If you liked Associate Professor Suzanne Mauro’s last art exhibit, “The Flower Girls,” you’ll love her next installment, “Where There Was Nothing Now There Are Roses.” It’s an extension of her last show.

Find out more about it in this brief Q & A.

JB: Tell me a little bit about what will be displayed in the show, what mediums, how many pieces, etc. 

SM: The show itself will be an installation, which I would describe as a 3-dimensional composition.  In a painting an artist will draw out shapes and arrange them in a composition on a flat 2-dimensional surface. I am in essence doing the same thing only I am making all of the visual elements or forms out of clay and then arranging them in the gallery space to try and capture the vision I have in my mind; in an effort to transform the space into the 3-dimensional composition.

 JB: What have you learned from preparing for his show?

SM: The forms in the show are a combination of porcelain and stoneware clay. On a personal level, I have combined all ways of making 3-dimensional forms that I have learned over the past 15 years of my ceramics career: wheel throwing, slab, slip-cast fabric, and pinching. What I have learned the most is that in order to make incredibly, visually dynamic forms out of clay you have to be able to incorporate many different methods of formation in a way that the processes become hidden and may only be evident to the maker.

JB: What do you want people to take away from your art?

SM: I believe most people who are familiar with clay think of it only as a material with utilitarian potential, which means if you work with clay you must make dishes or pottery.  I would hope people would walk away with a new understanding that clay is a material with unlimited potential and with a little thought an ingenuity the artist can use this material to visually communicate many important ideas.

 The opening reception for “Where There Was Nothing Now There Are Roses” is Friday, September 7 from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Weaver Art Gallery, located in the Everest-Rohrer Chapel/Fine Arts Center. The ceramic sculpture exhibit will run Sept. 8 – Oct. 6 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but will be closed on Sundays.