Chris Staley is a Distinguished Professor of the Ceramic Arts at Penn State University. He was recently selected to be the Penn State Laureate for 2012-2013. In 1977, he was rejected by all the graduate MFA program’s he applied to. However after attending the Kansas City Art Institute for a year as a special student, he went on to earn his MFA from Alfred University. He has traveled extensively as a visiting artist from Bezalel Academy in Israel to Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine. He has received two National Endowment of the Arts grants and two Pennsylvania Council of the Arts Grants. His work is in many collections, Including the Smithsonian Institution’s Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of Art, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London as well as friends cupboards. He once wrote an essay titled “The Hegemonic Eye; Can the Hand Survive?” For 9 years he served on the Board of Directors at the Archie Bray Foundation, in Helena, Montana and he is currently serving on the Board of Directors at The Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.