St. Louis based multi-media artist, James Ibur, is a Professor of Art and Coordinator of Ceramics for the Department of Communications, Design and Creative Arts at Saint Louis Community College-Meramec. He is a multi-disciplinary artist and curator with emphases on functional and sculptural ceramics, painting and drawing and is also a songwriter and musician with one solo record (Floating-2024) and four records with his band, Flying House (including Blood Red Moon, 2025). 

He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions regionally and nationally in his thirty-plus year career. He received an MFA from the University of Illinois/Champaign-Urbana, studied at UC/Davis and a BA from the University of Colorado/Boulder. Ibur completed residencies at both the Archie Bray Foundation and Banff Centre for the Arts.

“My functional work is to be used. The outer surfaces are often covered with images of iconic natural landscapes with humorous and, at times, dystopian imagery.”

“Sometimes, utility has to give way to the idea of function without being actually usable. I am interested in that intersection, at times, and also the idea that the “vessel” can breathe. This legitimizes the idea of container and containment which gives access to the inner and outer components of the “story”.”