The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
Bob Bruch
Bio
I have led a “double life” of sorts in the field of business, as well as art. I first received a B.S. in Economics from Lehigh University (graduating Cum Laude), followed by an MBA from Stanford Business School. Upon graduating from Stanford, during the tumultuous period of the Vietnam War, I spent several years in a pilot MBA program for VISTA (domestic Peace Corps) consulting for community groups in a Hispanic neighborhood in San Francisco.
It was during my time in VISTA that I first began to work as an artist – a practice I continued to develop while later working at IMG (the dominant firm in the sports marketing field). My expertise in business and art allowed me to help create a ceramics cooperative in Cleveland in 1978.
In 1990, I decided to go to art school and spent four years at the Cleveland Institute of Art. I also received a graduate degree in Nonprofit Management from Case Western Reserve University in 1996.
I have been working as a studio artist since since 1995 and have had the good fortune to exhibit my work in a range of venues, including the prestigious Strictly Functional Pottery National, the Clay National, and the Annual Juried Competition of Contemporary Islamic Art. A sampling of my pieces is available at: bob-bruch.blog.
Artist Statement
In developing my asymmetrical work, I am guided by the interaction of volume and line during the making of each piece.
My irregular, apparently random, coil-built constructions result from variances introduced at the base of each vessel during the initial phase of my hand-building process. From these slight modifications in the base upon which I coil-build each vessel, a uniquely organic – yet “predetermined” – shape emerges.
As my construction begins to close in along the top of each vessel, I introduce a more deliberate edge or line in finishing the piece. The tension and dialogue this edge creates between line and volume in each piece tells a story.
My surface treatment of each pot aims to highlight and complement the work’s narrative contour.