Arkansas ceramics artist Trent Tally is the chief project artist for a large, three-dimensional, ceramic mural under construction at a downtown storefront in Joplin, Mo.
The work, titled Rise of the Phoenix, is Tally’s concept under the direction of Heather Grills and Brent Skinner of Phoenix Fired Art. Phoenix Fired Art is a teaching clay studio and fired-art gallery on the north edge of the path of one of the nation’s deadliest tornadoes nearly two years ago. The gallery represents 28 local and regional artists, andthe studio offers classes and open studio space for about a dozen paying members.
Tally, who crafts pottery and clay art at his home studio in Elkins, was chosen by Grills and Skinner to design, construct and install the sculpted mural while also teaching a workshop on ceramic tiled murals. Funds for the two 4-by-4-foot panels and a 4-by-6-foot panel were raised through Kickstarter, a funding platform that helps artists and others solicit donations online for creative projects. As of midweek, Rise of the Phoenix had reached its $2,500 goal with $60 to spare.The project got under way at the first of March.
“It’s not the materials, it’s the time and the skill,” Grills said. “I wish I could have paid some of the people who worked on it. We had professional artists who spent a couple of days working on it … people who were willing to work for Thai food and barbecue,” she said.
When complete, the mural will be installed on the exterior south-end wall of the building that houses Phoenix Fired Art. It will face oncoming traffic from 17th Street.
The ceramic mural project - and others planned fordowntown into the summer - are intended to encourage creative rebuilding in the southwest Missouri city that was devastated by the May 22, 2011, tornado. But the piece orchestrated by Tally has more to do with ceramics-making than tornado recovery.
“It depicts the process of what happens to clay, as it’s being shoveled out of the earth, to hands wedging it,” Grills said. The last panel depicts finished pots in the gallery, and another section portrays clay bowls created for Phoenix Fired Art’s Empty Bowls fundraiser for hunger charities.
Last November, the community clay center raised $12,000 for the Salvation Army, Watered Gardens Gospel Rescue Mission and Crosslines, a cross-denominational food pantry in Joplin.
Grills operated an art gallery and private studio a few blocks away for six to seven years but had always coveted the space she now occupies. She now has 3,500 square feet of gallery and studio space in a former post office with a covered loading dock out back and wide doors with no thresholds. The building is more than 100 years old; and the only thing lost from it in the tornado was the storefront’s awning.
“There was damage to the building across the street, but the path was slightly south of us,” she said.
Phoenix Fired Art has about a dozen paying “members” who can work with clay, using the shop’s equipment. The only other places like it are at Missouri Southern University in Joplin, which is always full, she said, or the city’s Spiva Center for the Arts.
The focal point of the mural, in the middle panel, shows studio members unloading the kiln. On every third Thursday, during the city’s monthly Art Walk celebration, Grills organizes a “hot pot brigade” of people passing goods from the kiln to the back of the studio.
“Everybody gets to see the new pots that are coming out of the glaze kiln and look at them,” Grills said.
Grills met Tally when he was an adjunct professor and Grills was taking classes at Missouri Southern University. Tally also worked at Silver Dollar City, and the two crossed paths at regional art fairs, Grills said. So Tally was one of the original artists invited to show works in the Phoenix gallery and to present workshops.
Tally’s mural is not just a mural tile, which is what he went to Joplin to teach, but it’s made in high relief, molded by hand, to come off the inch-thick backdrop in many places. There’s text etchedinto each section to describe what’s going on, Grills said. String was used to cut the panels into 1-foot-square tiles so they could dry quickly, then they were fired in the kiln. The smaller size also makes it easier to install them.
“He’s done a ton of these already. He knows how to do it,” Grills said about Tally.
Tally, a nationally known, award-winning artist, has taught at the Walton Arts Center and at the Northwest Arkansas Community Creative Center, both in Fayetteville. He has also worked with the Arkansas Support Network, helping disabled children find inspiration in art.
In the spring of 2012, he was awarded 3D Best of Show at the Bentonville Art Walk, and earlier this year, his work was featured in the museum store of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Attempts to reach Tally for comment about the Joplin project were unsuccessful.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 04/26/2013