Profiles – Faculty
The faculty of the department of Craft / Material Studies is a group of professional artists/object makers dedicated to creative research and education. Our mission is to teach and encourage students to visually realize original ideas through the investigation of material, development of technique and utilization of process or technology. Students are expected to become creative professionals in their field who are proficient at critical thinking and problem-solving and will contribute to the aesthetic identity of our culture.
Sonya Clark – Chair
Sonya Clark, Chair of the Department of Craft/Material Studies, was previously a Baldwin-Bascom Professor of Creative Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a Master's of Fine Art from Cranbrook Academy of Art, a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Bachelor of Art in Psychology from Amherst College. She is the recipient of the Lillian Elliott Award, a Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship, and H. I Romnes Fellowship for her work that celebrates the hand and head as subject matter within a cross cultural context. She has exhibited in numerous solo exhibitions and over 100 group exhibitions. Internationally, her work has been exhibited and collected by institutions such as the Museu de Arte de Brasilia in Brazil, Natal Society for Art in South Africa, the Montreal Museum of Decorative Art in Canada, Goetlicher Gallery in Austria, the Maxwell Gallery in Australia, and the Musees d’Angers in France. Nationally her work has been viewed in over thirty states at venues including the Newark Museum of Art (NJ), UCLA Fowler Museum (CA), Boise Art Museum (ID), Bellevue Art Museum (WA), Philbrook Museum (OK), Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art (DC), and Museum of Art and Design (NY).
Debbie Quick – Administrative Director
Debbie Quick is a MFA alumni of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Craft/Material Studies Department. Recently, her work was included in The Third Annual Marge Kalodner Graduate Student Exhibition at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, Amazing Clay 3 in Stanton, VA and in a solo show at AFA Gallery in Pennsylvania. She shows her small works in Richmond at Quirk Gallery. In a June 2006 radio interview for Art Scene with Erica Funky on NPR affiliate WVIA, she discussed her series of works dealing with empathy and loss.