Through the dense weave of the forest, trees part, revealing glimpses of the Blue Ridge Mountains, rolling endlessly into the horizon. Farmland unfurls across Floyd County like a homesteader’s dream. As you round the bend, a pink and yellow sign beckons – your next destination awaits – one of six stops on the 16 Hands Fall Studio Tour.

This month Studio Potter features "Unexpectedly Full of Art," by Delvin Goode. To follow Studio Potter – The Podcast, simply subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast platform, such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts. Then, sit back, relax, and enjoy new episodes as they are released. Happy listening.

Ozaki's passing is a significant loss to the artistic community, but his influence endures through the many artists he inspired and the beautiful works he created. He is deeply missed, not only for his artistry but for his generosity of spirit and dedication to fostering a vibrant ceramics community.

In the coming four months, Studio Potter will release a four-part comic series from this new anthology. This month, we feature the work of Natalia Arbelaez, Taili Wu, and Amelia Butcher.

Introducing the second edition of Bone Dry Leather Hard – Stories from the Craft Art World. In the coming four months, Studio Potter will release a comic series from this new anthology. This month, we feature the work of Nicole Marroquin, Kathy King, and Christiana Erives.

The East Main Hand Wheel is a DIY revival of traditional hand wheels, which have been in use around the world for hundreds of years. It is an efficient and time-tested design, and my contribution is based on my experience of remote teaching by throwing clay on the potter’s wheel.

In the coming four months, Studio Potter will release a comic series from this new anthology. This month, we feature the work of Janina Myronova, Sydnie Jimenez, and Amber Pierce.

CJ Carter’s work deftly blends the language of architecture with the human form to interrogate societal constructs of strength, beauty, and gender. Carter's sculptures serve as powerful symbols of resilience and defiance, pushing back against the rigid expectations placed upon marginalized individuals. Similarly, Jess Cheng explores themes of nurture, suffering, and regeneration, offering a poignant reflection on the human condition and the capacity for growth amidst adversity. Nicki Green's sculptures and ritual objects delve into the preservation of history and the aesthetics of otherness, inviting viewers to reexamine their perceptions of identity and belonging. GV Kelley's chimeric creatures, with their hybrid forms and fluid identities, challenge the binaries that often govern our understanding of gender and identity. Through their work, Kelley initiates a crucial dialogue about the complexities of the human experience and the need for greater acceptance and understanding.

It was also a link to unspoken language; the woman who would carve that certain pattern on the bottom of that I would look at and examine, then I'd look at her. And look at her batik outfit. That pattern is in her batik outfit. Then, if I followed her home, that pattern was painted on her hut. If I went into her kitchen, that pattern was all over the wall. I started learning about these women friends of mine, not by their names but by their patterns. So I began to make rollers. And I've never stopped making rollers, and I call them signature rollers. Because I don't sign my work, I put my roll in a pattern. And that's my signature.

Intrigued by the fusion of AI with the visual arts, I examined artworks driven by words, exploring unconventional compositions and scenarios. This exploration extended to the walls of my studio, where I crafted intricate pictures of roots sprouting from frames, blurring the lines between art and nature. Meanwhile, my curiosity led me into the realm of artificial intelligence and its visual possibilities.

"I started thinking, you know, do I want this to be my legacy? Do I want my work to be about being a victim? I started thinking about conversations that I had with Mr. Gilliard (my first pottery instructor) and conversations that I had with Professor Stull about my African heritage. With Mr. Gilliard, we would talk about all the great things that African Americans have done for this culture and how they brought their African heritage to this country and made this culture what it is. And so, I started thinking about how it would be interesting for me to tap into that lineage of artistic tradition that I'm an heir to." This month's FREE article.

NEW EPISODE! To follow Studio Potter – The Podcast, simply subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast platform, such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts.

"Through intention, serendipity, and a dedicated commitment to ceramics education, Keaton Wynn, in collaboration with some equally committed educators in China, created a remarkable educational experiment in Lanzhou, China that began at Georgia Southwestern University in 2012." This month's FREE article.

