MOUNT VERNON — Three internationally known ceramicists, whose work has been showcased in a monthlong exhibition at Cornell College, will discuss their utilitarian pottery during the exhibition’s closing reception Sunday, Feb. 9, at McWethy Hall.

The closing reception for “Guillermo Cuellar: Influences and Recent Work” is from 2-4 p.m. Cuellar, a 1976 Cornell graduate, Warren MacKenzie of Stillwater, Minn., and Clary Illian of Ely, Iowa, will hold an informal artists’ talk at 3 p.m. in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery.

The three potters met more than 20 years ago at workshops in Caracas, Venezuela. Cuellar has organized more than 20 shows in the past 12 years at his studio in Turgua, Venezuela. He has shown his work in numerous venues including the Venezuelan National Art Gallery, the Northern Clay Center in Minnesota, the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Puerto Rico, the Smithsonian Institution and private galleries in the United States, England, Venezuela and Chile. When he is not making pots, Cuellar leads wilderness trips in Venezuela, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.

MacKenzie, who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in the late 1940s, is considered one of America’s greatest living functional potters. His work is exhibited around the world, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and at his gallery in Japan. Illian, a Cedar Rapids native and University of Iowa graduate, has taught in countless venues in the United States and has working collections around the globe. MacKenzie and Illian are former students of famed English ceramicist Bernard Leach.

The Cornell exhibition also features works from the Rose and Angelo Garzio Ceramics and Ethnographic Collection, and the Joan Mannheimer Collection of the University of Iowa Museum of Art (UIMA). Among the UIMA pieces are works by Shoji Hamada, Bernard Leach, Michael Leach, John Leach, Byron Temple, Illian, MacKenzie and selected Korean Yi Dynasty pieces. Regular gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.

MOUNT VERNON — Venezuelan potter Guillermo Cuellar will give a firsthand account of the uprising against President Hugo Chavez’s government in a talk, “Current Events in Venezuela,” at 3:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7, in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons at Cornell College.

Cuellar is a 1976 graduate of Cornell. He has a studio in Turgua, Venezuela, where he lives with his wife, Laurie MacGregor, a 1974 Cornell graduate, and their children, Travis and Alana. He is visiting Mount Vernon for the closing reception Feb. 9 of his monthlong exhibition at Cornell, “Guillermo Cuellar: Influences and Recent Work.”

Cuellar’s talk is sponsored by Cornell’s Latin American studies program.

MOUNT VERNON — Students in Cornell College’s Lyric Theatre weren’t yet born when “Hair” made its Broadway debut in 1968, but in February they’ll stage the musical that grew out of the emotional turmoil of the Vietnam War years and has startling relevance today.

“Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” opens Thursday, Feb. 6, at 8 p.m. in Cornell’s Kimmel Theatre adjoining Armstrong Hall. Performances continue Feb. 7 and 8 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 9 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for students and seniors. For ticket reservations, call 895-4293.

Cornell decided to do “Hair” shortly after 9/11, when conscientious objection was part of the campus buzz.

“Since then, the looming Middle East crisis has only added to the anti-war sentiment that re-emerged in the days after the Sept. 11 tragedy,” says director Scott Olinger, chair of Cornell’s department of theatre and communications studies.

The similarities between 2003 and 1968 “are present on our minds constantly. It’s helpful for students to have a parallel situation by which to examine the musical,” he says. “We’re trying to keep an eye on what’s going on. We have a lot of students with mixed feelings. They don’t support war but they don’t support Saddam Hussein.”

“Hair” examines the period of intense social and political change in the ’60s and questions society’s views on morality, sex, drug usage, war, racism and violence. The musical centers on a group of New York hippies, and in particular on Claude, who is torn between his peaceful ideals and his duty to his country. “Hair” is known for the Top 10 hits it spawned (”Hair,” “Age of Aquarius,” “Let the Sunshine In”) as well as its attacks on the Lyndon Johnson administration. “Hair” contains violence, sexual situations, drug usage, profanity and nudity.

“Frankly, it’s been a non-issue,” Olinger says of the scene ending the first act, when the cast is nude. “It’s amazing that so many people focus on 30 seconds of dimly lit nudity rather than the drug usage, or songs titled ‘Sodomy.’

“The (Cornell) administration has been wonderfully supportive of us,” Olinger says. He notes the nudity “represents a return to innocence that Claude struggles to find in his crisis of faith, which is at the heart of ‘Hair.’”

Sophomore Joe Baker of Walworth, Wis., plays Claude. Baker’s mother loaned the Cornell production a playbill from the off-Broadway “Hair” in 1971, news clips and pamphlets from the Vietnam years and letters from a friend serving in the war.

“She is very excited about my role, because ‘Hair’ deals with the way she led her life in college. She protested war very strongly,” Baker says. “I am very against the building war overseas. I am not sure if I would be as strong as Claude, taking such a strong stand to fight for his country.”

The Cornell production will include some references to the situation in the Middle East. For example, cast members will carry protest posters that read “LBJ” on one side and “GWB” on the opposite side.

“We’ll try to wait until the end of the play to draw those parallels,” Olinger says. “Maybe we’ll stage a peace protest in front of the theater, but I want to feel out the climate first.”

MOUNT VERNON — Ethos Percussion Group, featuring a Cedar Rapids native and University of Iowa graduate, brings an eclectic battery of instruments from around the globe to Cornell College for a concert Monday, Jan. 27.

The performance is at 8 p.m. in King Chapel. General admission is $8 at the door. This is the third concert in Cornell’s Music Mondays series.

New York-based Ethos includes multi-instrumental percussionist Yousif Sheronick, a former member of the Emerald Knights Drum & Bugle Corps in Cedar Rapids. He graduated from Jefferson High School in 1985 and earned degrees from the University of Iowa and Yale University. He is on the faculty at Concordia Conservatory in Bronxville, N.Y. His parents live in Cedar Rapids.

Sheronick has performed internationally as a soloist, chamber musician and collaborative artist with world-renowned groups and artists such as Grammy-winning frame drummer Glen Velez and Handance, Philip Glass, Foday Musa Suso, Simon Shaheen and Qantara, The Flow, New York City Ballet and Music from China. Distinguished collaborators have included Yo-Yo Ma, Branford Marsalis, Samir Chatterjee, Marcel Khalife, Sonny Fortune, Pacifica String Quartet, David Krakauer, John La Barbera, Steve Gorn and Alessandra Belloni.

Sheronick and fellow Ethos members Trey Files, Eric Phinney and Michael Sgouros have been hailed by the New York Times for their “expert togetherness, sensitivity and zest.” They perform a variety of musical styles — including Guatemalan marimba music, African rhythms and contemporary masterworks by John Cage and Lou Harrison. In April 2000, National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” covered the world premiere of the Ethos performance of Cedar Rapids native Michael Daugherty’s “Used Car Salesman,” commissioned by Ethos for Hancher Auditorium and the University of Iowa.

Ethos’ program for Cornell is to include La Barbera’s “Marim ba ba’ Suite,” Velez’ “Ancient Cities Suite,” Carlos Stasi’s “33 Samra Zabobra” and Peter Garland’s “Apple Blossom.”

The final Music Mondays concert this season is the Deanna Bogart Band on March 3.