Join us in conversation with artists George Shipperley and Rick Hintze alongside their current exhibition, Surface Matters. The talk will take place on the main level of the Abel Contemporary Gallery. The talk is free and open to the public. Hintze makes functional pots, coiled vessels and some sculptural pieces. With the wheel work he has recently focused on using wood ash glazes and clay slips, with a particular interest in the irregularities of texture, depth, and color; the way in which they are dull or glassy, thin or pooled, and in how they obscure or reveal the clay underneath. During the throwing process, Hintze pays particular attention to the rhythms and surface tex-tures left in the clay, aware of how they will react to the glaze, and hopes to evoke some of the movement of the wheel and the plasticity of the material in the fired piece. Shipperley’s pastel works are mostly comprised of landscapes and still life, but the sub-ject is not his priority; interpretation through feeling and emotion is. “How we paint, not what we paint, is the essence of a good work of art.” Shipperley’s trees and landscape reflect their poetry and grace, not just their structure. His interpretation of the sky and the land stir our emotions by the very nature of their rhythm and communication with each other. Applying multiple layers of oil pastel and employing an incising technique all his own, Shipperley creates works best described as abstract expressionism, influ-enced by the natural world around him.