History of the ODU Art Department/Rick Nickel

Richard Nickel: Art Program Director

Richard Nickel (born October 1st, 1969 in Rochester, NY) is an American artist, who specializes in ceramics, and a ceramics professor at Old Dominion University.

BIOGRAPHY

Nickel obtained a Bachelor of Science in Art Education from State University College at Buffalo, NY in 1996. He went on to receive a Masters of Fine Art in Ceramics at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 2000.

Richard Nickel taught Ceramics and Art Education at Valley City University in North Dakota from 2000-2002. Currently, he works in both the Ceramics and Art Education programs at ODU. He started at ODU in 2002 as the Art Education Program Director and Ceramics Program Director. At ODU, Nickel is responsible for starting the Saturday Morning Art Classes at ODU. This was established in 2003.

His online portfolio and references can be viewed here: http://richardnickel.wordpress.com/

WORKS

Nickel has been published in several Lark books on ceramics, 500 Tiles: An Inspiring Collection of International Work Lark Books, 500 Animals In Clay, 500 Figures in Clay and 500 Bowls. His juried and invitational shows include, Tablets: text and Image in Clay Carbondale Cay Center, Colorado , Ink And Clay 34 Kellogg University Art Gallery at California Polytechnic, CA. Jurors: Darrel Couturier and Mark Greenfield, Forms & Shapes: Inspired by Architecture at Akar Gallery, Iowa City, IA , The George Ohr National Arts Challenge: Paul Soldner,The Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, Biloxi, MS , he has been also awarded several Grants on research in Education and Ceramics, Faculty Innovator Grant, ODU Summer Research Fellowship. He has recently showed in the Summer of 2008 at Mayer Fine Art Gallery in Norfolk and the Fall of 2008 at the Contemporary Art Center in Virginia Beach. Also, recently, he was the curator for “Topics from the Earth” at the ODU Art Gallery in 2008.