Events

Upcoming: Artist Talk at the University of South Dakota

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I’ve been invited to give an artist talk at the University of South Dakota (USD) in Vermillion, South Dakota on Monday, November 18th at 2pm in the Warren M. Lee Center for Fine Arts! This event is open to the public - if you’re interested in attending, here is the Facebook event page for it.

Both beforehand and afterwards, I will hold studio visits with individual students, and later in the semester will guest curate USD's Fall 2024 Student Art Exhibition, which will have its reception on Thursday, December 12th from 6-8pm at Cee Cee's Gallery in Vermillion, South Dakota.

I’m very excited to connect with the USD art students, faculty, and community in each of these ways! Many thanks to USD’s Associate Professor of Art Amber Hansen for these invitations.

Another Raku Workshop!

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My ceramics colleague Paul and I attended another Dakota Potters Supply raku ceramics workshop this past weekend! I was fortunate enough to receive partial funding from the Morningside Fall 2024 Faculty Conference Travel Fund, which allowed me to really experiment with new techniques.

We were hoping to bring three students along as well, but trimming disasters and a rescheduled athletic event took two out in advance and illness struck the third on the morning of the workshop. Fortunately, there were a bunch of other artists in attendance and Paul and I had brought quite a few pieces to finish, so we still had a lot of opportunities to learn and grow. I tried a new-to-me technique out, significantly improved in my honey raku technique, and picked up supplies to test out a method in our upcoming workshop in April that I saw another artist successfully using! I also demonstrated some techniques other artists in attendance hadn’t yet been exposed to, so there was a productive exchange of information all around.

Here are a few photos from the day itself, and once I’ve had time to photograph the pieces I made, I’ll do a series of posts on the artwork.

Advance to Gogh Show is Up - With My Scra-baa Junior Piece!

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KTIV chose to use footage of me looking at artwork to illustrate their article about the Advance to Gogh event.

Just a reminder that I’m participating in a large group exhibition of over 40 Siouxland artists: Advance to Gogh. The opening artwalk receptions for this event (held at the Sioux City Art Center, Gallery 103, Three Rivers Gallery, Art SUX, and Vangarde Arts) was on Thursday, July 11th. I’m unclear on exactly when each of the participating venues will take down the show, but I believe it’s up at least through mid-August.

To the right, you can see an image of me looking at some of the exhibited artworks which was published by KTIV, and if you check the article and video out there’s more footage of me at the reception as well as their own event description and interviews.

In case you can’t make it, though, I’d like to share with you some images of what I did! In the random lottery, I drew the gameboard Scrabble Junior.

The original Scrabble Junior game board.

I decided to keep the illustration and prompt for “sheep” and then painted over all the rest of the illustrations and prompts, color matching with paint to “restore” the rest of the board to a clean, new appearance. Next, I painted a lamb at the base, added the words “& Shelby” to the wordmark, and carefully redrew the grid lines with marker.

Shelby Prindaville's repainted and drawn-over game board.

Finally, I added words for sheep in many languages to illustrate how one plays Scra-baa Junior!

This is Scra-baa Junior (“A ewe-nique edition!”), mixed media including acrylic, marker, varnish, and glue on Scrabble Junior game board with game tiles, 2024.

Shelby Prindaville's finished "Scra-baa Junior" artwork.

Week 4 of the Arts Itoya Residency

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In my last week, our shows and artist talks were scheduled to take place on Wednesday, June 26th from 2-6pm. I was completely studio-focused in the days leading up to the reception, and I managed to get six paintings up for display; however, the sixth one wasn’t quite finished yet so I planned to continue to work on it at home. I’m pretty pleased with this amount of production in a four-week residency, though I definitely bolstered it by coming a week in advance to get over my jet lag while purchasing art materials and gathering reference experiences and imagery!

We had already packed up everything in the studio aside from the displayed artwork in order to host the reception on the 26th. I was departing on the morning of the 29th for Kyoto, and needed to ship my luggage to Tokyo before that. It seemed silly to me to revive my studio practice given all those details, so after the show ended, I deinstalled my artwork and took it and all my studio materials back to the house.

