Joan Bontempo is a ceramic artist creating nontraditional works and expressive abstract sculpture in clay, and compositions combining clay forms with paintings and mixed media. She creates work that reimagines the traditional figures, pathways, structures or vessels - in stoneware and low-temperature Raku firing, mixed media and may have bits of glass, copper, gold enhancements, and found objects, or are in combination with altered canvases and acrylic.

Joan was born in Beaver, PA, a town outside of Pittsburgh. Recently retired after 16 years as professor of art at Hagerstown Community College, Hagerstown MD, she now lives and works in Knoxville, TN. She holds an MFA in ceramics from Wayne State University, Detroit MI, and a BFA from the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame IN. She has taught ceramics and art history in colleges in WI, MI, MD and TN over many years.

Her work has been widely shown in regional and national juried exhibits, solo shows and invitationals. She is a past member of NOMA gallery, Frederick MD; resident artist /represented by Pivot Point Gallery, Knoxville TN; resident artist/represented by Lakeside Studio, International Artist’s Program, Lakeside MI and by Marin Price Galleries, Chevy Chase MD.

Bontempo served as Program Consultant/Project Coordinator – Milwaukee County (Milwaukee WI) Percent for Art Public Art Program, 1998 - 2002, Board of Directors, Washington County Arts Council, (WCAC) Hagerstown MD, 2007 - 2014; the WCAC Community Arts Grant Review Panel – 2001-2018; Board of Directors, Hagerstown Community College Foundation, Hagerstown, MD, 2005, Scholarship Grant review; Chairman - Art Futures, non-profit artist awards program 1998- 2001, Milwaukee, WI; Board of Directors – Wisconsin Painters & Sculptors, 1998-2000; Board of Directors MARN – Milwaukee Artist Resource Network, Milwaukee WI; Consultant, The Bodice Project, Shepherdstown WV, 2016 – 2019.

My present work developed from an instant fascination with the medium of clay, and my earliest academic intentions were to master traditional, functional forms and techniques. In short time the lure of “what if I…?” quickly replaced the goal of conformity. Tradition became tools as I experimented in form, figure, other materials or found objects, including glass, altered canvases, metal screen and handmade paper.

I always work in series – challenging myself to develop, expand reimagine my former works with a different perspective on material and form. I never repeat a work, but may revisit them or what inspired them over time with new vision.

A new series often begins from a photograph of a place I walked – an empty alley in a rural neighborhood with worn wood structures in my hometown, a crumbling and peeling façade in a city block in Detroit, vivid layers of text scribbled to claim a space in New York, a historic building still in use on ancient land in Sicily or Scotland, shored up by whatever was at hand.… all of those were the inspiration for the works in this exhibit, Alleys and Artifacts.

Each completed work inspires the next to be different: softer, or bolder, or challenges me in the making. Usually, a series comes to an end after about 8 – 10 works. I keep the finished works in view around me until I feel I have addressed what I wanted to say, or the story I wanted to tell.

My journeys have taught me that our histories are not only written through language but - even more importantly - inscribed, collected and gathered through objects, dwellings and places we encounter.