"I'm not wildly in favor of teaching methods or educational philosophy - if you've got something that you want to do, and you know how to do it well, and love it, then you can get that across."

We watched in deep appreciation of our contribution to the hive of the restaurant: bussers moved towers of our snack bowls from storage to the bar; chefs rapidly plated dish after dish on the pasta bowls I designed in close collaboration with them; waiters flitted from table to table, dropping off and picking up our custom-made bread plates. The restaurant comped the entire evening’s festivities and a spark finally caught fire inside of me – I wanted to do this forever.

How do we make relevant work that can help heal humanity? As a maker I want my work to be that thing that someone wants to keep around. Something that touches a part of them, challenges them, provides beauty, and over time is associated with joy in their lives. It should convey the human condition so that my audience can relate to the ideas encapsulated in the form or surface of the art. For me, this means the good and bad of the human condition from happiness to rage.

Black history is an expansive legacy that is so much more than a month. However, February is officially designated for celebrating it, and Studio Potter takes a closer look at the contributions Black ceramists have made, and continue to make, to the richness of American ceramics.

Choosing a side between two groups of people who are in tremendous pain is only helping to polarize our beautiful community.

It would be easier to write about ceramics if there were more jokes about ceramists. The lack of humor surrounding ceramic technologies is due to the industrialization of ceramic production and the emergence of ceramics as an academic discipline. Before that, potters used to tell more jokes.

A story about Richard Nickel's favorite little clay buttons, given to him from a dear old friend in Buffalo, New York. "The little clay buttons represent all the moments we shared together and the ways she taught me to appreciate the small joys in life." – Richard Nickel  

If Shaner has an agenda, it is authenticated in the materials he works with, rather than existing apart from them, as doctrine, myth, or abstraction. At the same time, he supports environmental, peace, and human rights issues with the same passionate dedication he brings to the studio. Compassion and empathy, said to be important components in the making of strong functional pots, are equally active in Shaner's sense of himself as a family member and global citizen.

Local materials offer endless possibilities and variety. A couple of years ago, I set out on a quest to make a palate of four stoneware glazes from one locally sourced rock. I did not want four shades of beige, but a palate of distinctly different glazes. The parameter I set was to use at least 50% of one single source rock in each of these glazes.

It's beauty in the way that the beauty of our surroundings is created through natural forces. Undulations in sand that have been moved by the wind, rock formations caused by landslides, and the crackle and patina in the wall of an old house; all these owe their special beauty to the random hand of nature.

Taken for granted; your eyes stray to me after every creation.

Caring for our planet isn't just a noble cause; it's a responsibility that touches every facet of our lives, even our beloved craft of pottery. Many artists working with clay start questioning their practice and how (and if) they can continue it in the age of the Anthropocene. This month's FREE article.

Through the lens of Ulf's experience as a combat veteran and at the top of a mountain, he illustrates how warfare becomes a mirror of our everyday lives. He offers a unique perspective on the convergence of trauma and creativity. Understanding why Ulf's writing has value in a pottery publication is more about my human experience and the way I think as a combat veteran. Communicating what it was like and what life is like now is incredibly hard and enigmatic.

Ceramics is difficult enough. Our work is always on the cusp of failure; it will crack, warp, dunt, or explode. We, potters, have grown accustomed to disappointment because of the regularity of failure within our process.

"Since the news broke about the budget crisis and the drastic measures that are now being proposed at WVU, I want to thank all of you students, alumni, friends, colleagues, and strangers who have reached out to offer support and help. You have reaffirmed that what we do matters and that art matters. Unfortunately, what is happening at WVU is not isolated, and I’m afraid it will continue as educational policies and priorities begin to shift in an era where publicly funded universities continue to receive less and less support from state legislatures." By Shoji Satake. This month's FREE article.

The final resting place of these effigies became an ancestral grove, "till the yard smells of ghosts," until it was disrupted by colonialism. For that, I grieve for the disturbed lost souls but rejoice that a child of the diaspora reconnects with the echo of home.

