The School of Art is pleased to announce the appointment of Yoko Sekino-Bové as Assistant Teaching Professor of Art. In this new role, she will oversee the ceramics facilities and teach a variety of ceramics courses.
For the last two years, Yoko has served as Adjunct Professor of ceramics and has managed the ceramics facility. Under her guidance, the School of Art replaced outdated gas kilns with a new, more ecologically-friendly and reliable large-scale electric kiln. She has also led the acquisition of several potter’s wheels, which allow students to experiment with traditional methods of making and with creating functional wares. Her overall reorganization of the facility has opened up ceramics to many more students, both art students and other university students, and resulted in the creation of new courses. These classes are routinely among the first art courses to reach capacity. In her new full-time role, Yoko will have additional agency over ceramics instruction and facilities at CMU.
As a teacher, students admire Yoko for both her depth of technical knowledge and her kind, generous, and supportive approach. She shares her profound respect for the craft and tradition of ceramics with students while encouraging them to approach the medium through a contemporary lens.
As an artist, Yoko’s porcelain works seek to bridge cultural divides and connect people. Her work has been exhibited and collected both nationally and internationally including in South Korea, Japan, Latvia, Turkey, Portugal, and the Dominican Republic. In addition, her technical articles have been published in Ceramics Monthly and Pottery Making Illustrated. She holds a BFA in graphic design from Musashino Art University in Japan and an MFA in Ceramics from the University of Oklahoma.
“I am thrilled Yoko will be taking on this new role in the School of Art, which will expand her oversight of ceramics,” said Head of School Charlie White. “Yoko’s work these past two years to upgrade our ceramics facility has reinvigorated student excitement for clay and made ceramics available to many more students. She brings a distinct approach to her teaching that balances millennia-old traditions of function and craft with contemporary vision. I can’t wait to see how ceramics continue to evolve under her guidance.”