When beginning the Bush Foundation Fellowship, I had specific goals and a mission for my fellowship.  I wanted to further explore projects and processes that aim to humanize an increasingly inhumane world. I aimed to connect the state of North Dakota with international locations such as Brazil and Taiwan. I desired time to reflect deeply on a variety personal topics from boundary setting to mediation.  Finally, I aimed to utilize the time to expand my artistic and professional practice to an international level. 

Each of these items was addressed, and I believe successfully achieved through a variety of learning opportunities and project development experience.  But perhaps the most profound transformation is the investigation of the balance between the body, mind and heart. 

Early on in the Fellowship I was challenged to consider how my own wellness journey could be part of my fellowship.  At the start of the fellowship, I was in the midst of a 5-year journey to reduce my weight to a manageable level, and was about half way to a goal of losing 250 pounds.  Since the start of my fellowship, I have nearly attained my goal – by losing over 100 pounds since the start of the fellowship and I can definitively say I have never been healthier in my life. 

The journey to wellness from the start of the fellowship was much different than my previous experience with wellness.  I engaged intellectually in the process, hired and worked with a personal trainer. Read literally hundreds of articles on nutrition and exercise theory and realized that this process is a lifetime exploration, not unlike how I work as an artist.  I remember when challenged to consider how this could be part of my fellowship, I responded with “It is not intellectual enough, is it?” – to which it was pointed out that quite possibly the hierarchy that I placed on “body, mind and heart” was something I should consider working on. 

This focus on wellness, opened up so many other items for me to work on, and I realized that transformation is far more than calories and exercise.  In deep reflection the results of this work has created a new foundation to work in the second half of my career.  The physical aspect is obvious; I can do nearly anything now.  I do not fear my bodies capacity, rather I test what I can achieve.  This confidence has also had a cascading result.  I realized that because of my own physical insecurities, I was driven to “succeed” as an artist and a professional as a way to develop self worth. 

This is an important reflection as I can say without question, that the reason I make decisions to do something today is now based on the reality of whether it can be done at the highest level, AND whether it fits a personal mission statement that I developed over the past two years.  In essence, I have said NO quite a bit the past six months. If it doesn’t fit my short and longer term goals, there is no reason to add more work to my schedule.  This will result in a far more manageable and sustainable schedule.  This transformation and balance between body, mind and heart – has also allowed me to make some very hard decisions within my job, that I may not have been able to make prior to the fellowship.  Without going into details, I have made a few decisions in my position as Department Head, that were painful but necessary to improve the educational environment.  Additionally, I have learned to set firm boundaries within my relationships at work, and will continue to work on this aspect of my position.  In short, my empathy often outweighed my ability to make difficult decisions.

The other result of this focus on wellness is a transition in my own artistic practice to focus on wellness initiatives utilizing what I have learned the past five years regarding “object history”.  I will engage with Troyd Geist, who is also very interested in wellness initiatives this summer to begin a series of collaborations to learn from Troyd and his wellness programs in North Dakota.  I look forward to this next step in my career!  Additionally, I am studying for my ACE personal trainer certification and while I am not quite sure how I will utilize this professionally, it opens up a wide range of possibilities, including working with individuals to develop personal wellness programs.

Finally, I have applied and am a finalist for the Associate Dean position in my college at NDSU.  This is a unique position as it has both visionary and management oriented work requirements. This would also necessitate my resignation as the department head of visual arts.  I am ready for this transition and would look forward o working within a college on interdisciplinary program development.  I believe this would be the best use of my assets moving forward. I have been a department head or chair for nearly 10 years.  As a mid-career academic this is unusual, as this would be the time that most administrators would be starting their work.  I am ready to focus on teaching more, and working within the college.

