A conversation with Kitty Ross and Amber Ginsburg

Join us for in-gallery conversation and walk-through of Ruth Duckworth: Life As A Unity.

Led by artists Katherine (Kitty) Ross and Amber Ginsburg, this conversation considers Ruth Duckworth’s work and practice beyond a "studio potter" attribution and places her work in the broader context of sculpture, as well as her trajectory in Chicago’s ceramic community.

FREE. Advanced registration encouraged. Walk-ins will be welcome as space allows.

About the Presenters 

Amber Ginsburg creates site-generated projects and social sculptures that insert historical scenarios into present-day situations, as well as engages present-day histories to imagine alternative futures. Her background in craft orients her projects toward the continuities and ruptures in material and social histories. Often working with long-term collaborators, together they engage multiple communities and elicit working relationships with experts in the fields of botany, political activism, biology, legal scholarship and activism, and science fiction. Always interested in history, more recently she has been drawn to imagined futures. Amber teaches in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago and shows broadly including at the Thailand Biennale, the Bristol Biennial, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Craft and Design, various sidewalks, and empty lots, to name a few. 

Katherine (Kitty) Ross is Professor Emeritus at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, having taught ceramics for 40 years. She served for decades as the Chair of the Ceramics Department. From 2008 to 2010 she served as the Interim Dean of Graduate Studies. She continues her studio practice in a material, conceptual and historical approach to ceramics. Ross is the recipient of many awards and grants including the Chicago Artists International Program Travel Grant, Arts Midwest/NEA Grant, Indiana State Arts Commission Master Fellowship, Banff Center for the Arts Residency, and the Williamson Memorial Artist In Residence at Indiana State University. She has been named a Walter Gropius Master Artist for 2012 by the Huntington Museum. She is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics, Geneva, Switzerland. Her work is published widely in periodicals and books on ceramic art in the U.S., Great Britain, China, Australia, and Switzerland.

Image: Installation view, Ruth Duckworth: Life as a Unity, Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago. Photo by Bob.