Nascent for some time, Conscious Dreaming as a concept began pre-COVID-19, in 2020, when Lindo and Brookes were invited by Aberystwyth University’s School of Art to make a new body of work using the institution’s collection of prints and ceramics as their starting point. Drawn to the work of the somewhat obscure printmaker Christine Penn and the early pioneer studio potter Frances Emma Richards, Lindo and Brookes referenced the former’s darkly-surreal iconography and the latter’s serenity of form through their ceramics.

It was during Steven’s Throwing Gestural Forms workshop that Katie, an entrepreneur and busy mother of two, learned about The Journey Workshop. "It’s a big investment, not just financially but also in time," she shared. "I knew from my previous experience of being in Steven’s classes what a wonderful teacher he is, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to follow through with this time commitment. I reached out to some people who I knew had previously participated in The Journey to learn more. Many of them were already signed up to do it again, which spoke volumes about the kind of growth they found from the experience."

And then the unthinkable happened. My father passed away suddenly during my second semester, which drastically impacted the way I thought about my work – what I was making and why I was making it. Coming from a thinking-through-making experience at CSULB, it seemed the exact opposite was true at UCLA. Everyone was reading Derrida, Solnit, and Lacan – gathering ideas and metaphors as the first step to realizing a piece. I, however, was in mourning, and I needed to rely on my practice to offer respite and on literature to offer answers to questions that have plagued humanity since the beginning of consciousness. Mourning became my life’s work. It was tragically difficult and incredibly lonely.

"The weekly souk is a central part of rural life in Morocco. On an appointed day, established centuries ago, vendors congregate in a space, often on the edge of town, to sell their products. In a country that only has malls in the large cities, souks are the centers of commerce for everything locals need: livestock, food, housewares, clothing, bric-a-brac, carpets, and, of course, pottery." This month's FREE article.

No matter what Ehren says, his cups are more than "just cups;" they are an important contribution to contemporary ceramic art.

We’re moving closer and closer to that craftsman ideal but as a collective rather than as individuals. As a group, we are presenting our best in the spirit of social consciousness. We are honoring the traditions of the craft. We are passing knowledge on. Can shokunin apply to a collective? There is craft not only in the creation of pottery but also in the creation of community. We’re striving for both.

"I consider design an approach that needs and includes art. Many of my projects started as works of art that evoked the dynamism of African narratives. My creative process and the development of the projects have made me answer people's needs, such as tableware that tells their stories." – Faty Ly

"The problem that I saw or sensed was that these are very contemporary and personal problems that the modern woman faces. I wanted to speak to these dilemmas through my artistic process." – Noe Kuremoto

Throughout Wild Clay, the authors' combined experience gives us a comprehensive look at clay deposits around the globe and how they share similar minerals but vary in important ways from one location to the next. Their geological exploration from Montana to North Carolina and across the globe to Japan perfectly illustrates the saying Hitomi brings from Japan, "Treasure every encounter, for it will never recur."

As I look ahead to life after the military, I find myself reflecting more on a career that was unexpectedly full of art. By honoring those with whom I served and their families, I was able to grow as an artist and, for the most part, keep up with art industry trends. I realized that even though I enjoyed my time as a soldier, whether good or bad, I was happiest whenever the things I was doing involved art.

What I learned while centering the clay and obsessing over the clay-to-water ratio in class for weeks is that clay particles are like platelets; water and earth dance around and are compressed in the process of sculpting. While the goal is cohesion, it starts as a suspension. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy, not to oversimplify it, is in suspension, as it is multiple different ideologies pulling apart rather than binding together. I learned this profound lesson from Simone Leigh’s "Jug" (2014).

Making pots from the same earth that grows our food is important; I want my work to connect the user to the place that sustains them.

Founded in 2017, The Seed Bank Project honors the perspectives of individuals and their connections to specific regional lands and regional plants. Part of the mission is to create artwork that is accessible beyond the gallery, putting local voices and the community first.

