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Jonah Fleeger | Episode 902
Jonah Fleeger is an emerging ceramic artist originally from Northwest Indiana. Jonah attended a small boarding school called Verde Valley School, in Sedona, Arizona, which is where his love for ceramics first started. In 2013, Jonah received his BFA in ceramics from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since then Jonah has completed post-baccalaureate programs at The University of Colorado Boulder and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. In 2019, Jonah received his MFA in ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design. Jonah was a resident artist at the Morean Center for Clay in Florida and a long-term resident artist at Cobb Mountain Art & Ecology Project in California. Currently, Jonah is creating, teaching and starting his own studio in Northern Arizona.
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Why does tedious work attract you?
It’s fulfilling. I think it’s very fulfilling that’s the biggest part for me.
What are you working on in the studio right now that has you super excited?
My coil thrown sculptures on the wheel. I have a lot of glaze ideas in mind and I’m excited to get those going.
On your website your sculptures all have names, do they all have a story to tell?
Most of the them have a story to tell, some of them a little more in depth than others, but all of them have a story.
How does one find the story in the work?
Some times the title hints at the story, other times people might need to look up a phrase or something like that.
What’s an idea you are chasing down but you are not quite sure how to do it yet?
I think I have a lot of ideas for glazing and how I want to glaze my wheel-thrown work, my sculptures. I feel like I know how to do it, I just need to do it. And I feel like once I do it we will see if it works. (laughter)
Okay, What’s the attraction to teaching?
I love teaching. It is very fulfilling to me to be able to help students create something that they might not have been able to before. And to be able to give my skill knowledge to other people is another pretty fulfilling thing to do.
What’s one thing that your students don’t know about you but they should?
I don’t know, what do people usually say? (laughter) I mean I feel like I am pretty open. I don’t think that there is anything weird or anything like that people or students don’t know.
So you are an open book.
Yeah I feel like I am.
Book
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Contact
Instagram: @jonah_fleeger