DSC Sears Art Museum Gallery "Neon Odyssey" Features Renowned Artist Jeff Ham and "The Firm" Ceramics

The Sears Museum Gallery at DSC’s Eccles Fine Arts Center is preparing for "Neon Odyssey" a one-man show that will feature the works of artist Jeff Ham. Also on display will be ceramics by "The Firm," four friends who have been showing as a group for several years. The show opens December 4 with a reception at 7 p.m. and will run until January 22. The Gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Gallery is closed during school holidays.  Admission is free.

"I have looked forward to this exhibit for a long time," says Kathy Cieslewicz, the Gallery’s curator. "It will be explosive with energy! Jeff’s work is spontaneous and powerful. The Firm’s work communicates their individual expressions. The Sears Gallery will be alive and simply the place to be!"

For the past 10 years, Ham has taken the western art world by storm and is represented by galleries in Jackson, Wyoming; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Sedona, Arizona; Scottsdale, Arizona; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Park City, Utah. His work is found in national and international private collections and universities across the country. In April 2009 he was profiled in Western Art Collector.

Ham took his first sojourn through the Southwest and Southern Utah at age 18. The wonders of Zion, Bryce and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon proved to be such an influence on his art that he works from a studio in St. George. He paints what he loves: people, animals and landscapes. His raw, bright, explosive colors evoke emotion and draw attention to each subject.

"I love color," Ham says. "I do my best to translate emotion and feelings into color as well as communicate my individual interpretation of each subject."

Each image Ham paints becomes iconic—no setting or backgrounds. For this reason, in September 2009 he was asked to create an image for the First Annual DOCUTAH – Southern Utah International Documentary Film Festival, which will take place in 2010. His magnificent image of a raven holding a strip of film will be on display during the "Neon Odyssey" show and can also be viewed at www.docutah.com. More of Ham’s work can be seen on his own website, www.jeffham.net.

The four members of The Firm, Shane Christensen, Brian Jensen, Stephen Heywood, and Michael Schmidt, are all MFA graduates of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. All are active in teaching as well. Christensen teaches at Snow Canyon High School and DSC, while Jensen teaches at Utah Valley University. Heywood teaches at the University of North Florida, and Schmidt teaches at Valdosta State University in Georgia.

But how exactly did they get started?  In an article in the January 2007 issue of Ceramics Monthly fellow ceramist and Edinboro classmate Sarah Rossiter explains: "In his first semester at Edinboro University, during one of many conversational marathons on all things great, small and technological with Professor Steve Kemenyffy, Christensen once mentioned that he was an Eagle Scout. Nearly a year later, Kemenyffy arrived in his studio with the 1966 Boy Scout Merit Badge Book of Pottery folded in his back pocket."

"There’s some crazy stuff in here!" Kemenyffy announced, and left it for Christensen’s edification and amusement.

"The merit badge book resurfaced after graduate school when Christensen, then teaching at Western Texas College, was invited to lecture to Art majors at SUU. He included in his presentation this Boy Scout advice: "You may enter the field of ceramics without attending college, but college training will give you a much better opportunity to advance. If you find that a college education is impossible, you may get employment with a ceramics concern and show an interest in your work so that, in time, you will become of real value to the firm."

"Jensen attended Christensen's lecture at SUU, and afterwards the two discussed the optimism and opportunity presented in the merit badge book. It resonated with the paths they had chosen in ceramics and the art collective idea they had been considering for several years with Heywood and Schmidt. So the four friends decided to formalize their fellowship in goals, art, profession and media (and a certain entrepreneurial panache). The result: "The Firm."

Stephen Heywood talks about what The Firm means to him. "It's more than an organization. It's four friends that want to help each other succeed.  It's the idea that you can do better with three other people helping you than you can do by yourself.  It's an opportunity to serve to give and to inspire."

Visit www.michaeltschmidt.com/ceramics/thefirm for more of their work.