Jacob Prater

Jacob Prater, RSC Gallery, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas

The exhibition by Jacob Prater in the RSC gallery is perplexing when considering the work in context to his artist statement and the RSC advertisement. The work is a combination of wheel thrown ceramics and a figurative wooden sculpture. The shows advertisement describes his work as comical and exploratory. Exploration is the only truth in advertising in this exhibition. Prater’s past work is defiantly a victim of the fun and comical, with his exploration of submarines and spacecrafts. His current work and exhibition is boring and mundane. It seems that everyone in current ceramics department is on the wood fire bandwagon and Jacob Prater is leading the charge. His vessels seem unoriginal and mundane. The work is simply safe and without the risk taking, that was seen in the past. The largest disappointment is in his artist statement with his soapbox stance on proselytizing his beliefs. His ranting about god commanding him to create a vessel is a shallow attempt of using a parable of the human body and spirit and the admonishment to fill it with the word of God, as a reason for his efforts. The final straw of disappointment was the pamphlets stuffed into his wood fired vessels. The most obvious question is what do cheaply printed gospels of John have to do with the vessel. The entire exhibition was a dismal attempt converting viewers to the ways of Jacob Prator.