Call for Pottery - Brick Mugs: Street Scenes from Chicago
Brick Mugs: Street Scenes from Chicago is an exhibition and zine designed to showcase local brick architecture as our city's artists see, experience, and think about it in their daily lives.
To enter, Chicagoland potters should:
- Select an inspiring brick building within the city of Chicago
- Photograph the building and write down its address or cross streets
- Create a functional ceramic mug in any style, using any clay body and technique, inspired by that place
Artists may submit up to three entries for consideration. Please note: this is a juried show and space is limited. Submission of a piece does not guarantee a place in the exhibit.
Selected mugs and photos will be exhibited March 7, 2025 - April 5, 2025 at the Gallery of Contemporary Mosaics (1127 W Granville, an accessible, first-floor space by the Granville Red Line stop). We will release a zine in conjunction with the exhibition featuring the mugs, reference photos, essays and interviews about Chicago brick and terra cotta, and maps of local architectural quirks, oddities, and wonders.
DEADLINE FOR ENTRY: Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Notification of acceptance: January 31, 2025
Exhibition dates: March 7 - April 5, 2025
Opening reception: March 7, 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Special program on Chicago brick with our judges panel, plus artist awards! March 29, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Entry fee:
$30 - Paid via Venmo to @Ceramic-Archives with the description "[your name]-brick mug exhibition." The entry fee will go to exhibition costs, opening and closing reception, and publication costs. If you are unable to pay the entry fee, contact ceramicarchives@gmail.com.
Additional details:
- Composition of works must be at least 70% clay
- Pick up and drop off of work will be in-person only, in Chicago
- Accepted artists are not responsible for printing their reference photo, the curator will retake the photos of the reference building and will handle printing and framing
- Any level of experience welcome
- The galley commission is 40%
- There is a fee of $75 payable to the gallery if artists do not wish to list their piece for sale (no fee if you your work is for sale)
About the curator:
Ceramic Archives is a Chicago-based artist and educator who is inspired by vernacular architecture, urban histories, and unconventional, subversive, or funny uses of space. She uses her art as a way to think through theories on commemoration, erasure, and public space, that she interprets in the shapes of ordinary, useful vessels. She is dedicated using her craft to create objects that make everyday rituals special and that consider different experiences of the built environment.
Her series of brick mugs started as a casual interest in the wide variety of bricked up windows visible from the El and from alleyways. It soon developed into a minor obsession that she shared with her cubicle-mate at work, and eventually everyone in her wing of the building. Her friends and former coworkers continue to send photos of their favorite bricked-up windows, years later. This interest in local masonry work has resulted in dozens of artworks, several exhibitions, and many new connections with masonry workers and lovers of local residential and industrial architecture. Ceramic Archives designed this exhibition to encourage other Chicagoland potters to share their own impressions of the clay structures that surround us.
About the judges:
Jackie Townsend - Chicago Women in Trades
Will Quam - Brick of Chicago