We are also past the arbitrary distaste for the decorative, the feminine, humor, and cuteness (among other aesthetic categories), which allows narrative content to flourish in the work of artists like Lindsey Lou Howard, Jennifer Rochlin, Roberto Lugo, Woody De Othello, Emily Yong Beck, Ruby Neri, and so many others. This month's FREE article.

These objects have held the full spectrum of my life’s experiences, but perhaps the greatest catalysts have also been my greatest challenges.

This month's FREE article. It's a good place for artists to explore – those tender, unsure, and vulnerable places within ourselves. For one thing, it keeps us all humble. One thing I’ve noticed in these explorations [is that] we get universal. I often say to my students, "Your very individual story is what’s going to become your universal story."

I used to go to craft fairs. I remember going to the first Richmond craft fair, where I was the only black ceramics exhibitor. As I remember it, for a long time at NCECA conferences, Jim Tanner, James Watkins, and Richard Buncamper, and maybe two or three more African American students I did not know and I were the only blacks. White people would often come by at fairs and say, "You do ceramics? I've never heard of anyone black doing ceramics." I'd say, "Well, you haven't been around." Of course, I knew a lot of blacks doing ceramics.

I believe that the artist-potter should question life. This requires a continuous breaking down and summarizing to express, to relate, to find one place and move with one’s own time, yet keep a universal entity. – Katherine Choy

Figuring Space is the second major exhibition in The Clay Studio's (TCS) newly built, state-of-the-art home in the South Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Rae introduced me to a socially engaged approach to art that encompassed many fields, skills, materials, and concepts. Her kindness and support gave me the confidence to see aspects of myself I had viewed as flaws instead as strengths. She showed me that art can be a reason to make space and time for truly meaningful things. But most importantly, her mentorship showed me that being an artist extends far beyond the studio and can be a tool to create real change through the formation of ideas, relationships, and histories

Graduate school taught me to “fail.” Or maybe, more importantly, this was the first time that perfection and precision were questioned as conceptual elements, rather than feats of craftsmanship. With the absence of perfection, I was able to engage in deeper self-reflection and material exploration.

Recently, the vines have begun to seep their way over the edge of Shoko's pots. Crawling under feet and over rims into the interior of the spaces, they suggest a feeling of endlessness – something that cannot nor should not be contained.

So many emotions flooded me: pure joy, contentment, and the satisfaction of a wholesome journey. This month's FREE article.

Milestones beg for reflection – The ups and downs. The successes and failures. The lessons learned. The experiences, the relationships, the turning points. The Work. When Peter Callas’ solo museum exhibition tour was going to coincide with his fiftieth year as a practicing artist, he knew it was time to do something special. Aside from preparing an enormous body of wood-fired abstract sculptures and vessels to be exhibited, Peter found himself with stories to tell...

The expressions of a handmade pot – the quiet and understated manifestations of Michael's legacy – created a thoughtful and intentional movement within contemporary studio pottery. Michael's ability to integrate a pot's purposefulness with artistic philosophy is a hallmark of his creative wisdom.

When I bring in a tea bowl to my class that Don and E.T. made, they are still teaching; they are still there at my side. Students hold these objects, and I get to tell my many stories about these guys. A picture doesn't do that. Only ceramic objects with the makers' energy can do that. We need more of those cherished pieces in the world.

Drawing distinctions between art and traditional African societies, as well as the use of the term "non-Western," underlines the necessity to recognize changes that have occurred in Africa, particularly within the last century. To understand the limited relevancy of certain terms and to differentiate between ancient, traditional, and current trends in the arts, a categorization of African art into traditional and contemporary domains becomes a useful classification.

It was a moment in time, at a remote place in the middle of the rural Midwest USA, where three potters from far apart streams segued into one river. Before the current era of divisiveness, before the great illness that plagued the planet, beyond neighbor fighting neighbor, and before the world began to split apart, these potters, Joy Brown, Ching-Yuan Chang, and Ken Bichell, brought gifts of clay, fire, and spirit.

FREE ARTICLE! “Even though we have creative artists, media, and consumer feedback now, as a society, we never backtracked the indoctrination of White supremacy on its people. We just kept moving forward … As a speck of hope, our work aims at decolonizing an art form that should have always remained intimate and unscathed by European inadequacies.”

