Georgette Zirbes

Statement:

Zirbes recent research and creative work has been fundamentally influenced by connections and experiences in the international community of artists who work with clay. Since 1990, she has participated in numerous international workshops/symposia/residencies, where artists are invited to live and work together for a period of approximately one month. Exchange of ideas, work processes, cultural experiences are ongoing during this intense period that culminates in a major exhibition of both individual and collaborative work. These experiences continue to affect her work images and intentions as well as attitudes about the working process in ways that are powerful and sometimes magical.

Her current work is a collaborative project entitled "Latitudes and Longitudes." She is inviting a selection of international clay artists to send shards of their work, fragments that carry the physical and visual memory of their thinking and experiences. These shards are then used as referencing materials in her working process in her Ann Arbor studio. The challenge in this collaborative process is to explore the fragile balance of internal and external sources.