A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

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Liz McCarthy

Assistant Professor, Adjunct

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Bio

Liz's art explores her body in relation to material culture. They consider their body is an ever-changing material intertwined with human and nonhuman environments. She draws on queer/feminist ideas about the body and clay’s deep and diverse humanist tradition. Often her sculptures take the form of whistles that have the potential for instrumental performances. These objects harken potential modes for human collectivity, vulnerability, and play.

She received her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in Studio Art and her BFA from the University of North Carolina at Asheville in Photography. Her mix of performance, sculpture, and installation have been exhibited at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Hyde Park Art Center, and Goldfinch in Chicago; Ghebaly Gallery in Los Angeles; ExGirlfriend in Berlin, and numerous other galleries and institutions. She has participated in residencies at Atlantic Center for the Arts, ACRE, High Concept Laboratories, Banff Centre, Ox-Bow, and Lighthouse Works. Her projects have been supported by Joan Mitchell Foundation, Illinois Arts Council, Chicago’s Department of Tourism, and Chicago Artist Run Spaces Award. Most recently she had solo exhibition "Montrare" at Belong Gallery in Chicago. Currently she acts as Founding Director of the GnarWare Workshop ceramics school and community studio. She was previously a founding Co-Director of the artist collective and exhibition space Roxaboxen Exhibitions.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This intro course will allow students to build upon and deconstruct our preconceived notions of what a 'pot' is. Can a pot be a subversive act of defiance? Can it express pleasure, grief or discomfort? We will explore what a pot can say and do beyond mere function. Investigating materiality, process, and conceptual frameworks the pot will serve as a form through which we?ll unpack issues ranging from the primordial to the celestial. Students will learn technical ceramic processes while examining the histories, practices, and conceptual potentialities of the vessel.

We will look at artists who employ the vessel in their practice in a critical, subversive, personal and humorous ways. Some of the artists include Rubi Neri, Betty Woodman, Kathy Butterly, Theaster Gates, Sahar Khouri, Bari Ziperstein and more. Readings will include excerpts from ?Documents of Contemporary Art: CRAFT? and authors such as Glen Adamson, Edmund de Waal and Tanya Harrod.

Students should expect to produce a body of work consisting of assigned and self directed projects to be presented in a culminating midterm and final critique.

Class Number

1179

Credits

3

Description

This multilevel class is for students with or without experience in wheel throwing. Beginning students are introduced to ideas, materials and techniques for throwing vessels. They acquire the necessary skills to construct and analyze a wide range of vessel forms. Intermediate and advanced students continue their individual development of throwing, glazing and firing kilns. Course discussions focus on issues around the vessel to acquire critical understanding of containers and their functions, as well as using the wheel as a means for constructing sculptural forms.

Class Number

1193

Credits

3

Description

Each semester this course addresses a specific aesthetic concern pertinent to contemporary ceramic art. Rotating through the faculty, each professor chooses a theme for his/her course. Topics may include Politics, Community, Audience; Gender; The Diminutive Object; The Raw and the Wet: Clay Material Meaning and Experimentation; Time and Place; etc. Please see topic description for specific term information.

Class Number

1183

Credits

3