Danielle Callahan

Bio:

 

Born and raised in Minnesota, now living in Pennsylvania, Danielle appreciates adaptability.  She has a BFA in Studio Arts from the University of Minnesota, with a Drawing/Painting concentration.  In the late 1990's, trips to Belfast and Inishmore, Ireland inspired new visual interests, nearly a decade after suspending making.  Her foray into glass sculpture segued into a Jerome Foundation / St. John's Pottery Artist Fellowship.  This was her introduction to wood fired ceramics and the possibilities of clay.  Callahan's variety of life experiences-especially extensive time as a Childcare Worker with infants & toddlers-continues to inform her experiments in art making. 

  

Curator & longtime friend Allyson Evans observes, "Danielle's work with clay is rhythmic and simple, not fussy...(she) works with what happens, making purpose out of mishap in a beautiful way." 

  

 

Artist Statement:

 

My work addresses this life of corporeality with frustration, confusion, and appreciation.  I voraciously study how things hold together and fall apart, and how I am held together and fall apart.  I break, keep, wrap, revisit, alter, and generally allow my work to be unstable.

 

I find the precariousness of unfired clay is most apt when questioning the unpredictable, but I also turn to the materials that immediately surround me-bricks, sticks, nails, wire, sidewalk cracks, rocks, and tree bark are employed frequently.  Sometimes personal items like worn clothes of mine and loved ones, or remnants of fabric from my Grandpa's torn footstool, are added to that list.  Lines that connect and separate are painted, scrawled, stuck, wrapped, or drawn.  Cracks, cuts, and gouges are scary, ugly, and beautiful.  Clay bodies and paper, to which I always return, have limits suited to display the impacts of these forces.

 

Aging, weathering, time, and impermanence are the primary tools of my practice.  While some works are made very quickly, others evolve over the course of a decade.  I repair, stress, secure, aid, mend, radiate, and am irradiated.  For me, art is a reservoir.

 

 

 

CV

 

ABCC Certificate-Contemporary Ceramics program.   2023

 

A-B Projects, Los Angeles, California, USA

 

BFA Studio Arts-Drawing/Painting.

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA

Pioneer Fund Scholarship  for mixed media work.

 

 

 

Glass Artist Assistant to Joseph Becker & Peter Zelle, MN

 

FELLOWSHIP 

Jerome Foundation & St. John's Pottery Emerging Artist  (2000), MN

Johanna Kiln Fifth wood firing with Richard Bresnahan, Collegeville, MN

"Body of Clay, Soul of Fire" Traveling Exhibition Featuring Art of

Richard Bresnahan, Apprentices & Emerging Artists.     

MN, WI, ND & SD.                                                               2001 -2003

*sculpture in book Body of Clay, Soul of Fire by Dr. Mathew Welch.

 

GRANTS 

Contemporary Glass Philadelphia (CGP) Grantee.    2002

 

EXHIBITIONS 

National Biennial Contemporary Clay 2022 

Juror:  Fong Choo

The Art Center, Western Colorado Center for the Arts

Grand Junction, CO                   May/June 2022

 

Little Things Matter: Small Scale Sculpture

Juror: George Beasley

U of Southern MS Gallery of Art and Design

Hattiesburg, Mississippi           Oct/Nov  2021

 

Women of Woodfire

Juror:  Brett Binford

Eutectic Gallery

Portland, Oregon                   June 2021

 

HOME

Juror: Susanna Gold

Duke Gallery

Community Arts Center, Wallingford, PA.         February/March    2021

 

The Clay Studio National

Jury Team: Sana Musasama, Lauren Sandler & Kukuli Velarde.

The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA.                  July/August   2020

 

National Contemporary Clay 2020 Biennial Juried Exhibition

Juror: Bill van Gilder.

The Art Center, Western Colorado Center for the Arts.       June 2020

 

The Great Divide         

Juror: Bruce Dehnert.                                

Morean Center for Clay, St. Petersburg, FL.        Dec. 2019-Jan 2020

 

Earth Devised: A National Exhibition of Ceramic Art

Juror: Richard "Rick" Nickel.

The d'Art Center, Norfolk, VA           2019

 

Shapes of Influence National Ceramic Biennial

Juror:  Simon Levin.

Springfield Art Association.  Springfield, IL                             2018

 

Contemporary Clay 2018 National Biennial   

Juror: Doug Casebeer.

The Art Center, Western Colorado Center for the Arts.       2018                                               

 

HWD 12th Annual Regional Juried Exhibition

Juror: Patrick Mauk.

Rosewood Arts Centre, Kettering, OH                                  2018

 

8th Regional Juried Biennial Exhibition 

Juror: Ben Simons.

Corkran and Tubbs Galleries, Rehoboth Art League, DE     2018

 

A Celebration of Art & Life

Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine,

Philadelphia, PA                                                   2013, 2014, 2015

 

Philadelphia Photo Arts Center Member Show                2014

 

Landscape Exhibition

Large scale temporary mixed media installation.

Schuylkill Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

 

Hot Soup CGP Grant Recipient Exhibition  Philadelphia, PA       2002

 

Moravian Pottery & Tileworks Festival Artist, Doylestown, PA

The Dreamer Lens cd cover art collaboration, Chester, PA

 

INSTALLATIONS & SITE WORKS  

"Labyrinth Sculpture" Up-cycled Chestnut beam inlaid w/tree bark textured tiles, copper sheet.

Peter Becker Community, Harleysville, PA

 

"My North Philly" Multi-year project with Philadelphia Mural Arts.

Community Tile Workshop Artist Facilitator & Installer 

Kensington & Nicetown / Tioga neighborhoods, Philadelphia, PA          2006-2007

 

Butterfly Tile Bench  Concrete. Butterfly form embedded with handmade wood fired tiles.

St. John's Arboretum Prairie Restoration Project.  Collegeville, MN   

 

"Glass Rocks" Blown glass sculpture forms integrated into existing stone walls.

Inis Mor, Aran Islands, Ireland

 

Private commissions.