"Our dear Antonio has been a pioneer, he has fought to the death to dignify ceramics, so that he occupies his rightful place within the current of art. A great defender of culture, he has cared for and safeguarded the identity of ceramics. With great effort he has ensured that everyone had access to ceramic knowledge."

Another animated short produced by Studio Potter's official Cartoonist Richard Nickel, showcasing the work of painter and ceramist, Zuzka Vaclavik. "The Kiln is a poem, a kind of curse against potters who choose to practice their craft in a less than virtuous manner."

Defining failure is an ambiguous paradox bolstered by its relationship to success. The two – failure and success – oscillate in a dichotomy without room for an alternative. They permeate normative ceramics through studios and art institutions as gatekeepers to creating in clay.

Robbie Lobell and Maryon Attwood are looking to forge new directions for Cook on Clay. Like the rest of the world, they are asking themselves a lot about transition these days. What does retirement look like for a craftsperson in 2022? How does one navigate from the pounding rhythm of production into a slower beat and still afford life?

Definitions of theft, plagiarism, and appropriation became vital to this evolving dialogue — and again, the value of commingling showed itself. Each student, of course, had a distinct opinion on the question of morality that came from how intellectual property boundaries were drawn in their respective discipline. But collectively, the cohort agreed that learning from imitation was vital to understanding this discipline.

My journey to uncover factors that influence crazing patterns attempts to provide a plausible explanation for a “puzzling” pattern in a Chinese Guan ware vase. Along the way, I ran across an interesting method to create new, unusual crazing patterns.

Resigned to the role of interloper, I show up to a firing with my modest collection of objects, sleep on the floor, and take the night shifts. All worth it because the information left on an object through wood-firing is something I respond to deeply.

Most people who move to Silicon Valley for work do so to work in technology; I moved there to teach ceramics. While many of the tech firms here have built their business models around the buzzy ideals of "disruption," I, too, feel a kinship with a model that pushes up against norms and creates new models of looking at the world, or in my case, mugs. My version of disruption is not about maximizing corporate profit; it's about finding new ways to see familiar objects.

"My artwork is a record of my experiences as an Afro-Latina American, I embrace my naturally curly hair, heritage, womanhood, and at times current worldly struggles." - Michelle Ettrick FREE ARTICLE!

Green asks essential questions – both before and after their death – how do we care for fragile, shifting, and complex archives? And more so, how do we best care for the people, narratives, and ideas these archives represent?

Pottery wasn't made when there were threats of war and bloodshed. When examining ancient sherds and tool marks, one can sense the kind of peace and calm that it took to make long, unwavering parallel lines, to notch the rims with careful repeating indentations, and to spend the time making what was to become more than a simple container. It was a life-providing vessel used to feed the next generations.

Shenandoah Valley potter and writer Rob Barnard’s collection of essays from 1987 through 2014 are compiled in his new book A Search for Relevance. The book revisits some of Barnard’s past writings dealing with the philosophical aspects of being a potter and what it means to dedicate oneself to the craft. The book itself is the epitome of grace, with photographs of Barnard’s work before each chapter, which incorporates large portions of white space and gives the pages a respectful and solitary beauty.

The conference theme, Fertile Ground, references California's agriculture and the Farm to Fork movement, acknowledges the abundance of clay in the state, and celebrates intergenerational artistic growth spawned through academic programs and community art centers. We kept working on these projects and more while remaining hopeful that the Sacramento conference would indeed take place in person in 2022. Rallying the involvement of artists, galleries, and other art venues that were new to NCECA was a highlight. I encouraged their exhibition ideas, supported their inquiries, and fostered their participation in one of the largest art events to ever take place in the Sacramento region. FREE ARTICLE!

The main purpose of this research was to develop a chart which would enable pot­ters firing reduction to accomplish three ends: 1) To reproduce desired results from one firing to another. 2) To convert from one fuel to another, in the event of fuel shortages, and still achieve the same firing results. 3) To conserve fuel by firing efficiently, without adversely affecting the end result.

