Chuck Purviance
Nicole Rene Woodard |
ClayCrits was started by Chuck Purviance in 2015. At the time, Purviance was a resident artist at Brockway Center For Arts and Technology (B-CAT) in Brockway, PA.
Spending time at the Community College of Allegheny (06-09) and then graduating with a BFA from Edinboro University (2013) provided multiple vast community settings for Chuck. After leaving academia, Chuck wanted to find a way to connect people working in the ceramic field. The idea for ClayCrits was created so that no matter where an artist was (in or out of academia), they could submit their work, receive feedback, and engage in discussion with the community. Over the next few years, ClayCrits grew and Chuck continued working with B-CAT as a teaching artist and youth coordinator. Eventually, he applied to grad school, and in 2017, was accepted to Wichita State University. ClayCrits went dormant for the next few years. In 2019, Chuck entered his last year at WSU, and was invited to participate in an graduate and post-bacc student exhibition at the University of Kansas. The show, Materialize, was curated by Nicole Woodard, a grad student at KU and fellow enthusiast of community. Nearing graduation, Chuck wanted to revisit ClayCrits. After participating in the exhibition, Chuck reached out to Nicole to collaborate on relaunching ClayCrits. In March of 2020, Nicole and Chuck relaunched ClayCrits with its new mission, concepts and ideas. Since the relaunch, ClayCrits has continued to grow by introducing features such as posting call-for-entrys and residency opportunities, collaborating with ceramics collectives, and sharing artist demonstrations and articles. |
