Epperson Gallery
Epperson Gallery

Bios - Staff



Gerald Epperson, Owner.

I’m a third-generation Californian. My father’s family came by wagon train to California and my mother’s side of the family came in the 1920’s, from Oklahoma. I first started throwing pots in a studio in Visalia in the late 60’s. Fern Wilson had converted the old baggage area of the Santa Fe Railroad into a ceramics studio with about 6 wheels and a large updraft kiln. I worked as her apprentice in exchange for doing my own work. I wanted to learn more about ceramics so I looked around for a college with a ceramics program. The closest college was the College of Marin so I moved to Marin and studied ceramics under Thano Johnson for two years. After coming back from a 6-week tour of Europe, a friend of mine asked me to help promote his waterbed business in Europe. The USA wasn’t the best place to be then, so I took him up on it. Waterbeds were unheard of at the time and that business didn’t last long. My wife Joanne and I would then open a custom leather and silver shop in Amsterdam, around the corner from the Ann Frank Museum. We purchased a 60 ft. canal boat to live on which we were able to take out on the canals and live on in the center of town. We came back to California and I was in and out of ceramics. In 1996 we bought out a gallery which was selling my work along with other artists. I figured I could use it as my own retail outlet after I retired from banking. Later, in 2001 we bought the whole building (23,300 sq.ft.). In 2005 we did a major retrofit and remodel. We now have a 3,500 sq.ft. gallery dedicated to ceramics, seven artists' studios, a sound studio, a custom picture framer, a 600 sq.ft. classroom area, and 1,000 sq.ft. ceramics studio.



Suzanne M Long, Curator.

I grew up Pennsylvania and studied Illustration at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia. After graduating, I lived in New York working as an Illustrator and Production Artist, moving to San Francisco in 1991 and falling in love with the Bay Area. In 1992, I obtained a studio in the Benicia Arsenal and started a transition from commercial to fine art. Now based in Vallejo, I have been a sculptor since 1996. I am the Curator at the Epperson Gallery of Ceramic Arts, where I also teach the workshop Clay LAB. My work is exhibited at Brumfield Gallery in Astoria OR, Jen Tough Gallery in Santa Fe NM, Transmission Gallery in Oakland CA and the Epperson Gallery of Ceramic Arts in Crockett CA.

Artist Statement
My work is about memory, adding a visual narrative to my thoughts. My work is about melancholy and humor, politics and storytelling. Sometimes I don't know what my work is about, I just have a compulsion to create, I let me hands lead, at other times my mind. Sometimes I make the same piece over an over, like learning the words of a song, practicing. I repeat it again and again until it is a part of me, then I can release the concept with an understanding of it. My work teaches me who I am, it defines the edges for a time. It answers a question for me; it poses a question to me.

   

Gerald Epperson, Owner.

I’m a third-generation Californian. My father’s family came by wagon train to California and my mother’s side of the family came in the 1920’s, from Oklahoma. I first started throwing pots in a studio in Visalia in the late 60’s. Fern Wilson had converted the old baggage area of the Santa Fe Railroad into a ceramics studio with about 6 wheels and a large updraft kiln. I worked as her apprentice in exchange for doing my own work. I wanted to learn more about ceramics so I looked around for a college with a ceramics program. The closest college was the College of Marin so I moved to Marin and studied ceramics under Thano Johnson for two years. After coming back from a 6-week tour of Europe, a friend of mine asked me to help promote his waterbed business in Europe. The USA wasn’t the best place to be then, so I took him up on it. Waterbeds were unheard of at the time and that business didn’t last long. My wife Joanne and I would then open a custom leather and silver shop in Amsterdam, around the corner from the Ann Frank Museum. We purchased a 60 ft. canal boat to live on which we were able to take out on the canals and live on in the center of town. We came back to California and I was in and out of ceramics. In 1996 we bought out a gallery which was selling my work along with other artists. I figured I could use it as my own retail outlet after I retired from banking. Later, in 2001 we bought the whole building (23,300 sq.ft.). In 2005 we did a major retrofit and remodel. We now have a 3,500 sq.ft. gallery dedicated to ceramics, seven artists' studios, a sound studio, a custom picture framer, a 600 sq.ft. classroom area, and 1,000 sq.ft. ceramics studio.
   

Suzanne M Long, Curator.

I grew up Pennsylvania and studied Illustration at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia. After graduating, I lived in New York working as an Illustrator and Production Artist, moving to San Francisco in 1991 and falling in love with the Bay Area. In 1992, I obtained a studio in the Benicia Arsenal and started a transition from commercial to fine art. Now based in Vallejo, I have been a sculptor since 1996. I am the Curator at the Epperson Gallery of Ceramic Arts, where I also teach the workshop Clay LAB. My work is exhibited at Brumfield Gallery in Astoria OR, Jen Tough Gallery in Santa Fe NM, Transmission Gallery in Oakland CA and the Epperson Gallery of Ceramic Arts in Crockett CA.

Artist Statement
My work is about memory, adding a visual narrative to my thoughts. My work is about melancholy and humor, politics and storytelling. Sometimes I don't know what my work is about, I just have a compulsion to create, I let me hands lead, at other times my mind. Sometimes I make the same piece over an over, like learning the words of a song, practicing. I repeat it again and again until it is a part of me, then I can release the concept with an understanding of it. My work teaches me who I am, it defines the edges for a time. It answers a question for me; it poses a question to me.