I am a process based learner.  In order to absorb information, I need to test, reflect and iterate.  Because of this, I have used my time on the fellowship to accomplish many notable projects and engagement opportunities.  Below is a list of activities over the past two years (primarily focused on my work as an artist and community engagement specialist)

Network Development:  From the start of the Bush Fellowship to today my network has increased exponentially. From the ability to move my work to an International level, to the freedom of time to work on large scale projects with partners across the country, I have expanded the capacity and breadth of my network to a level that I could not have imagined two years ago.  The work during the past 24 months includes the following:

• New York City/Port Chester lecture/workshop and project
• Chicago -Lecture at SOFA
• Boston - Plenary Lecture at national metal smith’s conference, SNAG
• Philadelphia - Lecture and Exhibition at Philadelphia Clay Studio
• Providence, RI Lecture and National Board service
• Columbus, OH Ohio State University (Lecture and Workshop)
• Kansas City, MO (National Board service, Moderated Panel - NCECA
• Alfred, NY – NY State College of Ceramics, Lecture, Workshop and Crits with grad students.
• Asheville, NC (Lecture and Exhibition - The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design *NEA funded)
• Amsterdam, Holland (Exhibition and Project, Misfit Cup Liberation: Holland
• Rome, Italy -Met with the UN food and agriculture commission for possible future project
• Guernsey, Channel Islands (Lecture, Workshop)
• Sligo, Ireland (Lecture and Workshop)
• San Joao Del Rei, Brazil (Lecture, workshop, Project, Exhibition)
• Caxias Do Sul, Brazil (Lecture, project and workshop)
• Portland, OR – Curation of National 50th Anniversary community engagement exhibition
• Taipei, Taiwan – (Misfit Cup Liberation: Taiwan) New Taipei City Yingge Museum of Ceramic Art
• Richmond, VA – Virginia Commonwealth University – Graduate student review critiques
• Tainan, Taiwan – Lecture and master critiques, graduate students – Tainan University
• Seattle, WA – Spent two days with mentor, Bill Cleveland
• Tokyo/Kyoto, Japan – Visited museums, temples and a pilgrimage to Hamada Studio. 

In addition to these activities the following summary of accomplishments highlights the most active and productive 24-months of my career:

1. Named 2015 Ceramic Artist of the Year by the largest international publication of ceramic arts, Ceramics Monthly.

2. Successful application for promotion to Full Professor at NDSU

3. Delivered 20 invited national lectures at venues from Brazil to New York City.

4. Finished seven solo exhibitions or projects in Taiwan, North Carolina, Brazil, Amsterdam, Philadelphia and New York.

5. Published internationally in Neshan (Iranian Design publication) American Craft, Ceramic’s Monthly, Smithsonian and Ceramics Art and Perception/Technical.

6. Traveled to three continents and eight countries – internationalizing my art practice.

7. Had the time and ability to accept an invitation to serve on the Board of Directors for NCECA (national ceramics council) as a special appointee to develop the national 50th anniversary community project that connects our field nationally via Clay, Food and Community. This would NEVER have been possible without the Bush Fellowship.

8. Invited to serve on the Advisory board of Ceramics Monthly – Again, time and resources have enabled a higher level of connection in the National Ceramics community.

9. Managed to continue balance with my family life by integrating my sons individually in two international trips to Europe. 

10. Invited to serve as a Collaborating Faculty member for a new program at Universidad San Joao Del Rei in Brazil, which combines Ceramics, Architecture, Urban design and Community engagement. This extended directly from resources and time provided by the Fellowship.

11. Invited to serve on the Board of Trustees of the American Craft Council – Declined the first time, and have re-engaged with the ACC and will begin my term on the board in the fall of 2016. Prior to the Bush Fellowship I simply would have accepted the offer the first time.  This was a “no” that I could not have imagined two years ago.  This has led to a “yes” starting next fall which will begin at a time when I have the time to dedicate to the organization.

14. Finalized an 18-month project with The Clay Art Center in Port Chester, New York which brought together over 1500 people to contribute to a series of community recipes. This was enabled through time away from my position at NDSU via the Bush Fellowship.

15. Elected to the International Academy of Ceramics – a UNESCO organization and will attend the biennial convening in Barcelona in Sept. 2016.

On the Horizon:

1. Waiting for final approval from NCECA to pursue publishing a book that evolved from the Across the Table, Across the Land – National/international community engagement project for the 50th anniversary of NCECA.  This exhibition and project were successful and there is interest in this being captured in print.  I will work with Namita Wiggers, collaborator on the project.

2. Travel to Barcelona for my first IAC (international academy of ceramics) conference.  I look forward to learning and connecting with ceramic artists around the world.

3. Begin my term as an American Craft Council Board member at their symposium in Omaha where I will moderate a panel.

4. Continue working on wellness with a goal to dunk a basketball before I turn 50. :)

Thank you so much for the support, this was an incredible two years!

 Michael