Gail McCarthy

Ceramicist Gail McCarthy was an associate professor of fine arts at Niagara County Community College whose work has been exhibited and collected internationally for decades. An exhibition of her lustered wall murals was presented at the Art Gallery of the Istanbul Stock Exchange in September 1998, with a brochure written by Nancy Weekly. About her lustered works, McCarthy stated: "My ceramics are a contemporary adaptation of Seljuk and Persian techniques, almost lost to the modern world. I try to create rich iridescent surfaces that reflect light, depth, movement, and metal flashings. To do this I use precious metals in my glazes, such as silver nitrate, gold and platinum chloride, and I fire my vessels and tiles many times, always adding additional layers of metals."

The Burchfield Penney Art Center has examples of her porcelain work from the late 1970s and 1980s, as well as lustered vessels and a luster tile painting that represents the complexity of McCarthy's mature work of the 1990s, such as was exhibited in the 1996 Craft Art biennial as well as the solo exhibition Fire and Light: Lustered Works by Gail McCarthy presented in 2005. McCarthy distinguished herself by producing sumptuous, lustered vessels and wall-hung tile murals. Her patient process requires multiple kiln firings to produce iridescent, metallic luster finishes whose colors radiate with prismatic complexity.

In addition to her many artistic achievements in ceramics, Gail McCarthy and her husband Marvin Lunenfeld founded “Garden Walk Buffalo” in 1993. The innovative idea for neighborhood residents to share their gardens with the public was headquartered at their home on Norwood Avenue and has grown to be the largest city-side neighborhood garden event in the United States, inspiring other towns and cities to follow their example.

Buffalo native McCarthy was a working cellist as an undergraduate at Seton Hill College in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where she gravitated toward the ceramics studio where she was introduced to clay. Then—while living in Washington, D.C. in the 1960s—learned more about the medium from the Austrian-born master potter Vally Possony (1905-1978), who became Joan Mondale's pottery teacher. McCarthy pursued an MFA in sculpture at the University at Buffalo in 1980 and did additional graduate work in the same university’s School of Architecture. She also took several workshops and developed a friendship with artist, craftsperson, and writer Beatrice Wood. Since the 1980s, her work has been exhibited throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

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