William Farrell
Galena, IL

Masters in education degree at Penn state univ as a 'painter'. painting being the queen of the arts! Through some luck, good now, bad then, and being low man on the totem pole of grad teaching assistants, i drew ceramics;....pottery...clay sculpture. knowing little or nothing about the topic i enrolled in ceramics at Alfred University, the top american school for the ceramic arts, for encouragement and info!

Another stroke of luck was landing my first college teaching job at Purdue University in indiana., to teach ceramics and drawing etc.....in the mid 60's with a few exhibitions and shows under my belt i was juried into the 22nd SYRACUSE ceramic national at the Everson Museum in N.Y.
The sixties opened doors for many exhibitions, lectures, workshops, visiting teaching appointments, and opportunities to think about clay in new ways. New ways to extend the reference to the technical, and attempt to bump the boundaries of time and space. Using paint, colored chalk, pencils and crayons and latex rubber for surface and physical changes , the show and lecture circuit continued.

In 1982 my sculptures called 'popeyes', with pencil and crayon on bisk clay received the first NEA award in ceramics. exhibitions and workshops continued..

I found myself repeating and rehashing ideas. after a few dry years. traveling to portugal and teaching at the ARCO school of art began 10 years of annual visits to 7 countries making art, building kilns, lecturing, teaching and workshops. In the '90's I had studios in Portugal, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium. I met new colleagues that led to invitations to seminars and symposiums in more countries.

2001 was my first introduction to working with a commercial pottery company.... in Italy. Myself and other internationals worked in the studio on potential commercial products. Recently we built a wood firing kiln there and are firing it annually.

Since my retirement from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2001 to Galena Illinois I continue to work on small pottery pieces, fired in my wood kiln, and making an occaisional large sculpture for shows.

Highlights have been the NEA grant, the opportunity to work with international artists as they create within their cultures, a residency at EKWC in the Netherlands, and learning so much from my students in 35 years of teaching at the school of the art institute of chicago.