We must each aim to understand our own carbon footprint and understand the impact of our purchases. Contact the companies that supply your material. Ask about their product sourcing. Often, mining companies provide a sustainability statement outlining how they will change to decrease their environmental impact by some future date. Let them know that change needs to begin now. FREE ARTICLE!

Flash tattoo illustrations created by Studio Potter's own cartoonist, Richard Nickel!

With the time-honored traditions of ceramics and tattooing we continue reinterpreting imagery and objects from the past.

Being an apprentice has humbled me in understanding again what is to be a beginner, what it feels like to not know everything, to make mistakes and to learn from them. I see the apprenticeship is teaching me lessons that are helping me become a better human being.

During the 1940s Gadsden County was home to sixty-seven Coca-Cola millionaires, and a $100,000,000 shade tobacco industry. With a deep history of racial and agricultural inequality, ensuing decades would leave Gadsden County as one of the poorest in the state and the only county in Florida with an African American majority population.

I don’t trust anybody’s nostalgia but my own. Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It’s a settling of grievances between the present and the past. – Murray Siskind in Dom Delillo’s White Noise In overwhelming times of uncertainty, as an artist, what I can offer is a coherence of values and priorities expressed in the tools of conviviality and of the solitude I craft. These pots inhabit the world I want to live in, nostalgic for a past that never was.

Willa Cather wrote, “Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world: but here the earth is the floor of the sky.” Over the past year-and-a-half, Betsy Williams has delved ever deeper into sourcing and testing wild clays, specifically looking for high-fire clays and glaze materials. It did not take long before she realized that prospecting for and working with wild clay was where her pottery-making destiny lay.

FREE ARTICLE "I have never tired of it. There's always something more to explore in the world of clay and glazes and atmospheric firings. We're dealing with essential materials of earth and fire and water and air, and we're playing, but playing with a purpose – seeking more information," Daphne Roehr Hatcher.

I looked her dead in the eye as I resentfully told her, “I will never be a potter.”

Making a pot isn’t simply a mechanical construction, it is also the intention and energy of the person creating it.

When my sense of depersonalization is at its strongest, I feel as though I have become virtual and dreamlike myself and have lost my presence in real time and space.

Do you want to use an O’Brien? Please try it. Tell us how it is for you and if you make improvements. It’s a team sport, rah rah. It gives everyone something to do: one person to pull the brick, one person to spray, one to load the next shot, two vampires to vamp the dampers in and out.

Over the course of fifty years Mata Ortiz Pottery became an outstanding artistic movement and one of the most relevant ceramic expressions in the world. But how did such a young pottery tradition emerge, seemingly from nowhere, and quickly evolve? The most popular narrative, the “single story” distilled from a larger, more complex narrative, involves only a few men. What follows is our history, the multi-layered narrative, as told by the people who have lived it.

Welcome to the vibrantly intentional world of Brian Vu.

“A work of art is a thesis. Every decision that the artist makes supports their thesis. In order to discover that thesis, it is the job of the critic to interpret the visual language used by the artist."

My family’s story has been one of resilience and hope, of making the most from the least, and of appreciating the smallest of things.

An intimate sense of materials allows a place to influence my work and to fix the unique nature of a place into my memory.

You can learn much about the quality of an environment by the number and type of birds that pass through it or call it home. Similarly, the character of a culture is revealed through the objects it produces. When pots and birds intersect, you get unique insights into how the maker sees the natural world.

I found a bat with her handprint on it. It was a bit uncanny – just how perfect it was. I keep it right above my wheel, leaned on a little ledge of brick. She was and will forever be fundamental to my connection to pottery. I know my grandmother would be proud of the potter I am today.

She apparently needed us, but so did we need her. She was earthbound, and, like us in our pandemic prison, unable to go far. But if she could break free, then perhaps so could we shed ourselves of this hermetic existence and return to our kettle.

A new animated comic from Richard Nickel for Studio Potter about the life of Adelaide Alsop Robineau and her masterpiece, The Scarab Vase.

