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Wade MacDonald Named New Ceramics Professor in UA’s Department of Art and Art History

Wade Folger MacDonald has been appointed assistant professor of art in The University of Alabama’s department of art and art history. He will begin his new position August 16, 2019.Wade MacDonald, assistant professor of art, ceramics

MacDonald has been an instructor of ceramics and studio foundations courses in the department since 2015. A Nashville native, he received the BA in art education from Western Michigan University and the MFA in studio art with a concentration in ceramics from Michigan State University.

As a ceramic sculptor, MacDonald explores the intersection of ceramics, digital fabrication, furniture design and architecture. He and his work have been profiled in American Craft Magazine (August/September 2018) and in 2018, he received the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) Emerging Artist Award. The award recognizes exceptional early career artists and helps promote their work internationally for the year.

Sculpture by Wade F. MacDonald, “Desoto Suppositorio 1,” 2019.MacDonald has exhibited nationally including juried exhibitions at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Milwaukee, Wis.; Kennedy Museum of Art, Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio; Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, Mich.; Clay Center of New Orleans and the NCECA Emerging Artists Exhibition, David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Pittsburgh. MacDonald has participated in invitational exhibitions at The Clay Studio, Philadelphia; Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art, Augusta, Ga. and numerous others. He has a forthcoming solo exhibition at the University of Montevallo, Montevallo, Ala. and will be included in Dirt X Digital Ceramics Invitational, at Lee Gallery, Clemson University in South Carolina this year.

MacDonald has held artist residencies at Anderson Ranch Art Center, in Snowmass, Colo.; Banff Centre, in Banff, Alberta; and the Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, Mt. He has been a visiting artist at the Department of Art and Art History with the Department of Architecture at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and at the Department of Craft and Material Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University. Sculpture by Wade MacDonald, “Cotton: The Fabric of Our Lives,” 2018.MacDonald received the Stanley and Selma Hollander Graduate Fellowship in Studio Art, the Varg-Sullivan Award for Distinguished Research and the John and Susan Berding Family Foundation Endowment Juried MFA Prize. He has given numerous artist lectures, talks, workshops and demonstrations including the NCECA Emerging Artist Lecture in Pittsburgh; Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, Mich. and the Bunting Biennial Ceramics Symposium, Birmingham Museum of Art, in Alabama.

For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, go here: https://art.ua.edu/academics/.