Then on the 27th, Emily and I visited Arita! Takeo-onsen, the town which hosts the Arts Itoya residency, is located in Saga prefecture in Kyushu (the southwestern Japanese main island). Saga prefecture has three particularly famous porcelain towns: Arita, Imari, and Karatsu, and I wanted to visit at least one of them! In terms of the porcelain produced, I like both Arita and Karatsu in terms of aesthetics (Imari porcelain is a little too ostentatious for my taste). Arita is much closer to Takeo than Karatsu, so it was the better choice for a day trip in terms of both time and cost. We first stopped at their ceramic museum, and then walked to a famous studio called Kouraku Kiln. After that, we walked to the major porcelain shop center Arita Sera and ate lunch. We then visited a LOT of porcelain stores (we probably visited about 50, but I think there might’ve been 100 there). I’ve never seen such a large, single-subject shopping district before and I am pretty confident it’s impossible to take in all at once; there’s too much to look at and our feet were also voicing complaints. There was so much to see that we barely bought anything due to the mental overload, the very real luggage size/weight limitations, difficulties in transporting fragile ceramics, and the fact that we’d already bought some ceramics from a store in Takeo; we stuck to small items only. I bought a gift and four pieces, and Emily bought two gifts and two pieces.

On the 28th, we visited Nagasaki. My former colleague Masa Watanabe had urged me to do so, and Hiro seconded the recommendation. We made our first stop at their prefectural art museum, and then went to lunch before checking out their very small Chinatown and then wrapping up at a Buddhist temple, Fukusaiji. That evening, Hiro helped me ship my two large pieces of luggage to my Tokyo hotel with Yamato Transport. And with that, my last week at the Arts Itoya residency came to a close!

Upcoming: Advance to Gogh Exhibition with People's Choice Award

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The Advance to Gogh flyer for participating artists, designed by Jean-Guy Richard!

My amazing friend and artist Terri McGaffin has organized the Advance to Gogh exhibition taking place at multiple galleries in downtown Sioux City, and she and Gallery 103 invited me to participate!

51 artists including me brought game boards (and some included game pieces and boxes) to the lottery selection on April 6th. I drew #43, which was Scrabble Junior!

I’m looking forward to the opening artwalk on Thursday, July 11, 2024 at 5:30pm beginning at the Sioux City Art Center and proceeding to visit all of the included venues:

Sioux City Art Center
Gallery 103
Three Rivers Gallery
Art SUX
Vangarde Arts

There will also be a People’s Choice Award with online voting, so stay tuned as I share more information about that as it becomes available! If you want to visit Gallery 103, it’s located on the ground floor of the Ho-Chunk Centre at 600 4th St, Sioux City, IA 51101.

I have to commend Terri - organizing such a big event across multiple galleries and organizations is a real labor of love and she’s doing a fantastic job with it.

I was the ArtWorks 2024 Judge for the Sioux City Community School District

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On May 2, 2024, I was honored to serve as the ArtWorks 2024 judge for the Sioux City Community School District. This was a massive show with 1,000 student pieces from elementary, middle, and high school students! It was a lot of fun to soak in all of the varied artwork on display, and it was very difficult to award only ten prize placements. I was really wowed by the students’ hard work and talent, and also by the teachers’ creative assignments and support!

I returned that evening to see the show’s opening night, and it was packed with admiring folks of all ages. Here are a few photos of parts of the exhibition - it was so big that these only capture a portion of it!

Obvara and Slip Resist Naked Raku Workshop

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I just got back from another raku workshop at Dakota Potters Supply in Sioux Falls, SD! I brought along a group of faculty, alumnae, and students from Morningside University.

This workshop specifically focused on obvara and slip resist naked raku. I really like obvara, but since I just did a bunch in the fall, I only put four pieces through the obvara process and ran ten through two slip resist processes: one-step and two-step slip resist. Dakota Potters Supply had tried to troubleshoot the slip resist one-step process in advance of our workshop, but they really hadn’t figured it out so we were all experimenting and troubleshooting with our the slip resist attempts throughout the day.

I still need to edit the photos of my pieces - plus, two of them were underfired enough that Dakota Potters Supply kept them back to refire again later, so I don’t know when those might rejoin me (if they stay whole)!

Here are photos from the day of the workshop (Saturday, April 20, 2024):

Artwork Donation to the 39th Annual Women of Excellence Awards & Banquet

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For the past couple of years, I’ve been asked to donate artwork to the nonprofit organization Women Aware of Siouxland and agreed. Specifically, my donations have been entered into the silent auction held during their Annual Women of Excellence Awards & Banquet. This year’s event is on March 22, 2024, and I donated two ceramic pieces to their cause… so if you’re in the audience, keep an eye out to see if either strike your fancy!

