Seuil Chung, an artist resident at KU, said he had to eat crow after telling a student that their sketch for a ceramic sculpture would be nearly impossible to execute without breaking.
After extensive research, the student built a brick box and filled it with sand to fire the piece — an anatomical heart with arteries bursting from it in an intricate Möbius strip.
“Vital Exchange” by Natalie Slutsky is now on display in a collaborative show at Off-Site Art Space.
“I think that’s why I love teaching so much,” Chung said. “You get so inspired by your students, too. And they come up with these cool ideas and cool concepts and the ways they build, they often go beyond what I know.”
Chung and his colleague SunYoung Park have taught at the University of Kansas this past year as artists in residence with the Interdisciplinary Ceramics Research Center. They’re joining forces to show their students’ work — and some of their own — in a show called “Almost a Body: Not Quite a Thing” at Off-Site.
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Chung and Park are not only showing their students how to defy gravity with clay bodies and communicate in a visual language — they’re also teaching the nitty-gritty of how to hang a piece without breaking it.
“I think it’s very exciting for them to learn how to install,” Chung said. “… It’s also a good experience for them to know how to work with a gallery.”
Chung pulled “Scorned Sparrow” by Kyla Taylor from the wall, and showed how the student had cut away the clay at a 45-degree angle in the back so it would fit on a French cleat. A French cleat is a wall mounting system for heavier pieces. By building in space for a cleat, Taylor simplified the installation process and ensured the sculpture wouldn’t fall and break.
Marissa Warrell, a senior studying ceramics and art history, successfully mounted a fungal shelf to the wall, which held two more of her pieces: a plant pot and a twisting, intricate piece for displaying gems and crystals.
Warrell said Park’s class transformed the way she thought about texture and the finish of a piece. Park showed her how to apply beeswax to a piece after it’s fired in the kiln, which gave Warrell’s piece a woodwork-like appearance.
“I hope that folks are inspired and most of all by the fact that (the pieces) are all mimicking natural forms,” Warrell said. “All of these projects came from a trip to the herbarium. So they kind of all have that through-line of connecting with specific plants, and so I think people will be able to feel that.”
Park took her gaggle of fledgling artists to KU’s McGregor Herbarium to look at plants under a microscope, drawing parallels between cell structures and building a clay structure.
Park said one of her students found a dried blueberry, which inspired them to create a little creature called “Blueberry Man.” One Blueberry Man became many Blueberry Men, and suddenly they were stacked on each other, each one a cell melding together to form an organic whole.
Park said Lawrence’s melange of arts, culture and nature informed how she taught her students and grew her own practice.
“I really love to be sometimes in middle of nowhere. For me, it was really helpful, not only for this class, but also for myself, going to Field Station and being in this grass field and thinking like probably nothing,” Park said with a chuckle. “But trying to think about my inspiration for this course, too.”
Folks can enjoy the fruits of those field trips and hard work in the ceramics studios at the show’s opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday, May 16 at Off-Site, 924 Delaware St. The show will be open through Saturday, May 23, and pieces will be for sale.
Off-Site is open 4 to 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays.
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at [email protected].
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Jacob Rice (he/him), photo editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since March 2026. He can be reached at [email protected].
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