By JW McNay/managing editor

Ceramic artwork created by a guest artist is on display until Nov. 1 in the Lakeview Gallery on NW Campus.

Works from artist Barbara Frey are on display during regular campus hours, and many of the pieces are part of different series created by Frey. The exhibit opened with a reception Oct. 8 where Frey gave a gallery talk and demonstrated ceramic techniques.

Frey said her first ceramics class was in 1974, and she’s been doing ceramics “nonstop.” She retired from teaching in May after 40 years. She taught two years in New York state and then 38 years as a ceramics professor at Texas A&M University-Commerce.

“My artistic practice throughout all these years has been a direct benefit to my teaching,” Frey said. “I have always been very committed to being a practicing artist, and that currency in the art world is what I’ve brought to the classroom.”

Beginner artists can view works from someone who is “further down the road,” Frey said, adding she was once a beginner too. The struggles for art students in the classroom are the same for Frey in her studio, she said. 

“The benefit is to show people ‘look where you could go,’ not in the sense that they’re going to copy my work, but just seeing what art can be and the resonance it can have and the experience that it can offer,” she said.

NW student and art club president Rena Warren studies graphic design and attended the reception with other art club members. Warren wasn’t familiar with ceramics or Frey’s work prior to coming to the gallery, and found out about the exhibit an hour before the reception.

“I wanted to see what her thought in the art was,” Warren said.

She said the exhibit was “cool,” and some pieces stood out to her in particular, and she also saw how similar the process of ceramics and her own study of graphic design can be.

“Taking her work here, like how she’s making these teapots over here, that’s graphic design in her media at the same time,” Warren said.

Even though Frey is retired from teaching, she isn’t going to retire from making art any time soon, she said.

“I’m just really excited about continuing in my studio and see what happens because you don’t know what’s gonna happen,” Frey said. “It’s a constant adventure.”