JIM LUX: ARTIST’S STATEMENT

I am delighted to once again share a show space with Paul Hursovsky and his magnificent paintings. My work for this show is much larger in scale than usual. The volumetric presence of these newer pots somehow feel like friends who have encouraged me to expand my (and their) horizons. Unlike many of my other pots, which long to be picked up and held, these pots invite you to stand beside them and accompany them. They eagerly await your touch and your presence.

I have been making pots for over twenty years. I received by BFA from East Carolina University before becoming an apprentice with Sid and Pat Oakley at Cedar Creek Pottery in Creedmoor, NC in the early 1980s. After being at Cedar Creek for nearly a decade, I spent some time working on an MA in art history at UNC-Chapel Hill. While some of my best friends are art historians, I discovered that I'd much rather make art than write about it.

My pots are not thrown on a potter’s wheel - I build each of them from coils of clay pinched together. Then, I carefully scrape the surface smooth and gently nudge the form into something that pleases my eye and my soul. How their curves and surfaces feel (and make me feel) are just as important as how they look. Sometimes I add a bit of color to the surface, sometimes an incised line filled with clay slip. The quiet and meditative forming process results in a "blank canvas" on which the primitive fire can make its mark.

After an initial firing in an electric kiln, these pots have been wrapped in cocoons of leaves and straw and paper, laid in a nest of bricks, and lit afire. The quickly burning materials strip away the wrapping, revealing random patterns of carbon deposits cover the surface of the pots that remain as evidence of the firing process. Then, I polish the clay’s surface with wax, sometimes with the addition of metallic powders. The process - that's what I like. And it startles me sometimes that something of me comes through in that process.

JIM LUX—SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

North Carolina Artists Exhibition, 1984, NC Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
Ceramics: The Oriental Influence, 1985, The Arts Council, Wilson, NC
A Clay Expose, 1985, Craven Arts Council & Gallery, New Bern, NC
Wood Fired Pottery: Two Approaches, 1985, Cedar Creek Gallery, Creedmoor, NC
Juried Exhibition of North Carolina Crafts, 1986, NC Museum of History, Raleigh, NC
North Carolina Clay, 1992, NC State University Gallery, Raleigh, NC
New Work: Jim Lux and Paul Hrusovsky, 1999, Craven Allen Gallery, Durham, NC
Seventh Annual Juried Artists Exhibition, 2001, Page-Walker Arts Center, Cary, NC
Jim Lux: POTS, 2001, Craven Allen Gallery, Durham, NC
The Triangle's Best Art, 2004, Lee Hansley Gallery, Raleigh, NC
The Body Show, 2004, Craven Allen Gallery, Durham, NC
Out of the Fire: New Pots by Jim Lux, 2004, Craven Allen Gallery, Durham, NC
National Teapot Show VI, 2005, Cedar Creek Gallery, Creedmoor, NC
Jim Lux, 2006, Durham Art Guild, Durham, NC
Sid Oakley – Artist, Mentor, Friend, 2006, NCSU Gallery of Art and Design, Raleigh, NC
Achieve, 2006, NCSU Craft Center, Raleigh, NC
Paul Hrusovsky: New Paintings; and Jim Lux: New Pots, 2006, Craven Allen Gallery, Durham, NC
National Teapot Show VII, June, 2008, Cedar Creek Gallery, Creedmoor, NC
CHAVI Artists Show, September, 2008, Millenium, Durham, NC
Jim Lux: New Pots and Paul Hrusovsky: New Paintings, November 2008, Craven Allen Gallery, Durham NC
Winter Show, November, 2008, Green Hill Center, Greensboro, NC