There is an unbelievable amount of untapped potential in the digital market of ‘’branded” companies who need handcrafted items.

Then, the Last Prisoner Project came onto my radar. Their purpose is to free the 40,000-plus nonviolent prisoners who are in jail for cannabis. These nonviolent offenders remain in jail in states where marijuana is now legal.

The time away from career obligations has allowed my thoughts to freely wander from present to past to future.

The Shakers pursued perfection through purity, goodness, equality, kindness. I wanted to create pottery that embodied that same aesthetic...

"As an artist trying to work with galleries, you should never feel like you have no power," Donté K. Hayes.

“The world has been turned upside down.” The inversion has created pain, instability, and fear. Marion Angelica wondered whether it might also foster creativity and innovation. To find her answer, she issued a call to our field. Twenty-one artists responded.

...as I sat at the computer, feeling the void of the nonexistent National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts 2020 conference, I clicked and signed up for the online three day, twenty-four/seven ceramic marathon.

Spoken of en masse, essential workers become nameless and removed, unknowable – an anonymous soundbite in the media. When things and people are anonymous they, by default, become disposable.

"I don’t think we can escape the complexities of our history. My small life experience can be extrapolated in any direction to encompass many different stories and people from all over our country and world. Our human histories are woven, complex, and blurry."

"As I interpret it, Keats’s idea speaks to the endeavor to share a vision of artistic beauty even when it leads to intellectual uncertainty. True beauty lies in ambitious uncertainty. Negative capability encourages artists to boldly explore a world of uncertainty – a world where there are no clear-cut distinctions. This is a world where authentic work can be done."

The first installment of a series on navigating the market as a studio artist, wherein we will share the wisdom of field and consider what the gallery/artist relationship might be in the future. Inspired by an inquiry from Osa Atoe.

"I may start with some ideas and questions, but the wisdom is in the soil, just like the wisdom is in the clay. This properly humbles me, reminds me what my capabilities are, what my limitations are, and how generous the material is, how fortunate I am to continue exploring."

Fueled by a curiosity about the limits of clay explored throughout human history, I know that everything I make exists within a larger context.

An excerpt from Women, Surrealism & Abstraction – The Poetry Project, at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art on the Utah State University campus in Logan, Utah.

...the stimuli that catch our attention in a moment in time are not actually ‘things” but rather the emotional and psychological association that the thing has triggered.

The Value of the Vessel

Rather than lean in to an oppositional response, the administrators who chose to be interviewed by Studio Potter here, have allowed themselves to be vulnerable by sharing their honest struggles as they grapple with systemic racism.

What follows are some highlights from two evolving conversations with Courtney M. Leonard and Paul S. Briggs as they grapple with our roles as makers, educators, and culture shifters in this time of COVID-19, civil uprisings, and an impending election.

There was an old index card box labeled “Deaccessioned, Missing, or Stolen Works” sitting on the top of a filing cabinet. I loved everything about that blend of categories...

Cooking in clay cannot be sped up. One must slow to the speed of the technology you are using.

It’s easy to think outside of the box when you were never in the box in the first place.

An excerpt from a collaborative letter, "I refuse to sign any contracts to teach from this day forward without holding the institutions accountable for how they are actively pursuing/enacting an antiracist agenda."

... a 1780, red jasperware beaker with a Chinese flower pattern was a chance find... It sparked a musing so enticing, with fresh eyes, I forged a new obsession and path in my practice.

I thought it was important to see Black folk dancing, loving, teaching, and playing on pots, because I felt our life and joy was not something you expect to see on pots with depicted narratives.

“I’ve always had an insatiable appetite to learn and to connect with new activities, and I have benefited very much from it,” Paul J. Smith once said, looking back on his extraordinary life in the arts, and the passion that drove it.

I have defined happiness as being at peace. I am at peace with myself while working on my sculptures in the studio. All life’s problems are still in my mind, but working in clay puts them in pause. I feel excited, productive, and with a purpose in life, but in these uncertain times the connection to my artwork feels different. Baking sourdough bread has become another way to be at peace with myself.

