Tom Hubert

I was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. I received my BA in Art Education from Mercyhurst University and my MFA in Ceramics and Ceramic Sculpture with a Minor in Photography from the School for the American Craftsman at Rochester Institute of Technology.

After graduate school I returned to the Erie area and moved outside of the city to Fairview, Pa. where I also have my studio.

I am an Associate Professor of Art and have been teaching art at Mercyhurst University for the past 31 years. I was the Director of the Art Department from 1992 to 2001 and Chair of the Art Department from 2003 to 2008.

My resume includes 15 awards in national and regional exhibitions including a Pennsylvania Council of Arts Grant and a National Endowment for the Arts/Mid-Atlantic Art Foundation Regional Fellowship.

From 1980 through the early 90′s I marketed my work at wholesale shows and had my work represented by dozens of galleries across the United States.

I currently show my work in juried and invitational exhibitions and I have had eight one-person shows in the last ten years. Locally, I am represented by Kada Gallery.

My decorative whiteware vessels involve complex pottery forms using wheel thrown and slab built construction. The surfaces are produced with careful consideration of each form by building up layers of multiple fired applications of underglaze with mask and resist methods and glaze. The white ceramic body provides a bright substrate for the vivid color palette of underglazes with unending design possibilities. Some pots incorporate hand carved and sanded wood parts as an organic contrast to the highly decorative reflective surfaces.

Over the past five years, I have also been experimenting with cone six porcelain pottery forms, new layered glazes, underglazes and carved surfaces. The porcelain clay is much more difficult to work with in both construction and firing but provides a more durable, functional ceramic form with brilliant surface qualities. Layering of high and low fired ceramic materials is both a technical and aesthetic challenge.

I make large-scale wall pieces that allow me to work more as a painter on a relatively flat ceramic canvas. Even though the method of multiple fired underglaze decoration is common with my whiteware vessel forms, with the wall pieces I often stand and use full arm motion in order to apply brush strokes and spray methods.

My pieces are three dimensional with exciting visual depth of surface and range of palette but this website can only show them as flat images. Seeing the work itself is always best but I hope you enjoy the two dimensional representations.

Working with clay has always been a passionate endeavor for me . I hope you enjoy my ceramic creations.