Brief Bio
Josh DeWeese is a ceramic artist and educator. He is currently a Professor of Art teaching ceramics at Montana State University in Bozeman, where he and his wife Rosalie Wynkoop have a home and studio. DeWeese served as Resident Director of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, Montana from 1992-2006. He holds an MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred, and a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. DeWeese has exhibited and taught workshops internationally and his work is included in numerous public and private collections.
Full Bio
Born in 1963 in Bozeman, Montana, Josh DeWeese is a ceramic artist and educator. He is a Professor of Art teaching ceramics at Montana State University in Bozeman, DeWeese has exhibited and taught workshops internationally and his work is included in numerous public and private collections.
The son of the artists Robert and Gennie DeWeese, Josh was raised in an artistic home. Bob and Gennie are credited with being early pioneers of modernist painting in Montana and Bob taught at Montana State University for nearly 30 years. Their household was a hub of artistic activity, with many artist visitors and students coming through the home. The upbringing laid the foundation for Josh’s life as an artist and he began studying ceramics in 1981 as a student at Montana State University with Rick Pope, and Micheal Peed.
DeWeese transferred to the Kansas City Art Institute where he studied with Ken Ferguson, Victor Babu, George Timock, and Clary Illian, He graduated with a BFA in Ceramics in 1985. Following KCAI, Josh moved to Mendocino, California to work in the ROP program with Peter Zook at the Mendocino Art Center from 1985-87. In 1987 he co-founded the “Studio”, a ceramics cooperative studio with artist Sam Katz.
In 1988 DeWeese traveled to France, Italy, and Spain for 6 weeks. Upon his return he moved to Helena Montana, where he had received a summer grant award to be a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation, and met his future wife Rosalie Wynkoop. The Archie Bray Foundation is an internationally renowned center dedicated to the enrichment of the ceramic arts, offering residencies , classes, workshops and supplies to artists from around the world. The winter of 1989 he served as interim director of the Bray following Resident Director’s Kurt Weiser’s departure, before the arrival of the new director, Carol Roorbach.
DeWeese did his graduate work at the New York School of Ceramics at Alfred University in New York studying with Val Cushing, Wayne Higby, John and Andrea Gill, Anne Currier, Tony Hepburn, and Jeff Oestreich. He received his MFA in 1991.
DeWeese worked at the Vermont State Craft Center in Middlebury with artist Henry Tanaka for the fall of 1991, making pottery and teaching children’s classes, before returning to Montana where he taught 2-d foundations at MSU for one semester. In the fall of 1992 he returned to the Archie Bray Foundation as acting Resident Director before being hired permanently in 1993. DeWeese and Wynkoop were married at the Bray in 1993, and lived and worked on the site until 2007. Under DeWeese’s leadership the Bray underwent tremendous development culminating with a successful 3.5 million dollar capital campaign to build a new state of the art ceramic studio facility.
DeWeese and Wynkoop moved to Bozeman in 2007 to build a home and studio. DeWeese was hired as an adjunct at MSU to teach ceramics in the fall of 2007 and became full time in 2008. He now heads the ceramics area at MSU and continues to make and exhibit his ceramic work. Together with artist Dean Adams he has co founded the International Wild Clay Research Project, studying the use of indigenous ceramic materials and processes around the world, traveling to China, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Chile, Brazil, and Italy.