-2019 sabbatical. It included a residency at La Meridiana International School of Ceramics in Tuscany, travels throughout Italy, time in London to study Etruscan vessels and additional studio work during a residency at Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Margaret Bohls and her re-creations of Etruscan vessels. Photos by Larry Gawel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bohls\u2019 vessels aren\u2019t precise re-creations but are based on her understanding of the underlying architecture of Etruscan form and reflect her interest in Modernist-era formalist abstraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe layperson looking at these objects may not get a full understanding of their historical background,\u201d said Bohls, associate professor of art. \u201cBut I hope they have an aesthetic reaction to them, and then I hope they begin to look at them as vessels and to create a narrative for themselves about how the forms convey information about culture and use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bohls is particularly interested in vessels created during the earlier, developmental stages of civilizations, as they usually exhibit greater variation in form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n