Artifact (Hex-Head Bolt), 2003

Steve Montgomery

oil painted glazed stoneware

7" H x 11" W x 8.5" D

If you enjoy large-scale versions of the everyday little things, this mighty screw is the piece for you! This bolt screw is reflective of Montgomery's practice with large-scale ceramic sculptures of industrial and mechanical objects such as tools, screws, nuts, bolts, and the like. The shiny surface and extra large size of this otherwise quotidian object can make any space seem fun and playful-rewiring our usual perceptions of the everyday object into something more meaningful and impactful.

Artist Statement

I've always believed that my beloved but beleaguered hometown (Detroit) afforded me an aesthetic birthright that identified only a fine line between a creative action and a street fight. I was always proud that my hometown was a centerpiece in the evolution of industrialization while simultaneously hyper-conscious of its escalating demise.

Artist Biography

Steven Montgomery was born in Detroit, Michigan. He received a Bachelor Of Philosophy degree in 1976 from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan where he focused on both ceramics and printmaking. In 1978 he received a Master of Fine Arts from the Tyler School of Art of Temple University in Philadelphia where he studied with the porcelain innovator Rudolph Staffel. At Tyler he began his first forays into alternative approaches to methods of low-fired, mixed media ceramic construction and the oil painted ceramic surface treatments that have been a signature of his work throughout his career.

He has been awarded Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts ('90, '2006, '2009), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation ('99,'16), and awards for ceramic sculpture at international exhibitions in Korea (Gold Prize,'03) and Taiwan (Gold Prize,'04, Merit Prize,'06). He was a 2012 recipient of a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship working as an artist in residence at the National Air And Space Museum in Washington, DC.
His work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Art and Design in New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery in Washington DC and numerous other public and private collections throughout the US and abroad. He currently teaches at Hunter College, lives in Manhattan and works in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Donated by the Grainer Family.

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