In November 2024, ceramist Jenni Brant embarked on a remarkable journey, spending a month in an artist’s residency at the Fish Factory Creative Centre in Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland. The remoteness of this former fishing village – perched on a fjord and housing less than 200 inhabitants – offered her ample opportunity to reflect on her previous work and chart a new artistic course, inspired by the dramatic landscape, aesthetic language, and delicate flora of Iceland.

DuMA now presents a selection of the work Brant created during and in the wake of her residency. The ruggedness and relative isolation of her environment suited her artistic process, which emphasizes slow-paced and detail-oriented clay work. This new environment, paired with 28-days to experiment on working in new materials and new concepts resulted in a familiar yet fresh direction for the artist.

Featured in the DuMA exhibition are vessels and wearable ceramic works mingled with photographs, design work, and journal entries, providing an immersive experience of Brant’s residency journey. Inspired by her time in Iceland, a dynamic palette and alternate way for viewers to interact with her signature style of slip-trailed ceramics have emerged. True to her prior works in clay, the objects on view are meticulously crafted by hand and intricately decorated with slips and glazes she formulates and fires in her home studio.

The exhibition reflects the outcome of the artist’s residency, but for Brant the residency itself is part of her larger project, supported in part by an Arts Project grant funded by the Iowa Economic Development Authority and the National Endowment for the Arts. As a fierce arts advocate and former director of a residency program herself, she is a vocal champion for residencies as both crucial to the evolution of an artist’s work and for their broader potential for positive community impact. As a result, she shared her stay in Iceland in real time with regular social media and blog posts that offered insights into her personal experience and creative growth. She now returns to Dubuque ready to promote the value of residencies to artists and the communities that host them. “I’m committed to arts advocacy and fostering community through service, sharing, and education,” she writes. “Doing so is integral to my ongoing studio practice, empowering communities through infusion of the arts, just as I elevate the everyday experience through the insertion of handmade objects.”