Best Contemporary Ceramics -- Ensemble

BECAUSE THE EARTH IS 1/3 DIRT, which just closed at the University of Colorado Art Museum on the Boulder campus, featured an international array of contemporary ceramic artists. Participants were invited by a committee made up of CUAM director Lisa Tamiris Becker and three members of CU's art faculty: Scott Chamberlin, Kim Dickey and Jeanne Quinn. Just about every artist they selected is on the front lines of the medium, but perhaps none more so than Walter McConnell, who uses wet clay for his radical sculptures. Leopold Foulem, Lawson Oyekan and Annabeth Rosen were also responsible for making this show an unlikely blockbuster.