Kelly Brenner Justice’s solo exhibition at the University of Arkansas Union adds new meaning to the term “solo.”
The centerpiece of the artist’s Solo Show is a pyramidof 55 classic Solo cups cast in porcelain and glazed in celadon.
Justice, 24, was enamored with the Solo cup’s classic, recognizable shape andstyle, and wished to immortalize what many consider a throwaway object. The Solo cup, made of molded polystyrene, has been around since the 1970s, and is considered a casual-dinner and party staple of the day.
“It kind of flips the idea of the Solo cup on its head,” she said of her piece, titled High Class Cup Pyramid. This, her most notable work, garnered her one of two Studio PotterMerit Awards, Undergraduate Level, handed out at the 2012 National Student Juried Exhibition at the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts conference in Seattle.
“The translation of this ephemeral article into the durable medium of clay and the pure geometry of the stacked arrangement reminiscent of an Egyptian pyramid represented one of the more self-aware and compelling contributions to the exhibition,” said Joshua Green, executive director of National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. “The work’s technical prowess combined with a sense of humor to result in a unique viewpoint on the persistence of timeless design even in the midst of a technology obsessed society in which newthings are so easily made and discarded.”
The local Solo Show exhibition, hosted by University Programs and the University of Arkansas Student Gallery projects, was celebrated with a reception Thursday night for Justice in the Anne Kittrell ArtGallery at the student union. The show runs through the end of January.
Justice is partial to the pyramid, but she’s also proud of her creation featuring a collection of some 75 Solo cups the size of shot glasses in orange, blue and green. In the collective piece, titled Shots, the cups sit in a single line on a thin, barheight table along a wall in the Solo Show.
To break the monotony of the Solo cups, she branched off into porcelain models of vintage plastic serving ware, ranging from vintage melmac and melamine to 1950s Tupperware, “things you would findin a thrift store,” Justice said.
A favorite of hers featured in Solo Show is a work called Carousel Caddy, a replica of a 1960s tiered Tupperware holder with room for six cups. Justice said she had to make about 20 carousel trays because they kept cracking and warping during the casting process.
“Making it in porcelain made it even more fragile and unstable,” which juxtaposes the notion that Tupperware was everlasting and durable.
Justice said she tries to inject a little nostalgia in every piece.
“When I look at it, it makes me think of a kid’s birthday party with everybody drinking Kool-Aid,” she said of Carousel Caddy.
Her day job is as development coordinator at the Walton Arts Center. She said she often goes straight from work to the ceramics studioat UA, where she works until 10 p.m. or later.
The Marion native didn’t take her first ceramics class until she was a senior and close to earning her degree in English from UA.
“I just fell in love with it,” she said. “I just wasn’t ready to give it up. I just wanted to keep learning and growing in it.”
Her work Solo Cup and Saucer in Purple has beenchosen for inclusion in the Archie Bray Foundation’s fifth annual Beyond the Brickyard exhibition in 2013. The Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts is a public, nonprofit, educational institution founded in 1951 by brickmaker Archie Bray near downtown Helena, Mont. Justice’s work was one of 40 chosen from 146 entries and more than 400 images.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 11/30/2012