The James S. Murray Gallery features the exhibit “A Fire Within: New Work by Michelle Coakes” now through Feb. 1. The exhibit is open weekdays from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. and all are invited to a closing reception with the artist on Thursday, Feb. 1 from 4-6 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.

Coakes is professor of art and the ceramics expert at LLCC, having taught and managed the college ceramics lab since 2002. She has created ceramic pieces for more than 40 years and taught at schools throughout the country including the University of Louisville, Western Kentucky University, Juniata College (Penn.) and two other community colleges in Illinois. In 2013, she founded Bad Wolf Pottery, a pottery shop and studio producing handmade, functional pottery and sculptural clay objects. She is the author of the book “Creative Pottery: A Step by Step Guide and Showcase” and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts from Northern Illinois University.

Coakes is best known for her functional and quasi-functional vessels in stoneware, most of which are finished in a wood-fired kiln. Almost all of her work is wheel-thrown and manipulated. The rich, variable wood-fired surfaces add greatly to the illusion and references she sets up between old and new. “A Fire Within” is the culmination of a project started in the summer of 2017, when she and others constructed a wood-firing kiln on her property north of Taylorville.

Read more about Professor Coakes, LLCC’s James S. Murray Gallery and its exhibits at www.llcc.edu/james-s-murray-gallery.