I took a Friday off from work to head over to Charlotte NC with a friend of mine who was visiting for a few days. I was slightly worried about how it was going to go to be honest… I was unsure about whether I should be inflicting a 2 1/2 hour drive on her that culminated in a ceramics show. Could be pretty boring. I had visions of a silent glum ride home, but I had heard good things so stuck to my guns and it proved to be well worth the drive. I loved it and Katie enjoyed it too. It was the exuberant sculptural teapots that really captured my imagination. “Elephant Leaf Tea” is just fabulous I think. The exhibition was so good in fact that I decided to document the whole thing in photographs.

The show is now on tour and set to open at The Renwick Gallery in Washington D.C June 28-January 5 (https://michaelsherrill.net/calendar/2018/6/28/michael-sherrill-retrospective-5wm76). In 2020 it will go to Arizona State University Art Museum. I would definitely recommend going to see it in person if you can. Photographs don’t catch the details or breadth of the work. But in case you don’t live close to either of these places, here’s a virtual version…

Here’s a collection of bottle forms from the show. Bottles are a shape Michael comes back to over the years.

Finally, here’s the short film that accompanies the exhibition: