'Three Jerome Artists' opens at the Northern Clay Center

Roxanne Jackson, Hoof Heels

​A grant from the Jerome Foundation is a prestigious and highly revered award to receive. Named for Jerome Hill of the famous, local Hill family, he started an arts foundation in 1964, and in 1973 the award was named after its founder. Hill was a filmmaker and an artist, and so the Jerome Foundation is dedicated to supporting "emerging artists in the creation, development, and production of new works," especially those artists who haven't yet been recognized on a larger professional level by their contemporaries.

In 2010 artists Elizabeth Coleman, Roxanne Jackson, and Pete Scherzer were awarded a Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grant. Beginning January 14, their art will be on display in the "Three Jerome Artists" exhibit at the Northern Clay Center.

Elizabeth Coleman, Guardians

​All three individuals have had their artwork exhibited nationally. Each recipient's art is quite distinct from the others, from what compels them to create, to the resulting product. Elizabeth Coleman's unfired clay brick carvings, for instance, were inspired by her childhood toys and other ephemera.

Roxanne Jackson describes her work as "macabre and emotional." On the Clay Center's website, she explains that she finds inspiration from "the dualities of our nature; these polar aspects...vulnerability and strength, the light and the dark, the human and the inhuman."

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And though Pete Scherzer's creations may be functionally domestic when compared to Coleman's and Jackson's work, his pieces are equally as striking. "Historical associations, form, surface, and function all combine and interact," he says.

The "Three Jerome Artists" exhibition begins on Friday, January 14 with an opening reception party from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Northern Clay Center at 2424 East Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis. The artists work will be on display through February 27, 2011.

Roxanne Jackson, Cadaver Study with Grill

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