Opening: Dry Land

The show is titled Dry Land, not only as a reference to the nature of the medium itself, but also to evoke an idea of safety and rest. “When sailors are out at sea they often are in search of dry land,” Traer says. “I am not a sailor, but over the past few years there seems to be a general sense that we are in fact lost at sea — and this show, I am hoping, provides some respite from that.”

The artists Traer has chosen to bring together for the show draw from diverse backgrounds and practices, but share a sense of whimsy and tongue-in-cheek humor, executing formidable structural feats in ways that appear effortless. Ceramic artist and architect Janny Baek creates cloudlike, anthropomorphic structures that share a similar joyful and buoyant color palette as figurative ceramicist Sara Swink’s small-scale stoneware animal figures. Holly Curcio creates both narrative ceramic sculptures and comics, and Lisa Smith and her works seem to exist in a similar world as ceramic sculptor Monica Van den Dool’s — both with a darker, yet still whimsical bent. “Their storytelling is found in tones found in the natural world and their work seems to be sprouting from it,” Traer observes. “The works for the most part are figurative and if they aren’t specifically figurative they are breathing and existing — each piece of work holds a story, some more complex or obvious than others, but they all ask to be viewed with the same care and attention.”