Upcoming: 2024 ARTcetera Juried Exhibition and Fundraising Auction

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One of my obvara raku vessels was juried into the 2024 ARTcetera exhibition and fundraising auction at the Sioux City Art Center! This exibition opens with a reception on Thursday, March 21, 2024, from 5-7pm. Artworks will be made available for sale at “Buy It Now” prices on March 22, and the exhibition continues through April 18 when the auction is held as a part of a ticketed event evening.

The opening reception will be free to attend, and if you’re interested in buying tickets to attend the auction, you can do so here.

The Sioux City Art Center is located at 225 Nebraska Street in Sioux City, IA, 51101.

"Art Under Review" Regional High School Exhibition Judge

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The head art teacher for the Sioux City Community School District reached out to me last year and asked if we would be willing to host a competitive art show in Morningside’s Eppley Art Gallery for three regional high schools’ artists: North, East, and West High Schools. Each high school’s art teacher would select the entries, and then I was asked to judge the pieces and award prizes as well as provide a critique of the artwork for the students.

I enthusiastically agreed! The show, Art Under Review, has been on exhibition in Eppley Art Gallery from the beginning of the spring semester on January 10. I will be announcing awards and critique feedback on January 31. The visiting student artists will also get to attend an art workshop and take a campus tour. The show will continue through February 2, 2024.

An Obvara Raku Workshop!

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After asking about it repeatedly for three years, I successfully convinced the lovely folks over at Dakota Potters Supply to allow us to do an obvara raku workshop on October 21, 2023! Obvara is a low-fire scalding-and-sealing process wherein you create a fermented sourdough/beer bath, plunge approximately 980°C naked ceramics fresh out of the kiln into it, wait for them to start to bloom with different tan-to-brown markings, and then arrest the surface carbonization process by rinsing the pieces off in a water bath. Obvara has an even higher chance of cracking due to the extreme thermal shocks involved than non-bath raku processes.

Getting the chance to do raku is relatively rare, and many ceramists haven’t even heard of obvara, let alone had the opportunity to do it - so I’m really grateful for the experience! Joining me on the trip were Morningside faculty Paul Adamson, alumni Calissa Hanson and Deb Murakami, and students Laura Greene, Taylor Greene, and Lauren Hedlund.

In addition, I learned about honey raku from a ceramist at this year’s ArtSplash festival - it’s basically like horsehair, feather, or sugar raku surface carbonization, but with honey! I brought some along and we tried it out too - though I want to experiment with it some more at future workshops as I was so excited about the obvara opportunity that I only kept one textured plate aside for honey raku.

Here are some photos from the workshop itself, soon to be followed by pictures of my finished pieces! I applied for and was granted funding from our Faculty Development Committee to help with my costs, so I made and brought 18 pieces along this go-round - both to make up for any thermal shock victims, and because I didn’t need to apply glaze to my obvara or honey raku ceramics so I could get more processed compared to when I need to apply 1-8 layers of glaze to each piece on-site before firing (for crackle and copper glazes or ferric chloride dips). If you’ve been following my raku workshop production, 18 is about double the number of ceramics I typically aim to bring.

April 2023 Raku Workshop at Dakota Potters Supply

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Now that I’ve gotten the last workshop’s pieces published, I can tell you about the one I just finished! It took place on Saturday, April 22, 2023. Despite that late April date, the weather was decidedly more wintry - it was 34 degrees Fahrenheit with snow on the ground when we arrived, and I think it warmed up to around 40 by the time we left 8 hours later. Fortunately, the inside of the garage/storage room we glazed within got a bit warmer with the help of some space heaters, but I was still happy I wore my snow boots for extra warmth!

Possibly due to the weather, though, I had my best raku luck yet! I brought nine pieces, and all nine survived without even one crack - and my glaze results all fell on a scale of good to fantastic. I’ll share those with you shortly, but here are some photos from the workshop day itself first. In attendance from Morningside University was me, our ceramics instructor Paul Adamson, alumna Deb Allard and student Hannah Nichols.

My April 2022 Raku Ceramics

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I just completed another raku workshop this past weekend, and as I was looking through my files I realized I’ve not yet published the raku pieces I made at my last one in April 2022. Clearly I should do that before sharing my latest workshop photos and products!

