WHY?

I was raised in and grew up around engaging architecture. Old Victorian houses with endless porches, shadowy attics and meandering stairways. Tire factories loomed down the block belching steam and rubber aroma.

It was a visual delight that has inspired me to be ever observant of architecture wherever I live.

HOW

My buildings are made from slabs of clay. Walls are cut out from the slabs, stood up and joined at the corners with slip. Windows are cut out and textures added. Bricks are inscribed with a needle and ruler. Boards and shingles are extruded from a clay gun and are attached individually.

After slowly drying out for at least a month each building is fired in my kiln to over 2,200 degrees. This vitrifies the clay and makes it possible to display the sculptures outside year round.

AWARDS

"Fire Up" Ceramic Invitational, July/August 2006
Studio Place Arts Gallery, Barre, Vermont

"Arts Alive" 2006
Union Station, Burlington, Vermont
2nd Place Award

International Orton Cone Box Show 2006
Portland, Oregon
Juror's Choice Purchase Award

"For Art's Sake", Art and Fine Craft Show, September 2005
Helen Day Center, Stowe, Vermont
1st Place Award Sculpture and Artist's Jury Award

Northern Vermont Artist Association Annual Juried Show, June 2006
Bryan Memorial Gallery, Jeffersonville, Vermont
1st Place Award Sculpture and Artist's Jury Award

SOFA, Sculpture Objects and Fine Craft Show, June 2005
The Armory, New York, New York

Smithsonian Institute "Barn Again, Celebrating an American Icon" National Exhibit
2004-2005 Wyoming, Maine, South Carolina, Idaho and Connecticut

Littleton NH Fine Art and Crafts Show
September 2004
1st Place Sculpture Award

Northern Vermont Artist Association
Annual Juried Show
June 2004, Johnson, Vermont
Award of Merit for Sculpture

Ceramic Monthly International Competition
March 1999, Columbus, Ohio
"Bailey Pottery purchase award winner"

Smithtown Township Arts Council, 23rd Annual Juried Fine Arts Competition
October 1998, St. James, New York
"Award of Excellence" Awarded by Tracey Bashkoff, Curator of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, New York

MAJOR COMMISSIONS

Sculptures commissioned by the State of Vermont and permanently installed in the General Services Building, Middlesex, Vermont, 1993.

Sculptures of the Spanish Missions commissioned by the City of San Antonio and presented to President George Bush, Pope John Paul II, Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles of Wales, and King Juan Carlos of Spain, 1984 to 1987.

DOCUMENTATION

American Style Magazine, Feb. 2006

"Art Express" Mountain Lake New York State Public Television, June 2005

New England Crafts Connoisseur, Fall 2006

Art New England, September 2004
"John Brickels' Skyscraper appears as if it were made of Jell-o and wobbles as it ascends. Its facade is flaking off in pieces, revealing the brick underneath; ventilation and piping running up the side of the building are falling off. Brickels executes these features with a scrupulous attention to detail."

Ceramics Art and Perception Magazine, 2000, Issue 39
"The Bailey Pottery Equipment Award which went to "Park" by John Brickels, an amusing and carefully crafted piece that spoke of our confusion of contemporary icons and memorials - here automobiles are jammed into a parking station that looks suspiciously like the ruins at Ephesus."

New York Times, September 1999
The artist's sculptures "...twist and swell like three-dimensional versions of Charles Burchfield's eerily animated buildings."

Long Island Voice, September 1999
"Vermont artist John Brickels' undulating brown farmhouses and other decaying strtuctures had an obsessive sense of nostalgia that transcends the humble and homey stoneware clay."

Burlington Free Press, 1998
"Like Tim Burton ("Beetlejuice", "Edward Scissorhands") Brickels has a real flair for the slightly spooky poignancy of old buildings, houses and carnivals. Worn down by time and the elements, the buildings in these clay pieces look positively beat: slouched, swollen with experience, poised for either collapse or escape."

San Antonio Light, September 1988
"His three dimensional structures recall the mysteries of inner space from childhood. These superbly crafted structures have dignity and beauty even - especially - in this condition. He manages to bring them to us with careful observation made meaningful through his insights."

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Visual Arts
University of Akron
Akron, Ohio