Audrey Gair
Rind
Phyllis Baldino, Max Guy & Ellie Rae Hunter
Outliners
October 4 - November 10, 2024
Elly Reitman
energy
August 16 - September 20, 2024
Michelle Grabner, Kathleen Morris & Bronson Smillie
The Weather, or some other accident, curated by Danica Pinteric
Tiziana La Melia
Country Mouse City Mouse Hamster
June 7 - July 6, 2024
Jacob Jackmauh, Caitlin McCann & Benjamin Stallings
As for me, I’m just passing through this planet
March 8 - April 14, 2024
Irina Jasnowski Pascual
Wipers
September 15 - October 29, 2023
Coco Klockner
honesty
July 8 - August 6, 2023
Morgan Canavan, Ben Estes, Marisa Takal
More Coming Back & More Returning
May 5 - June 11, 2023
Sylvie Hayes-Wallace
Center of the Universe
August 5 - September 18, 2022
Amanda Horowitz
Bad Water, True West or Between Myself the Crickets and the Coyote
performed by Sophia Cleary and Ada Friedman
July 14 & July 15, 2022
Suzanna Zak
Coming Home to the Ice Age
opening May 13 - June 24, 2022
Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, Milano Chow, Jenni Crain,
Kristin Dickson- Okuda, Rubens Ghenov, Ann Gillen, KB Jones,
Michael Kennedy Costa, Sean Macalister, Sarah McMenimen,
J. Parker Valentine, Anna Rosen
XX Perfect Souls, curated by Natalie Smith
April 1 - May 6, 2022
Justin Chance, Cameron Cameron, Tristan Higginbotham
Serendipity Trail
February 12 - March 25, 2022
Noah Furman
Beginners
December 3, 2021 - January 25, 2022
Angélique Heidler
Piselli
October 8 - November 19, 2021
Natalie Smith
Nothing Within or Without
August 13 - September 14, 2021
Celia Lesh & Esther Sibiude
A Hole Filled With Noise, curated by Colleen Billing
July 2 - August 2, 2021
E. Saffronia Downing
Field Dug Over
May 21- June 27, 2021
Thew Smoak
Body Without Organs
April 2 - May 2, 2021
Eleanor Conover
Learning From the Steep Slope
March 5 - March 30, 2021
★
About
Instagram
★
open by appointment
located beside
320 E. Churchwell Ave
Knoxville, Tennessee
![]()
Audrey Gair
Rind
Phyllis Baldino, Max Guy & Ellie Rae Hunter
Outliners
October 4 - November 10, 2024
Elly Reitman
energy
August 16 - September 20, 2024
Michelle Grabner, Kathleen Morris & Bronson Smillie
The Weather, or some other accident, curated by Danica Pinteric
July 12 - July 29, 2024
Tiziana La Melia
Country Mouse City Mouse Hamster
June 7 - July 6, 2024
Jacob Jackmauh, Caitlin McCann & Benjamin Stallings
As for me, I’m just passing through this planet
March 8 - April 14, 2024
Irina Jasnowski Pascual
Wipers
September 15 - October 29, 2023
Coco Klockner
honesty
July 8 - August 6, 2023
Morgan Canavan, Ben Estes, Marisa Takal
More Coming Back & More Returning
May 5 - June 11, 2023
Sylvie Hayes-Wallace
Center of the Universe
August 5 - September 18, 2022
Amanda Horowitz
Bad Water, True West or Between Myself the Crickets and the Coyote
performed by Sophia Cleary and Ada Friedman
July 14 & July 15, 2022
Suzanna Zak
Coming Home to the Ice Age
May 13 - June 24, 2022
Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, Milano Chow, Jenni Crain,
Kristin Dickson- Okuda, Rubens Ghenov, Ann Gillen,
KB Jones, Michael Kennedy Costa, Sean Macalister,
Sarah McMenimen, J. Parker Valentine, Anna Rosen
XX Perfect Souls, curated by Natalie Smith
April 1 - May 6, 2022
Justin Chance, Cameron Cameron, Tristan Higginbotham
Serendipity Trail
February 12 - March 25, 2022
Noah Furman
Beginners
December 3, 2021 - January 25, 2022
Angélique
Heidler
Piselli
October 8 - November 19, 2021
Natalie Smith
Nothing Within or Without
August 13 - September 14, 2021
Celia Lesh & Esther Sibiude
A Hole Filled With Noise, curated by Colleen Billing
July 2 - August 2, 2021
E. Saffronia Downing
Field Dug Over
May 21- June 27, 2021
Thew Smoak
Body Without Organs
April 2 - May 2, 2021
Eleanor Conover
Learning From the Steep Slope
March 5 - March 30, 2021
★
About
open by appointment
located beside
320 E. Churchwell Ave
Knoxville, Tennessee
★
Past Exhibitions
Field Dug Over, installation view Stoneware, porcelain, glaze, glass, stones, soil, ceramic decal, earthenware foraged from Chicago, Sheffield, and Knoxville
Field Dug Over, installation view
Stoneware, porcelain, glaze, glass, stones, soil, ceramic decal, earthenware foraged from Chicago, Sheffield, and Knoxville
