Alida building “Concession” on site in 2020. Photo by Todd Paris.
Biography
Alida van Almelo received her Master of Fine Arts at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, after receiving a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the State University of New York at New Paltz. In 2016, she was awarded the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship for her ephemeral clay installations, and in 2017, Alida received the Bronze Prize and was in the top ten for the Viewer's Choice Award at the 9th World Ceramics Biennale in Icheon, South Korea. In 2020, Alida installed her solo show, “Dynamic Worlds” at the Fairbanks Arts Association’s Bear Gallery. She has been an artist in residence at the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts and in the Alaska State Park system. She currently runs her own studio in the Mat-Su Valley of Alaska, where she seeks inspiration from the intangible space between physical experience and the immensity of the natural world. Her active lifestyle provides access to that source of inspiration, which she translates through hand-building techniques in clay.