The Im-ple-ment Archive is simultaneously a collection of objects to be used, a collaborative method of making, an interrogation of craft practices and intersections, and an ongoing contemporary artwork.

She recalls how she wanted to be a geologist before discovering clay as art and continues to tell herself there is a beautiful connection there.

A timely reminder for those working in traditional craft disciplines that handwork can be deeply resonant beyond the categories used to define the works it produces.

The connection between ceramics and food came with just a four-letter word: salt.

Trying times inspire revolution and innovation.

I had been following the mosaic fabrication of Montreal-based Mosaika for years. In February I invited myself to visit their studio for a behind-the-scenes tour. Graciously, they accepted my invitation.

Un-Broken, the essay, is a record of myself and an offering to my family while I am alive.

I do not intend my voice to be the voice of all women. In this significant time of convergence between ceramics and fine art, we have the opportunity to contribute a more critical voice to our culture, which demands that we are represented by people from a wider range of perspectives. We must make space for critical writing from less represented viewpoints. We need to make space for more stories.

Collaborative and open sharing is an upside to all we are currently experience. Shades of World War II efforts come to mind: rations, women working in factories, and victory gardens, among other things. Imagine the days to come when we are past the pandemic. What will we have learned about ourselves as people, as a nation, and as a world?

The world is facing a crisis. I don’t know what the situation will be when this gets published, but somehow the issues I raise might get lost in the shuffle. There is a reason bottom-line thinking is so highly regarded: it solves problems.

Being on a platform; as, kind of, the token transgender individual in the clay community takes its toll. When I lectured at NCECA in 2017 on the panel "Gendered Clay," I had no idea what would happen. I could only tell my own story. I thought it was worth sacrificing my anonymity.

Last month, in Part I, we left studio potter Diana Kersey, having just broken into the practice of public art. This month, while sharing her background from star athlete to ceramist, we explore further her approach to design, content, and community engagement as she completes her first major public art commission.

This past fall, I needed to learn how to make plates. Specifically, plates similar in form and decoration to those from Staffordshire, England, in the early 1800s.

Modest in appearance, simple in its curation, but big in intention; this gallery is a gem. Long may it, and shows like Tanio/Ignite, continue.

Lucy Lacoste generously shared the following catalog essay with Studio Potter, drawing our attention to the next generation of Japanese women in ceramics. The exhibition was inspired by two important past exhibitions; Soaring Voices (2009 – 2012) which traveled to 10 locations in the USA, and Touch Fire (2009) at Smith College, Northampton MA.

A three-part series on the ceramist as public artist. "Completing private and public commissions, in addition to creating, decorating, and firing thousands of vessels during my career as an artist/potter, is not unlike how I learned the game of basketball: through practice, study, failure, disappointment, victory, and determination. This artistic path, in addition to my recently completed public art projects, has allowed me to master my ceramic process and has prepared me to take on a project of any scale." – Diana Kersey, 2015

For Ruberto, the aesthetic of her work is a sensorial experience that coincides with the sound and feeling one acquires during a quaint moment of twilight, an atmospheric stillness when one reawakens into a new part of the day. Illustrated on much of Ruberto’s work is a vegetative element that can be attributed to the subtle essence of fog.

The assortment of mugs and cups grows each time I travel, attend a clay conference, enjoy a studio tour, or visit a gallery. My collection is not comprehensive, but rather a personal grouping of unique vessels that instill wonder and appreciation for creativity and design.

We decided our first trip to the UK would be to St. Ives and Leach Pottery. This started our love affair with British studio ceramics

Pottery often has a relationship to its environment, from the wild clay potters of North Carolina to regional aesthetics like the ubiquitous Minnesota brown pot. Like most people these days, potters are also concerned with climate change.

When students rush into the classroom in the morning, beaming with excitement about a new technique they saw on Instagram, something good is happening. They are hooked on ceramics and fully engaged in the process.

It was maybe 10 years ago that I was talking with a book editor who asked what I was working on. I told him, but then said, impulsively, that what I wanted to do most was a book on functional pottery.