Artist Michael Guerra Foerster rallies San Antonio ceramics community for exhibition at Central Library

When visual artist Michael Guerra Foerster began studying at the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2014, his initial plan was to major in creative writing. But that plan changed quickly.

“As soon as I entered college, I was like, ‘Never mind that — I would rather play with mud,’” Foerster recalled during a recent interview with the Current.

The “mud” in question is clay: the foundation of the ancient medium of ceramics. Not only did Foerster embrace ceramics as his calling, he dedicated himself to pushing its boundaries.

“I got really interested in moving beyond what I thought ceramics was supposed to be,” Foerster said. “Moving beyond pretty cups, pretty glazes … and getting really dirty and gritty.”

Foerster found some of that grit and grime through pit-firing — an unpredictable process fueled by wood, leaves or other combustibles.

“They have a pit on campus and one time I used a bunch of bailed hay, which produces the craziest amount of smoke,” Foerster said. “And the pit is right across the street from the security offices. They were like, ‘Stop, stop! What are you doing?’ I was really trying to open myself up to making something strange and new. So I started moving in that direction — almost poking fun at figurative work.”

That departure from the norm is at the core of a new exhibition Foerster devised and curated for Central Library. Titled “Transfiguration,” the group show pushes the boundaries of clay while uniting key members of San Antonio’s ceramics community.

“When I started planning this project in 2023, the ceramics community in San Antonio felt super-decentralized,” Foerster said, reflecting on his experiences working with creative communities at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina and the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Maine. “I was constantly meeting new people and nobody knew each other. … I [kept asking], ‘Where is our community?’ And everybody felt the same way. … And so I just wanted to bring everyone together. Since then, the ceramics community has kind of boomed — which is kind of funny [and] amazing.”

As for the title “Transfiguration,” Foerster is quick to acknowledge the religious connotations.

“I’m aware that it has a heavy connotation with Christian imagery,” he admitted. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m really interested in the relationship within ceramics that is this ancient, kind of strange, kind of magical process that was not completely understood in ancient times — and perhaps still isn’t. It’s a chemical transformation where one material becomes another. And so it’s referred to by some people as alchemy.”

During the Current’s chat with Foerster, we asked the artist and curator to shed light on each of the artists he chose to highlight in “Transfiguration,” which opens June 14 and runs through Aug. 2.

Brooke Armstrong

A fairly recent addition to the San Antonio ceramics scene, Brooke Armstrong grew up in a rural mountain town in New York State and is currently teaching at UTSA. Her work creates intricate textures comprised of handcrafted clay beads. Blurring lines between hard and soft, her pieces evoke spines, spikes, even feathers and fur.

“Brooke has two pieces in this exhibition,” Foerster said. “One of them involves sculpted feet that sit on a pedestal with beads dangling from underneath. Her other piece is [anatomical] — it’s a pair of lungs [adorned with] tons of beads. The clay beads are an essential thread throughout her work.”

Anita Becerra

A self-described “ceramic artist by day, salsera by night,” Anita Becerra often uses the banana as a loaded symbol tied to her Honduran heritage. Her 2024 video piece Bonds of Iniquity, a telling encapsulation of her mixed-media projects, entailed Becerra breaking a linked chain of ceramic bananas as a commentary about neocolonialism and the patriarchy. Sensuality and the ever-present theme of good versus evil also factor into her work, some of which takes ceramics into a multimedia realm.

“She is presenting a hanging piece involving banana leaves and a smaller sculpture [below],” Foerster said of Becerra’s contribution, which is one of the largest pieces in “Transfiguration.”

Ed Escobedo

Forester first met artist and educator Ed Escobedo while they were studying ceramics at UTSA.

“Ed sort of mentored me in a way. … I wanted to bring him [onboard], because now he’s a high school teacher — and I know [that] struggle,” said Foerster, who teaches at UTSA Southwest and SAY Sí. “He makes these very strange, twisted vessels [and] a lot of sculptural stuff as well. He came to ceramics from being an abstract sculptor and really fell in love with these atmospheric processes that produce these crazy orangey-brown earthy tones in his work. … He’s showing bottles and goblets that look super-twisted. These are not something that you would expect to see on a dining-room table. I just really love the way that he creates these things and they feel like they have so much gesture and action.”

