Andy Shaw, associate professor of ceramics at the LSU School of Art, was selected for a $6,000 2014 McKnight Residency for Ceramic Artists. Shaw is one of five ceramic artists selected for this national award. Each of the selected artists will be in residence for three months at the Northern Clay Center during 2015 or 2016, and each will present a slide lecture during his or her residency. The Clay Center will present a group exhibition of the work completed during the McKnight Residency periods.

Shaw’s tableware has received multiple awards, is shown widely across the US, was recently featured in exhibitions in Australia and Korea, and has been published in Studio Potter, Ceramics Monthly, Ceramics: Art and Perception, Garth Clark’s Shards, and Elevations, the magazine for Ritz Carlton club members. Several museums hold his work within their collections, including the Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Swidler Collection at the Crocker Art Museum, the American Museum of Ceramic Art, and the Sanbao Institute of Ceramic Art in Jingdezhen, China. Shaw has been an artist-in-residence at the Archie Bray Foundation, the Arrowmont School of Crafts, and the Clay Studio of Philadelphia, where he was a 2006–07 Evelyn Shapiro Foundation Fellow.

Serving bowl by Andy Shaw

The McKnight Residency, sponsored by the McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, reflects the foundation’s program goal to support an environment in which artists are valued leaders in the community, with access to the resources and opportunities they need to succeed.

Three individuals comprised the 2014 selection panel: Mary Barringer, studio potter from Sherburne Falls, Massachusetts, and director emerita of Studio Potter magazine; Jeff Guido, independent critic and curator and former artistic director from the Clay Studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Tim Berg, participating artist in Northern Clay Center’s current exhibition, A Gilded Age, part of the duo MyersBerg Studios, sculptor, and assistant professor at Pitzer College in Claremont, California.

The Northern Clay Center opened in 1990 and is an established, regionally based national ceramic arts association. Special programs such as the Regis Masters Series, through lectures, symposia, and publications, reach a national and international audience as well as a direct audience of regional participants. Other programs, such as the American Pottery Festival and McKnight Residency grants, bring national artists to the region to continually feed the lively exchange of ideas and aesthetics. Visit northernclaycenter.org for more information.

The LSU School of Art offers concentrations in ceramics for both the Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts. An undergraduate minor and a special student/post-baccalaureate program are also available. The program’s success is reflected in the current rankings by US News & World Report, which places LSU as the ninth best MFA ceramics program in the nation. Read more about the ceramics program at LSU.