Alfred University News

Three projects spotlight Wayne Higby’s work as an artist and curator.

Wayne Higby’s ceramic art work Sun Rim Canyon will be featured in the reinstallation of the Mint Museum Uptown’s permanent collection, which opens Feb. 12, 2022. The Mint Museum Uptown is part of the Levine Center for the Arts, located in Charlotte, NC.


Wayne Higby’s ceramic art work Sun Rim Canyon will be featured in the reinstallation of the Mint Museum Uptown’s permanent collection, which opens Feb. 12, 2022. The Mint Museum Uptown is part of the Levine Center for the Arts, located in Charlotte, NC.

Another Higby work, Snow at Red Mesa, is featured in the Denver Art Museum’s exhibition By Design: Stories and Ideas Behind Objects.

Professor of Ceramic Art at Alfred University and Director of the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, Higby additionally is serving as a juror for the Blanc de Chine International Ceramic Art Award, a global competition for ceramic art in porcelain held every two years. One hundred and forty-seven artists from 50 counties have submitted a total of 943 works to the award competition.

As the Mint Museum Uptown prepares to reinstall its permanent collection, the museum has published Craft in the Laboratory: The Science of Making Things, which explores parallels between artists, designers, scientists and engineers. The volume, Higby says, “is the first to examine how craft artists and designers apply scientific and mathematical concepts to creating their work, and reveals approaches to problem-solving among these makers and professionals in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.”

The Levine Center for the Arts, which includes the Mint Art Museum Uptown, is a cultural campus in Charlotte that includes the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts and Culture, the Knight Theater, and the Duke Energy Center.

The Denver Art Museum’s By Design: Stories and Ideas Behind Subjects is the inaugural exhibition in the Museum’s newly restored Gio Ponti-designed Martin Building which houses the Amanda J. Precourt Galleries and showcases objects from the Museum’s architecture and design collection. The collection encompasses one of the preeminent modern and contemporary design collections of any comprehensive museum in the U.S. and features a broad range of design practices, including architecture, furniture, as well as industrial and graphic design.

As a juror for the Blanc de Chine International Ceramic Art Award, Higby shares the jury responsibility with other art museum directors including the Director of the International Ceramic Art Museum, Faenza, Italy; the Director of the National Museum of Ceramics, Sevres, France; the Director of the Keramis Art Center, Belgium; and the Director of the Asian Art Museum, located in San Francisco.

The Blanc de Chine International Ceramic Art Award first prize of 50,000 euros will be announced in September 2022.