Verena Gaudy

Although born in Austria, artist and educator Verena Gaudy is a longtime fixture in the San Antonio scene. In addition to teaching at UTSA, Gaudy operates Un Grito Gallery in the Blue Star Arts Complex with her partner Martín C. Rodríguez.

“Verena was kind of a mentor to me as well,” Foerster said. “She was in the grad program at UTSA when I was in school. She kind of brings this otherworldly vibe with her. She’s moved through a ton of different formal and conceptual ideas within her work but she’s settled into this kind of abstract [realm] that’s also [inspired by] sea life and plants. She does a lot of strange things with glaze that are very unique to her. .. It’s hard to explain what her stuff is, but it’s these folding [sculptures] that play with textures and colors.”

Michelle Hernandez

Whether working with functional or conceptual forms, artist Michelle Hernandez draws creative inspiration from dreams, Chicano culture, her Catholic upbringing and her struggles with PTSD.

“Michelle’s an awesome artist,” Foerster said. “She was the artist-in-residence at the San Antonio Missions last year. She’s super-thoughtful about the work she makes and its relationship to indigenous culture — and this place. Of everybody [in the exhibition], she really embodies what it is to be San Antonian. Her pieces have been clouds most recently. So she’s showing this cloudy piece and it has little golden spikes — kind of like a cactus. It’s kind of inviting, but also [says] ‘stay back.’ It’s interesting to make something that is weightless and fluffy into a rock.”

Mary Wuest

A senior lecturer at UTSA, artist Mary Wuest employs vessels as a vehicle to explore human experience and the body.

“I also went to school with Mary, and she’s been in the community for many years,” Foerster said. “She’s very poetic in the work that she does and she’s very politically and socially minded. She spends tons of time trying to say things correctly — in a way that only she can. The work that she’s making are these crazy knot sculptures — and all of the knots have a specific meaning. A lot of them are tied to labor movements and unions actually. … I love how if you keep digging, there’s more and more behind what it is that she does. And it’s not necessarily screaming it at you when you look at it.”

When asked about her knot series, which is titled “Knowledge for Knowledge’s Sake” — a reference to “art for art’s sake” — Wuest explained that she stumbled across knot theory while doing research.

“What first interested me was that knots are ubiquitous, easy to overlook and probably taken for granted,” Wuest said. “They are a great metaphor for people. … I understand knot theory well enough to know that one aspect is the ability to translate a mathematical knot into a polynomial in order to make comparisons. So it’s helpful to scientists across multiple fields of study. … Especially at this point in our country, we need to emphatically state that knowledge is good. The pursuit of knowledge is good. Because we all matter.”

Michael Guerra Foerster

Since graduating from UTSA in 2018, Foerster has established himself as a bit of a wild card within the realm of San Antonio’s contemporary art scene. Well known for concept-driven work exploring the ephemeral nature of unfired ceramics, he’s given many of his pieces away for free — some of which are intended to disintegrate and return to the earth. With a name that nods to both Fruit Loops and a villain from the Robert Rodriguez movie Spy Kids — which was coincidentally filmed in San Antonio at Central Library — Guerra’s signature “floops” are playfully rendered characters seemingly plucked from an oddball anime series.

“I’m showing these large cylindrical floops inspired by the raccoon dogs in the Studio Ghibli film Pom Poko,” Foerster explained. “They’re mystical creatures in Japan that are going extinct and they’re fighting against humanity — which is the cause of [their demise]. … I’ve been thinking about the environment a lot recently [and] the effects of artists on the environment. … It seems like we’re fucked a little bit. … Something I’ve really struggled with is this idea of transforming mud into a [fired] ceramic object. … For me to produce something, and then for it to exist for [thousands of years], I need it to need to live for that long. And I try to impress that on all of my students as they make work: just know that it will live forever. And it will likely live forever in a landfill.”

Free, opening reception 2-4 p.m. Saturday, June 14, on view noon-8 p.m. Monday-Tuesday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday through August 2; “Meet the Artists” reception 1-2 p.m. Sat, July 12, Central Library, 600 Soledad St., (210) 207-2500, mysapl.org.

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This article appears in Jun 12-25, 2025.