HOUSTON, TX.- Houston Center for Contemporary Craft is presenting In Residence: 13th Edition, an exhibition celebrating the Artist Residency Program, which has supported artists working in the field of craft for almost two decades. The show features work in clay, metal, and fiber by 2019-2020 resident artists Lauren Eckert, Tim Gonchoroff, Nicolle LaMere, Audrey LeGalley, Maxwell Mustardo, Abi Ogle, Masako Onodera, and Brian Vu.

The Artist Residency Program at HCCC gives resident artists a space for creative exploration, exchange, and collaboration with other artists, arts professionals, and the public. HCCC Curatorial Fellow María-Elisa Heg notes, “This edition of In Residence finds HCCC’s resident-artist cohort adapting to unprecedented times. The works on view represent a determined continuation of craft practice, affirming its vital importance to the world at this time.”

Audrey LeGalley and Brian Vu use clay to explore the emotional and physical dimensions of domestic space. LeGalley builds furniture forms like chairs, frames, and storage shelving with delicate white porcelain, offering a meditation on the ways in which objects or places have an underlying fragility. Vu draws on color theory and the field of fine dining to create abstracted plates and utensils. He extends his experimentation to include furniture, creating place settings that are both familiar and fresh.




Nicolle LaMere and Abi Ogle engage with nature, exploring the properties of natural materials like dirt, grapefruit membranes, and human hair. LaMere experiments with natural processes, such as fermentation, to capture ephemeral forms that simultaneously distill and reflect on the vast scope of time. Ogle’s fascination with materiality leads her to methodically consume and stitch together fruit skins, sew with human hair, and enshrine years of thoughts and emotions into free-hand embroidery.

Lauren Eckert and Tim Gonchoroff incorporate the motifs and materials of consumer culture in their work in metalsmithing and fiber, respectively. Eckert draws on the visuals of early digital culture, incorporating image-making software into her metalsmithing process to fashion objects of an alternate reality. Gonchoroff recycles discarded commercial vinyl, weaving and collaging it into compositions that harness the random patterns and colors of the found material.

Masako Onodera and Maxwell Mustardo use familiar forms as a jumping-off point for their explorations in metal and clay. Using found heirloom objects, Onodera crafts jewelry and objects that meditate on inherited histories and the ways in which objects like platters and furs visually denote the traditionally female domestic space. Mustardo’s work in clay is inspired by the mathematical exploration of surfaces, distorting objects like mugs and pitchers beyond their functional role and emphasizing their forms with experimental glazes and surface finishes.

In Residence: 13th Edition was curated by HCCC Curatorial Fellow, María-Elisa Heg.