Field Dug Over, detail
Stoneware, porcelain, glaze, glass, stones, soil, ceramic decal, earthenware foraged from Chicago, Sheffield, and Knoxville
Field Dug Over, detail
Stoneware, porcelain, glaze, glass, stones, soil, ceramic decal, earthenware foraged from Chicago, Sheffield, and Knoxville
Field Dug Over, detail
Stoneware, porcelain, glaze, glass, stones, soil, ceramic decal, earthenware foraged from Chicago, Sheffield, and Knoxville
Field Dug Over, detail
Stoneware, porcelain, glaze, glass, stones, soil, ceramic decal, earthenware foraged from Chicago, Sheffield, and Knoxville
Field Dug Over, detail
Stoneware, porcelain, glaze, glass, stones, soil, ceramic decal, earthenware foraged from Chicago, Sheffield, and Knoxville
Field Dug Over, detail
Stoneware, porcelain, glaze, glass, stones, soil, ceramic decal, earthenware foraged from Chicago, Sheffield, and Knoxville
Field Dug Over, detail
Stoneware, porcelain, glaze, glass, stones, soil, ceramic decal, earthenware foraged from Chicago, Sheffield, and Knoxville
Field Dug Over, installation view
Stoneware, porcelain, glaze, glass, stones, soil, ceramic decal, earthenware foraged from Chicago, Sheffield, and Knoxville
E. Saffronia Downing
Field Dug Over
May 21- June 27, 2021
Opening Reception May 21 7:00-9:30pm
The Appalachian range is a barrier for east to west travel, with ridge lines and valleys oriented in opposition to highways and railroads. Deep grooves are cut from the faces of mountains to accommodate our movement. Driving on Interstate 40 with the windows down, I imagine my arm outstretched, grazing the dips and folds in the rock face.
In preparation for Field Dug Over, Saffronia asked me to send her photos; photos of the ground when walking around, of clay deposits, of crags and bluffs. Although the work was made between Western Massachusetts and Chicago, Illinois, careful attention has always been paid to the landscape and history of where the work would be shown. Careful attention reveals that mountains have been moving while seemingly holding still beside us.
“Fold mountains” are created where two or more of Earth’s tectonic plates are pushed together. At these colliding, compressing boundaries, rock and debris are warped and folded through a process called orogeny. In the same vein, Saffronia uses foraged clay from many sites, pressed firmly into a mold, akin to how a brick is made. Different clay bodies collide and compress. Creases and wrinkles develop then fold on top of each other. Glaze sinks into furrows and forms depressions that hold the same shine and depth as the surface of a water-filled quarry. A “fold mountain” usually displays more than one type of fold, and much like the mountains, these sculptures contain many bends and buckles. In the firing process, the once tightly pressed clay settles into a gentle slump. While this work is informed by research from documents on the history of Tennessee potters and Chicago brick makers, it is guided by movement – photos sent between places, sediment shifting, relocating to a new area, matter transported in the back of cars.
If you were to touch your hand to the face of an Appalachian mountain while on the highway at 60 miles per hour, the shale would flake, the limestone would hollow, and the sandstone would crack and crumble into smaller rocks, eventually turning to sand and mud that might press and uplift into a mountain, or maybe be scooped up into a bucket to become an object. In Field Dug Over, E. Saffronia Downing shows us that although it takes millions of years of orogenic shifting to create a mountain, there are many ways to move the earth around us.
E. Saffronia Downing works with clay to map material residue across time and place. She received her BA in Studio Art from Hampshire College and her MFA in Ceramics from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited nationally at numerous galleries on the East and West Coasts, and internationally in Japan. Downing has received awards and residencies such as the Ox-Bow School of Art Fellowship, ACRE Residency, and Salem Art Works Residency. She currently teaches in the Sculpture Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.