Mary Jo Bole

Two-time Arts/Industry alumna Mary Jo Bole makes her home in Columbus, Ohio. She is Professor Emeritus at Ohio State University Department of Art, where she taught for over twenty years. Bole’s mixed-media works are often composed of materials that connect to geological processes, such as clay, metal, and glass. They take the form of sculpture, drawing, book arts, and installation.

Bole hails from Cleveland, and notes that her family lineage is one of “Victorian leftover culture” that she continues to mine for the underlying content of her work. She engages in historical research as she develops themes of mortality, untimely loss, and social decay.

Bole participates in many artist residencies, both extant and self-designed. She has been artist-in-residence at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Pilchuck Glass School, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the Women’s Studio Workshop. Her work has been shown at venues including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Columbus College of Art and Design, and the Chazen Museum of Art (WI). Her work resides in many permanent collections, including the Detroit Institute of Art, American Craft Museum, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art.

Bole has published editions of her artist books, most recently with Logan Elm Press at the Ohio State University Libraries, titled White Elephants: 1860-1960. She is an active visiting artist and lecturer, and her current project is a feature length film essay about her life titled Family White Elephants.