On my April 2022 raku workshop, I wanted to try to carbonize various plant fronds or leaves onto the surface of my pieces. This was a complete experiment, and it was mostly a failure. I tried a variety of ferns and tropicals out, and one after another, they burned away without leaving a trace. Here are some plates that I attempted to salvage after that didn’t work out. With the first, I pivoted to a sugar and horsehair application. With the second, I tried to use ferric chloride to stain the surface with plant leaves that weren’t carbonizing, but they just left those not-terribly-appealing ferric chloride splotches.

Once I realized those techniques were not working, I tried etching fern fronds onto a plate in a “baked potato” aluminum foil saggar firing; it kind of worked, but I think it’s underwhelming. Since none of those plant techniques were doing super well, I just put a litho carb copper glaze onto my final plate.

I also made a rounded crackle vessel and the glaze turned out really well, but the ceramic physically cracked due to thermal shock so it’s got that permanent asterisk associated with it.

I glazed this spherical vessel with copper glazes (Copper Sand is on the exterior and I think that’s Midnight Luster on the interior), and it came out looking like a little planet! This one’s a definite favorite.

And finally, the one plant piece that turned out beautifully and justified all the failures: this is another “baked potato” saggar firing, and the Muehlenbeckia axillaris vines I used carbonized perfectly into this vase’s surface.

I also lost a large platter-like vessel (it broke into quite a few pieces and was not salvageable) and had another plate fuse with a kiln brick and lose part of its bottom. I eventually recycled that broken platter-like piece in my rock tumbler!

A Reminder to Check Out the SCAC's 34th Annual Youth Art Month Exhibition

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The opening reception and awards ceremony of the Sioux City Art Center’s 34th Annual Youth Art Month Exhibition was great! I enjoyed getting to meet some of the artists and seeing their family and friends celebrate their accomplishments. If you’re in the area and haven’t yet checked it out, it is open through April 9, 2023.

Here’s some local press coverage which also highlights my role as the juror:

My juror statement, printed in the show brochure:

It was a pleasure to jury the Sioux City Art Center's 34th Annual Youth Art Month Exhibition. Making artwork is a hallmark of the human experience; it is personal expression through creative risk-taking and problem-solving. Youth arts education has been linked to students' increased civic engagement, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, innovation, interdisciplinary synthesis, and motor skills. As viewers, I hope that - as I did - you see pieces in this show that bring you joy, challenge you, expand your horizons, and teach you something new.

To the artists: thank you for sharing your time and talent! Whether your work made it into this show or not, please continue to create and share your art; every piece has its own voice and power. In fact, the quality of submissions was so high that it was very hard to narrow them down to the pieces I eventually selected for display. I prioritized choosing a diversity of subject matter, art media, and techniques in 2D, relief, and 3D. I'm very excited to see the exhibition professionally installed, and I hope you are too!

My Upcoming Northwest Iowa Group Sierra Club Presentation!

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The Northwest Iowa Group Sierra Club invited me to give an artist lecture about my ecologically-focused studio practice at their upcoming Tuesday, March 28th meeting!

My presentation will be from 6-7pm with a Q&A and reception afterwards, as a small selection of my paintings and 100% wild, site-specific ceramics will be on display and I will offer prints, greeting cards, and magnets for sale. My friend and colleague Terri McGaffin will be giving my introduction and helped organize this event along with Jeanne Bockholt. I’m excited to share and discuss my work with this environmental conservation organization!

This event will be held at the First Unitarian Church located at 2508 Jackson St in Sioux City, IA. This programming is free and the public is encouraged to attend. 

(If you’re available earlier, they’ll be hosting a potluck from 5-6pm as well in the basement - I’ll be there too!)

I'm a Moral Leadership in Nontraditional Spaces Panelist at NC State University!

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I was generously invited to fly out this week to NC State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, to serve as a Moral Leadership in Nontraditional Spaces panelist for their Honors Village and Forum.

They believe that my interdisciplinary, ecologically-focused artwork and professional practices embody moral leadership, but that many people don’t necessarily think of people like me first when conceptualizing or discussing moral leadership - hence the “nontraditional spaces.” I’m excited to see where our discussions and Q&A take us!

The dates I was asked to attend just happened to line up with Morningside’s spring break, so while all the panel activities are happening today (Monday, March 6th), I’ll also be a guest participant in an honors philosophy course later on in the week and plan to explore Raleigh, too, before returning home!

