Turlough Hill, Co. Clare, Ireland, June 2017
My work in ceramics spans two periods, 1970-1985, and 2015- present. I had the good fortune to study under master potter and arts educator Walter Hyleck in the Ceramic Apprenticeship Program he founded at Berea College in 1970. After graduating from Berea in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in art, and as a member of the first class of Ceramic Apprenticeship Program graduates, I set up my first studio in rural Rockcastle County a few miles outside Berea. In 1974 I returned to Berea as the apprentice program’s first graduate apprentice.
Up through 1985, I focused mostly on functional, production pottery at studios in Kentucky and North Carolina, selling my work through craft organizations and regional galleries in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, including the Kentucky Guild Shop in Lexington, Kentucky, and the Signature Shop in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1975, my work was accepted for Craft Multiples, an exhibition of the best of American hand crafts that opened at the Smithsonian Institution’s Renwick Gallery and then toured the country (https://americanart.si.edu/artist/philip-childers-861)
In 1985, I turned to another interest, writing and photography, and after getting a master’s degree in journalism (and meeting my wife, Kim) at the University of North Carolina, I spent the next 30 years in a succession of day jobs and freelance endeavors, culminating in 22 years writing and taking photographs for National Fisherman Magazine. From 1998 until April, 2016, I was Gulf and South Atlantic Bureau Chief for the magazine.
In 2012, I began a three-year process of building my fourth custom, gas-fired kiln and setting up another studio, in which I finally began working in 2015.
I sell my work locally to individuals in the Gainesville-Newberry, Florida area, at the Harn Museum Store, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, 3259 Hull Rd, Gainesville, and I show at local art festivals such as the Santa Fe Spring Arts Festival, the Gainesville Downtown Festival, the Art Festival at Thornebrook and the Winter Fine Arts Fair at Tioga.
For online sales, please click https://hoytchilderspottery.square.site
Recent or upcoming national juried exhibitions that include my work are ; 2016 Fire and Earth, at Del Ray Artisans Gallery, Alexandria, Va. (http://delrayartisans.org/2016/08/fire-and-earth/); 2016 The Almighty Cup, sponsored by the Shaped Clay Society at Syracuse University and Gandee Gallery in Fabius, NY (http://www.gandeegallery.com/2016/04/the-almighty-cup-2/); Cup Show 2017, February 2- 26, at the Victor F. Keen Gallery, Clay Arts Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada (http://www.clayartsvegas.com/html/gallery.html); SIP – A Ceramic Cup Show, Savannah Clay Community gallery, Savannah, Georgia, Feb. 17-24, 2017 (http://www.savannahclaycommunity.com/sip-2017.html); and a Juried Alumni Exhibition, Doris Ulmann Galleries, Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, Oct.1 – Nov.19, 2017, (https://www.berea.edu/news/juried-alumni-art-exhibition-opens-berea-college/)