Stratos - Jon McMillan

Stratos is part of the Cloudseeds series, a new body of work that explores the relationship between the natural and built environments through the integration of forms and surfaces abstracted from multiple sources.  Bits of visual and contextual information from plant life, the human body, geographic phenomena and mechanical artifacts are brought together to create works that are suggestive yet ambiguous.  

For each piece, earthenware clay is formed through wheel throwing and hand building processes, and finished with multiple glaze firings to build engaging surfaces.  The objects begin with only a vague idea in mind, developing as they are constructed through an intuitive process that requires a continual back and forth between thought and action. 

While humans and the natural world are inherently connected, rapidly developing cultural shifts, technologies and industrial growth continue to divide our species from the rest of the planet.  These pieces seek to explore the gray area that characterizes this relationship through the combination of disparate parts.  The resulting objects are rich with connotations, bringing the viewer’s own experiences and ideas to bear in the ensuing dialogue.  If the work is successful, it creates more questions than answers.

Jon McMillan is an artist and educator residing in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he is an Associate Professor of ceramics, Chair of the Department of Art and Art History and the Interim Director of UMW Galleries at the University of Mary Washington.  He holds an MFA in ceramics from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, and a BFA from James Madison University, where he also earned a minor in Art History.  After undergraduate school, Jon worked for seven years as a full-time studio potter before pursuing his master’s degree.  Currently, he makes sculptural and functional ceramic artwork, both of which are exhibited widely.  Highlights include recent solo exhibitions at The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,  Tennessee Tech University, Hunter College, and Luniverre Gallery in Cordes Sur Ciel, France.  In 2017, McMillan was awarded a Jepson Fellowship to design and build a wood fired kiln at UMW and the prestigious Grellet Simpson Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching.  In 2019, he was awarded a Professional Artist Fellowship with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  In addition to teaching at UMW, Jon has taught ceramics workshops at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Clay Art Center, The Glassell School of Fine Art, and The Vallauris Institute for the Arts, among others.