Liz Quackenbush, Elizabeth Quackenbush

EDUCATION

1980 BFA Colorado University, Boulder, Colorado

1985 MFA School for American Craftsmen, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York

APPRENTICESHIPS AND RESIDENCIES

1984 Apprentice, Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, Doylestown, Pennsylvania

1990, 1993 Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin

1985-1986, 2012Artist-in-Residence, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, Montana

1986,1992, 1993, 2006, 2009 Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, Maine

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

1989 Visiting Lecturer, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1991 Lecturer, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado

2001—Professor of Art, School of Visual Arts, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania

Liz Quackenbush’s forms are hand built or made using drape or press molds. Each earthenware piece is decorated using a Majolica glaze technique with the addition of gold luster.

She is inspired by Persian, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, and English folk pottery traditions dating between 1200-1700CE. Her surface patterns combine these classic sources with motifs from the natural environment, for instance, reptile skins and frogs.

Quackenbush’s ceramics manage to bridge the gap between elegant china and functional pottery. She leaves the surfaces irregular referencing pottery made for use and that had been used. She then paints elaborate motifs in both underglaze cobalt blue and over glaze enameled decoration finished with gold luster suggestive of fine china. Her work combines the elaborately structured patterns of Middle Eastern and Asian pottery with the more casual softness of blue and white English china.