Today we’d like to introduce you to James Ibur.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Currently, my professional life is a bit of a 3 ring circus. I am a Professor of Art at St. Louis Community College at Meramec where I run the Ceramics Program. I am also a nationally shown Ceramics/Painting visual artist and, lastly, write original music and lyrics and play guitars for my band, Flying House.
My passions for art and music began just under fifty years ago in high school when I was sixteen and learned guitar and how to make pottery on the wheel….I was terrible at both! However, I really wanted to get good at both things and over time had to make some real decisions about which path would dominate.
I chose ceramics and received an MFA in 1986 in Fine Arts in the middle of a ten year pursuit of education and workshops all over the (mostly) Western United States and residencies including the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana and the BanffCentre for the Arts in Banff, Alberta, Canada in the 1980’s
In 1987, I returned to St. Louis, MO where I began to teach at Craft Alliance and begin my studio practice. I began exhibiting locally and nationally and, ultimately, was teaching at a number of higher learning institutions.
In 2003, I became a full time instructor at St. Louis Community College and became a full Professor in 2012.
I continue to maintain a studio practice of functional pottery and sculptural ceramics along with an increasingly important painting practice.
Additionally, I have been a professional musician for the past thirty years focussing on being the principal writer for my band, Flying House: an 8 piece band that plays (my) original music spanning genres of Folk-Pop, World Beat and British Rock. We released our fifth record, Blood Red Moon, in May of 2025 and are working on our Sixth record this year.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The struggles along the way have been consistent….time and money…..a fairly typical path for artists.
A critical moment happened thirty years ago with a prestigious local gallery. I was selling pretty well and had a major exhibition. Part of the work sold extremely well and part of the work (the more ambitious work) did not sell well and the gallery felt that (at that time), craft media, ceramics specifically, was not “fine” art. Of course, the world has significantly changed but at that time, they dropped me from their roster.
It was a crushing blow that was, in retrospect, maybe perfect. I pivoted to music and blew up significant parts of my life.
It took many years to find my real voice as a solo artist in both art and music. I love collaboration but it is a very slippery balancing act.
The biggest struggle is time, for me. Trying to be a consistently producing, actively seeking, non-repeating artist, musician and professor is a huge juggling act. Often, my personal life takes the brunt of that circus and that, as one can imagine, can create an unstable scaffolding when trying to be creative and grounded.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am pretty sure that I am most widely known as a ceramics-based artist with a huge passion for music. In fact, my paintings and drawings have found their way to my ceramics work as far as imagery goes and I often exhibit two and three dimensional work together. All the works are a whimsical look at iconic landscapes with characters interacting in a casual and, often, unlikely, precarious circumstance.
As all my media come together under the umbrella of characters that animate, become musical, find their way to fired ceramics and, ultimately, all represent stories of my life of the seen and unseen worlds around me.
I am proud that I have managed to lasso or, at least, loosely connect a number of different mediums so that, from my perspective, I have a general focus instead of having some fairly serious boundaries between disciplines which can present as un-focussed. This gives me a sense of cohesion inside and outside of myself.
What sets me apart from others is my ability to move from one discipline to another and one still knows it’s my work.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
This is a very complicated question…..It matters to be alive and healthy. It matters to have financial resources to eat and have a roof over my head and be able to acquire supplies and artwork to enhance my environment. It matters to connect deeply with people on an intellectual and emotional level. It matters that I trust more than I fear. IT MATTERS THAT I AM BALANCED BETWEEN THAT WHICH I NEED AND HOW TO BE OF SERVICE TO OTHERS (AND THE WORLD).
LOVE MATTERS MOST.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jamesibur.com
- Instagram: @flyinghouseband and @jamesibur
- Facebook: @flyinghousemusicexperience