An advert from NC State University promoting Shelby Prindaville’s Moral Leadership in Nontraditional Spaces Panel held for their Honors Village and Forum

Concordia High School Pause PAWS Speaker Event and Radio Interview

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Below is the YouTube video of my speech given on Friday, February 17, 2023 in the Pause PAWS notable alumni speaker series at Concordia High School (CHS), and here’s a link to our KNCK radio interview, embedded into the NCK Today article, “Professional Artist and Educator Shelby Prindaville Presents to Concordia High School Students.” My solo show in the Frank Carlson Design Room is in connection with this speaker event.

I wasn’t expecting to receive any gifts, so when the CHS Student Council President Jenna McFadden presented me with a framed honorary letter with an explanatory plaque at the end of my speech (see the photo in the NCK Today article image below), I was surprised and humbled! I had a great time connecting with the CHS student body, got to see some great student artwork (one such talented artist is Daegan DeGraff - check out her Facebook artist page!), and really appreciated getting to work with Brandt Hutchinson and his colleagues in this community service.

NCK Today Coverage of Solo Show and Guest Speaker Event

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Screenshot of the NCK Today press coverage.

I grew up in Concordia, Kansas, and attended high school at Concordia High School (CHS). Recently, CHS Career and Community Coordinator Brandt Hutchinson reached out and invited me to join their notable alumni speaker series called Pause PAWS.

I agreed as long as we arranged for an exhibition of my artwork at the same time; if I’m going to be speaking about my career as a professional artist, it is important to me that the audience has a chance to see my artwork firsthand. Brandt immediately coordinated with the Frank Carlson Library to host a solo show in the Frank Carlson Design Room.

The show installation, opening reception, and lecture are all coming up this week! Here’s the first piece of press about it, via NCK Today. As the article shares, “Shelby will be speaking to current Concordia High School students from 9 am to 9:30 am on Thursday, February 16th in the historic CHS Auditorium.  The presentation will be live-streamed for the general public by Chris Stiles' high school video production team on their YouTube channel, USD 333 Media Productions.

The Frank Carlson Library will be hosting Shelby's art exhibit from February 17th to March 3rd.  The public is welcome to meet the artist by attending the opening reception for the exhibit from 5 pm to 6 pm on Thursday, February 16th at the Frank Carlson Library.”

Jurying the SCAC's 34th Annual Youth Art Month Exhibition

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I was asked to jury the Sioux City Art Center’s 34th Annual Youth Art Month Exhibition. Serving as a juror or judge is always an honor, and I love getting to see what young artists are creating! I judged the entries a couple of day ago, and I look forward to the awards ceremony next month.

From the Sioux City Art Center: “Celebrating Youth Art Month, the Sioux City Art Center will feature its 34th Annual Youth Art Month Exhibition from February 26 – April 9, 2023. This year’s exhibition features work by middle school students and is juried by Morningside University professor Shelby Prindaville. Youth Art Month is an annual, nation-wide observance celebrating art education for children and encourages public support for quality school art programs. Created in 1961, YAM began as Children’s Art Month for the purpose of emphasizing the value of all children participating in art.

The reception for Youth Art Month will be on Sunday, February 26, 2023, from 1:30 – 3:00pm. Presentation of awards will take place at 2:00pm.”

Come Check Out the 2022 Morningside Art Sale!

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As a part of my service to Morningside University, I am the director of the Eppley and Helen Levitt Art Galleries. I scheduled a faculty show, a guest artist show, and a senior thesis show for this fall, but there was a small window of time left over that wasn’t big enough for another exhibition… so I decided to hold an art sale!

Anyone from Morningside’s community - faculty, staff, students, or alumni - was invited to sell their arts and crafts, as long as they donate a minimum of 15% of their sales to one of our three art-focused clubs on campus: Art Club, Photo Club, or the Morningside Student Advertising Agency (MSAA). I asked one of our work study students, Su Montoya Alvis, to design the poster for this event (pictured right).

The sale opened on Monday, October 31st, and runs on weekdays from 1-5pm in Eppley Art Gallery through Friday, November 18th, 2022. It’s open to the public, so please feel free to stop in and check out all of the goods on offer! I myself put in matted 8x10”, 10x10”, 11x14” reproductions and photos, 5x5” greeting cards, and a variety of ceramics. A wide variety of arts and crafts are available from others, including ceramics, crochet, drawings, fiber arts, graphic design prints and stickers, jewelry, mixed media, paintings, photography, and printmaking.

Below are a few photos focusing on my section of the sale, but there is much more to browse!