The “Not So Guilty Pleasures” exhibition is on display in the Kondos Gallery at City College as part of the 56th Annual National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts Conference through April 8.  

The juried show, put together by Rebekah Bogard, an art professor from the University of Nevada at Reno, made several of the pieces in the show and collected the artwork of nine other artists to be in the show, says Mark Boguski, a professor in ceramics at City College. 

“The idea is … about how people work with clay, whether it’s clay as a material, clay to create a story, clay to work off a tradition, and how people enjoy the thing that they make, or the process or something about their lives or they’re making maybe a political statement of some sort,” Bgouski says.

The Kondos Gallery is designed to attract both students and the larger community. “We want to expose people to lots of different ideas and points of view and different art materials, to be an opportunity to educate the public in a lot of different ways, depending on the art that we’re showing, ” Boguski says. 

Jen Stract, Boguski’s assistant, explains that there are 16 different pieces of art being displayed in the Kondos Gallery at City College, created by 11 different artists. Stract added that the next show will be the student show in which participants are not required to be art majors. 

“This was so great to be back on campus,” Stract says. “We haven’t had a show here in two years. And it’s just a nice experience putting everything together getting the gallery ready. And you have people come by for the gallery again, that was lovely. People really responded well to it. I hope that everybody gets a chance to come out and see it.”

City College’s exhibit is one of 85 different exhibitions of ceramics in the  Northern California area. Other shows are going on in museums, schools, nonprofit art galleries and for-profit galleries. After this will be the student show from April 25 to May 13 in the Kondos Gallery.

Boguski has taught ceramics for over 25 years and believes it is always better to be hands-on in teaching and to leave art open to interpretation. “I think that it’s not art that tells you what to think,” he says. “It poses questions, leaves things intentionally ambiguous. It’s not designed to necessarily tell you one thing or another, but to kind of elicit curiosity.”

Boguski adds that most people don’t see the value of arts and ceramic arts in general, and emphasizes the importance of learning about these things as part of our humanity and ancient culture to keep them alive and beautiful. A lot of his inspiration comes from nature.

“I love nature,” he says. “I see the world as a beautiful and magical place, and I think we get caught up in our workday lives and forget to see the beauty and magic that’s around us. And so, I strive to make words to make people realize the beauty and mystery around us. … I like happiness and joy and peace and contemplation and exuberance, I guess, and I just want people to contemplate their own lives and their own place in the world. And so I consider the viewer part of the piece because they get to enter the world and sort of interact with the creatures.”