Teaching

Progress Pics From Summer 2026: Set 2 of 3

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Here’s my post with the first batch of process images from summer 2026 and associated disclaimers about image color/quality, and below is set 2!

Vigilance Is Our Weapon:

Submerged Memory:

The New Collective:

Breaking the Pattern:

Fall 2026 Teaching Load

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The 2026-27 school year began in early August with a variety of workshops and meetings, and classes started on August 19th!

I am teaching relief printmaking (which I renamed to Stamp Carving & Stencils a few years ago to draw in more non-majors, which has been a real success!) and Graphic Design I, as well as Graphic Design Internship, as well as Advanced Studies in Design and Graphic Design.

April 2026 Raku Workshop Photos

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I’ll post more about my artwork in subsequent posts, but here are a few photos from the workshop on April 18! Morningside (me and Paul Adamson) brought six community members, and I also invited along a friend from a dance class I take at the Y.

It was a very cold, windy day (at the time of our arrival, it was 31°F) but I had a lot of good luck at this particular workshop and I like most of my finished pottery a lot.

It wasn’t without any bad luck, though. One of my pieces did break, and it unfortunately didn’t go quietly: it exploded while in the kiln (very unusual), sending ceramic shrapnel into several neighboring ceramics, three of which were mine. My own speculation is that I share a studio with students who often are not that careful about recycling clay with foreign material in it, so there may have been a contaminant in that clay body.

Since raku is neither food-safe nor watertight, I feel good about making repairs to surface blemishes since they don’t impact the structure or function. I Dremeled out the fragments, touched up any missing glaze, and sealed the spots with acrylic varnish. On two of the pieces the repairs are genuinely hard to find; on the third they're minor.

Arts for Hearts Festival on Morningside's Campus

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Tomorrow I’ll be participating in a mental health, wellness, and arts festival Arts for Hearts on Morningside’s campus!

I’ll be hosting an art therapy activity involving handcraft art and origami from 10:30-11:30am, and I’ve helped coordinate two other art activities which will be led by art department faculty as well. There will be other programming simultaneously and throughout the festival window too, and this event is free and open to the public!

Preparing for the Next Raku Workshop: Hump Molds!

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A plaster hump mold for a plate.

I’ll be taking a group of nine (including myself) to another raku ceramics workshop at Dakota Potters Supply this weekend!

This semester has been very busy, so I’ve chosen to focus entirely on hump-mold pottery for this workshop. Using plaster hump molds (convex forms over which slabs are placed and pressed) significantly reduces the time required to make raw ware compared to pinch-pot, hand-built construction.

Hump molds also allow me to easily add and retain complex texture particularly to the interior of a piece; when making a pinch pot, the shape comes from pounding, pulling, and tapping the clay with tools that typically leave a fairly consistent surface. I can add texture to the exterior of a pinch-pot bowl or vase after it is built by rolling it over a texture plate or hitting it with a textured paddle, but I can’t do that to the interior. I can always carve texture into both sides or use other techniques if I really want to, but what I’m getting at is that texture is more complicated to add and retain when working in my preferred pinch pot style.

With these plaster hump molds, I can easily add complex surface texture to a flat slab and control whether it appears on the exterior, interior, or both. I then rely on gentle pressure, gravity, and evaporation to shape the clay, rather than the more aggressive pinch-pot methods that diminish or fully remove surface detail.

I am also continuing to experiment with Mason stains and burnishing on a few of the ceramics!

I saved enough time that I actually made more pottery than I think I’ll have time to finish at the workshop, which is a good problem to have. I’ll nevertheless bring it all just in case I’m wrong about that! Below is all the bisque ware I’m bringing with me. I share space with other folks in our ceramics studio, so I’ve crossed out the pieces in the first photo that aren’t mine. In the second photo, you can see the variety of techniques more closely, and the plate I’m holding corresponds to the hump mold pictured above (as do others).

A Better Way to Tape Down Paper

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When drawing and painting on paper, artists typically tape more delicate papers down to a board unless that paper comes as part of a pad already. Taping loose papers to boards allows artists to keep the paper flat and unwrinkled while being able to easily move it around and draw on it at more upright angles. (Drawing flat on a table or in an artist's lap can often introduce unintentional perspective distortion, while drawing closer to upright minimizes those issues.)

Note the white tape diagonally placed on top of the corners of the paper. You can click into this to see it more clearly in a larger view!

I don't believe I've ever really been taught how to tape; I think as students we all just convergently evolved similar techniques to tape each corner down at a diagonal. Then at the end of the painting, you peel it back and extend the artwork into those blank corners if necessary.

As a teacher, I did start to tell my students to aim for a small but not tiny amount of corner coverage: too much and you have more to fix at the end, while too little and the paper pulls free from the tape and falls at inopportune moments. I also tell them that if you want the tape to be sticky-but-not-too-sticky, you can press it to your pants or shirt first for easier removal.

While I was doing my first artist residency at Arts Itoya in Japan in June 2024, I used this same taping technique and it damaged several of the delicate washi papers.

To the right, you can see an image of my in-progress Paper Snow in January 2025 with taped corners.

