Romberg, Jim Biography
Jim Romberg is Professor Emeritus from Southern Oregon University where he headed the Ceramics Department for nineteen years. Jim received his BA in Ancient and Medieval History from Pomona College, attended graduate studies at Union Theological Seminary, NYC and the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1972, after two years as a studio assistant at Pottery Northwest, Seattle, Jim returned to The Claremont Graduate University and received his MFA in Ceramics.
One-year teaching assignments each at Texas Tech University and the Anderson Ranch in Aspen, Colorado, led to his creation of the ceramics department at the Sun Valley Center for Arts and Humanities in Sun Valley, Idaho. There as Artist-in-residence, and over the period of 12 years, Jim developed the Sun Valley Center’s ceramics department into an internationally recognized ceramics program. In 1986 Jim left Sun Valley to join the faculty at Southern Oregon University.
Jim has taught workshops in France at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Aix-en-Provence, the Ceramics Workshop in Avignon, in Switzerland at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Vevey, and throughout the US. He currently presents workshops on the practice Raku ceramics, the development of new forms of expression, and the place of criticism for the creator.
Exhibitions of his work continue throughout France, Switzerland and the US. As an artist and writer, Jim is a dedicated proponent of criticism in contemporary ceramics. Most recently he curated the traveling International Exhibition of Raku Ceramics entitled: “Raku: Origins, Impact and Contemporary Expression.”
In 2012, Romberg was honored with an invitation to France as the sole representative, demonstrator, and workshop leader from the USA for the International Raku Symposium: “Raku San Frontier, Giroussens, France.”
Romberg is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics, and served as a Board Member of the National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts. Jim and his wife Lynette Jennings, also an acclaimed artist, are currently living in Sedona, Arizona where he maintains his studio and is Program Director for the Eagleheart Center for Art and Inquiry.
