With October’s first Friday just around the corner, upcoming art exhibit, Illinois Unearthed will be displayed. This exhibit, arranged by CMU’s ceramics professor KyoungHwa Oh, features artists who put together a show based around putting functional ceramics in a more contemporary light.

This show will run for two months, with the first reception on Oct. 6. This will be the first opening that features live music, while the second reception takes place Nov. 3. The second reception will feature an artist talk by one of the artists featured in the show. This opening also coincides with the Grand Junction Downtown Art Festival, so there’s plenty to see and do along with the reception on Friday.

This show features work from seven internationally renowned artists who work professionally all across the US from gallery positions to professional studio artists to university professors and adjuncts. Harris Deller, Amy Chase, CJ Niehaus, Noel Bailey, Matthew Schiemann, Patty Chalmers and Bethany Benson all contributed work to create this show with varying styles and concepts.

One of the key ideas behind this show was to display the creative range attainable by artists while still creating functional ceramic work. The pieces in this show all differ in many ways and serve as a great learning opportunity for both students with a concentration in ceramics and anyone interested in learning more about ceramics as an art form. Much of this work borders on experimental, and follows the idea of “how to design/conceptualize ceramics to include contemporary themes.”

While all the work in this show is functional work like teapots and bowls, much of the surface decoration and variation in the forms lends itself well to the themes of the show. No two artists’ work is alike and while all of these artists learned and progressed their career from one place, the evolution of their own individual styles is evident from much of the work in this exhibition. The artwork showcases different skill sets such as ways that work can be fired, ways to create surface decorations and various methods for apply glazes.

Ultimately this show serves as a learning experience to all in how even simple forms can be adapted or decorated to create something new and interesting. The CMU gallery is open for all to experience and invites students, faculty and the community.