I innovated a new technique during my second artist residency at Arts Itoya in June 2025! The new method is to place a piece of acid-free archival tape onto the back of the paper. That tape can remain indefinitely if the paper is prone to tearing, or can be gently removed if desired, and even if it does cause slight surface damage upon removal, that's happening on the side of paper no one's seeing. Then I place another piece of tape onto the first and extend it out past the edge of the painting so the sticky side is face up. Then I place a piece of tape sticky side down onto that. Here is an image of this taping technique:

Note that the tape is now not touching the face of the artwork at all!

I strongly recommend this new technique for:

  • paintings and drawings on delicate papers

  • paintings and drawings where the media will extend to the corners, so that you don't have to carefully match the markmaking, color palette, etc. afterwards but can just actively address the whole picture plane at once

I'm teaching Painting I this semester, and so I showed my students both options at the beginning of the semester. Most students have chosen to adopt this new method even when dealing with sturdy substrates like canvas paper, due to the second point above.

Judging the 2026 Western Valley Art Conference

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I was invited to judge the Western Valley Art Conference later this week! It’s a large annual regional high school art competition with ten schools participating in the conference from around western Iowa, and this year it will be hosted at Lawton-Bronson High School. I’m really looking forward to seeing all the entries!

Fall 2025 Has Begun at Morningside University!

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Classes at Morningside University began earlier this week; I always enjoy meeting new students and look forward to catching up with returning ones!

This fall, I am teaching ART 103 Design, ART 210 Graphic Design I, ART 402 Advanced Studies in Art History, and ART 470 Graphic Design Internship.

As Morningside’s galleries director, I scheduled an art sale to open up our fall season in Eppley Art Gallery! I will be selling prints and ceramics, and I look forward to seeing what else other members of our community offer. It will open on Thursday, August 28th and run through Friday, September 5th on weekdays.

Sales times are a bit up in the air as it depends on when I can hire students for shifts, but should be some subset of 1-5pm. Please stop by if you’re interested, and note that we only take cash or check.

Promotion to Full Professor in 2025!

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I learned yesterday that I will become a senior faculty member at Morningside University beginning next fall, as I will be promoted to full professor!

In academia, there is a ranking system which is typically: instructor → assistant professor → associate professor → [full] professor.

I served as an instructor while teaching at Louisiana State University in graduate school in 2011-2013, became an assistant professor when I was hired full-time at the University of Saint Mary in 2013, was promoted to an associate professor in 2019 after earning tenure at USM but then moving to Morningside University, and have held the rank of associate professor since then while earning tenure at Mside in 2022.

It is an honor, and one that few academics reach before their mid-40’s, so I’m pleased to have earned it at the relatively youthful age of 38!

Upcoming: Morningside University Humanities Speaker Series Lecture

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Coming up on Tuesday, February 18th at 7pm in Morningside University’s Weikert Auditorium (on the 2nd floor of the Buhler Rohlfs building), I will be presenting in the Morningside University Humanities Speaker Series with my Clay and Fire: Exploring Raku Ceramics lecture. This event is free and open to the public, so please stop by!

Shelby Prindaville's Morningside University Humanities Speaker Series raku ceramics lecture ad for February 2025

Behind the Scenes of Paper Snow (紙吹雪)

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Here are progress photos of Paper Snow (紙吹雪)! You can click on any of the thumbnails to see them larger in a sidescroll viewer. (Note that for in-process documentation, I rarely ensure a uniform lighting situation nor accurately color adjust the resulting photos like I do for the artwork photo.)

This painting was unusual for me in that I almost always start painting backgrounds before moving on to foregrounds and then going back and forth between the two until I think the piece is finished. With this painting however, I knew I didn’t want to obscure too much of the beautiful Uzurado dyed washi paper, so I started with the subject and then tested out just a cast shadow composition before adding a little ground and horizon.

Spring 2025 Courses

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In Spring 2025 here at Morningside University, I will be teaching Graphic Design I, Painting I and II, Senior Art Seminar, Graphic Design Internship, Internship in Arts Administration, and Senior Project in Arts Administration. Enrollment in Senior Art Seminar has been steadily climbing, so keep your calendars open for all the exciting senior show receptions that will be happening in April and May!

The End of the Fall 2024 Semester!

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Final grades have been submitted, I was applauded for my 5-year work anniversary milestone at Morningside University’s annual holiday banquet, and supply orders for the next semester have been placed! Over winter break, I will be working on a number of studio projects in ceramics and painting. I will share more about those as they unfold.

I look forward to 2025!

My Curated USD Student Art Show Debuts Tomorrow!

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Today I selected artwork for USD's Fall 2024 Student Art Exhibition and helped install the show, which will have its opening reception tomorrow (Thursday, December 12th) from 7-9pm at Cee Cee's Gallery in Vermillion, South Dakota. If you are planning on coming based on my previous post about this, note the updated time.

As long as the weather isn’t frightful, I plan to be in attendance at the reception as well - so I may see you there!

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.

The New Academic Year Has Begun

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While I haven’t finished posting about my summer adventures, time is still progressing and the new academic year has begun! Today is the first day of classes this fall at Morningside University. I am teaching Design and Graphic Design I as well as overseeing Graphic Design Internship and Advanced Studies in Graphic Design.

It’s fun to get to see familiar and new faces, and I’m looking forward to getting to see all the new artwork my students will be making!

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):