The Bottom: Ceramics Soul Collective Group Show
November 8-25, 2023
The Bottom: Ceramics Soul Collective Group Show
Opening celebration on Friday, November 17, 6-9 PM
Gallery hours: Mon-Fri 9 AM – 5 PM and Sat, 10 AM – 1 PM. Additional hours: Tue Nov 14 & 21, 6-9 PM; Thu Nov 9, 9 AM – 7 PM; Fri Nov 17, 9 AM – 9 PM. Please note, the Emporium will be closed Wed-Fri Nov 22-24.
This inaugural exhibition of The Bottom’s newly formed Ceramics Soul Collective celebrates the following individuals’ actions: Jalynn Baker, Maggie Connolly, Jazzmine Curtis, Fitrah Hamid Golden, George Habeib, Alex Kellam, Ty Murray, Jeremy Myles, Eric Sherwood, and Kifeney Walker.
Over the last eighteen months, Ceramics Soul Collective has gathered together each week to make, explore creative expressions, and grow the Knoxville Black Creative community through the ceramic art form. The very existence of this class is a testament to the power of individual and collective imagination to resist expectations, repair our ever-expanding souls, and reclaim our creative voices. This project is being supported in whole or in part, by federal award number 21.027 awarded to the City of Knoxville by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Arts & Culture Alliance.
Jalynn Baker is a professional photographer and multi-passionate, experimental artist. She earned a BA in Art at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and approaches the act of creating with a natural curiosity about people and stories.
Artist Statement: My intention with this body of work is to honor my ancestors. Their love, life, and resilience are imbued in who I am and what I create. As I make discoveries about family members who came before me, their stories take shape visually in my mind and must be commemorated in a tangible object. These ceramic pieces were made to symbolize their beholden attachment to the Appalachian landscape—a land that took from them as much as it sustained them. Retracing the map of Clark County Kentucky has helped me reclaim many lost and forgotten stories that belong to my family.
Jazzmine Curtis
As an African American woman, I constantly navigate the intricate crossroads of my identity. My heritage is a rich tapestry, woven together from the threads of African, American, Northern, Southern, Colonized, Indigenous, Christian, and Hoodoo influences. Through my ceramic practice, I embark on a journey of reclamation, recovering every lost thread of this intricate tapestry.
My Ceramic practice serves as my medium, a vessel through which I pay homage, celebrate, and passionately express my profound love and connection to African and Diasporic cultures and traditions. Each ceramic piece I create becomes a container, ready to hold the reservoir of ancestral knowledge that calls out to be rediscovered and revitalized.
Fitrah Hamid Golden grew up in rural North Georgia. She moved to Knoxville, Tennessee with her husband, Christopher, in 2016. They currently reside in Clinton, Tennessee with their two children, Zoe and Early. In addition to ceramics, Fitrah enjoys cosplaying and recently won an Honorable Mention at DragonCon 2023’s Anime/Animation Costume Contest.
George Habeib is an Artist, Alchemist and Community-member hailing from Elizabeth, NJ with heritage from Cairo, Egypt and now currently residing in Knoxville, TN. The soul of George’s work comes from the intersections of their inspirations in daily life and their innate ability to build their own world around them with the materials and ideas accessible to them. George prides themself on being an alchemist, one who uses the laws and materials of the world, to transmute the building blocks of life and structure into works of art and other forms of energy and expression. It is George’s mission to continue to grow and develop in this world and to help build the next through their creativity in conjunction with their community.
Instagram @Athenazbae7
Ty Murray is a multi-faceted artist and activist. She takes interest in simultaneously celebrating and analyzing African American culture and identities through a myriad of artistic expressions. As a modern day Renaissance woman rooted in the rural south, her art reflects who she is, where she’s from and what she aspires to see in the world. Through ceramics, photography, poetry, vinyl DJing and style, she chooses to create art that challenges, art that confronts, art that is loud, bold, colorful and soulful.
Instagram: @tys_eye and www.tyseye.com
Jeremy Myles an Artist & Ceramic Instructor living in Tennessee, born in Detroit Mi. Teacher at The Bottom Knoxville, Mighty Mud, and Former A.I.R. at Mighty Mud. He got his start in art drawing and sketching; found the medium clay and he gained a love for creating 3-dimensional art. Artist Statement: My art is an exploration into myself.
https://www.iamstoryh.art and Instagram: @iamstoryh
Kifeney Walker
Artist Statement- Small Pieces of Soul!
BIO- Finding the art of ceramics has always been a fun dream of mine. This makes one year of enjoying this new found passion. The art has given me an outlet to de-stress and a new vision of creativity.
Instagram: @mizkip