Joel Neff
Joel Neff
"Through young eyes I look to the past in the hope that I may leave an indelible mark in the future."
As a kid Joel grew up in a small Kansas town where his view of the world came from the inside of a National Geographic magazine. After graduating from college he and his wife moved to New York City where his world views moved from the pages of a magazine into the reality of NYC living. Rich in culture and visual textures, NYC was the perfect place for his work to develop into what it is today.
His work is all wheel thrown and altered. After firing the pieces to bisque the patterns are penciled on by hand. After applying the colored glaze with a slip trailer, the pattern is then waxed and the metallic glaze is brushed on before being fired to 2200 degrees.
Today Joel travels all over the country selling his ceramics at some of the top art festivals in the country.
Joel graduated in 2000 from a small University in Kansas called Fort Hays State University with his Bachelor of Fine Arts. Joel and his wife moved a year later to New York. Four years ago he finally began pursuing his career in ceramics. He travels the country doing Art Fairs as far east as Kansas and as far South as Texas. He currently maintains a studio in Yonkers, NY.
Joel's work deals mainly with form and color. He mixes classical forms with contemporary color and patterning to create a dynamic visual experience. The forms lend a sense of familiarity to the viewer while the color adds a sense of intensity and excitement. Duality is found all throughout his work from the use of only two glazes to the idea of function vs. decorative. He finds that the sense of function in ceramics is imperative due to the long history of ceramics in the world, yet he loves trying to skew the viewer's idea away from the function and toward a notion of object beauty. This allows the viewer to enjoy the piece on a much greater artistic level while still maintaining a sense of satisfaction about functionality.