{"id":77336,"date":"2024-01-29T15:22:24","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T21:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=77336"},"modified":"2024-01-29T15:22:26","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T21:22:26","slug":"scientific-ceramics-at-moss-thorns-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=77336","title":{"rendered":"Scientific Ceramics at Moss-Thorns Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By JOHN BILLINGER<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On January 19, the Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art opened the exhibit \u201cTerra Et Intus\u201d in the Patricia A. Schmidt Gallery. The exhibit showcases Kansas artist Mark Freeman’s complex and intricate ceramic works. It is open to the public and will be showcased at the Gallery until Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freeman is a native of Ellinwood. Ironically, he first became acquainted with ceramics in High School during detention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat art teacher, instead of giving me detention, he would actually punish me by making me mix clay in their clay-making machine for his pottery class,\u201d Freeman said. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Freeman and one of his works. Any sculptures with a label that reads \u201cNFS\u201d(Not For Sale) are his favorites. <\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

From then on and with the teacher\u2019s encouragement, Freeman found a passion for making sculptures with clay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He continued doing art throughout Barton County Community College, eventually graduating from Fort Hays State University with a bachelor\u2019s in Fine Arts with an additional bachelor\u2019s in Science. At present, he\u2019s working on getting a Master’s in Fine Arts by May.  His exhibit is actually a part of his master\u2019s program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur MFA students will have to have an exhibition showcasing their time in their specific program that they\u2019re in\u201d said Colin Schmidtberger, director of the Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art. Between his education and creating sculptures, Mark is currently a 3D art instructor at Barton County Community College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His highly detailed, complex, and intricate pieces currently displayed are quite a sight in person, and can make one go, \u201cHow did this get made?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Freeman, everything in ceramics is about timing. By his estimates, some take days, others weeks, maybe even months. Typically, he has two or three projects at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n

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He makes his own glazes, a process that he says makes him \u201ckind of a mad scientist.\u201d It\u2019s a very complicated road, with trial and error. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always got a new clay recipe that I\u2019m trying. Where do I want it to fire more brown or more red? All the work on display in that show, are glazes that I\u2019ve formulated and mixed myself,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cAll that textural surface you see there is the culmination of all my research. You\u2019re not seeing my failures. You\u2019re seeing the good stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of science, one can also see that biology is a source of inspiration in his art. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that I\u2019ve always been interested in,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m really interested in fungus and bacteria, I\u2019m also a big Sci-fi fan, so a lot of that bleeds into the work. It\u2019s easy to find new inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many artists try to project messages in their art. However, Freeman does not put himself in that category. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really don\u2019t like art that just spoonfeeds you the context or subject matter of what it\u2019s about. I really like art that makes you lean in and question what the heck it is you\u2019re looking at, and what it\u2019s about. I feel it\u2019s more important for the viewer to look at that, and take from it what they will,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freeman\u2019s work has also been shown at the Vernon Filley Art Museum in Pratt, the Midtown Gallery in Hutchinson, the Shafer Art Gallery in Great Bend, and many others across the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Moss-Thorns Gallery is open Monday through Friday, 9 am-4 pm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By JOHN BILLINGER Tiger Media Network On January 19, the Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art opened the exhibit \u201cTerra Et Intus\u201d in the Patricia A. Schmidt… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":77337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,3397,3398,11],"tags":[9144,14981,15575,689],"class_list":["post-77336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-area-news","category-campus-news","category-news","tag-ceramics","tag-john-billinger","tag-mark-freeman","tag-moss-thorns-gallery-of-art"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/IMG_7029-scaled-e1706563251772.jpg?fit=2560%2C1568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77343,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77336\/revisions\/77343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}