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.

This month's FREE article. This was the largest exhibition of the medium at the time, the first Pan-American survey of contemporary ceramics, and it remains one of few US exhibitions that tried to characterize the varied approaches of Latin American ceramists. With seventy pieces of modern ceramics from the region, organizers assembled impressive examples made by leading artists; to name only a few, these included Marina Nuñez del Prado, the internationally acclaimed modernist sculptor from Bolivia; Diana Chiari de Gruber, who founded the National Pottery School in La Arena, Panama; the Paraguayan ceramist Campos Cervera who signed his work under the pseudonym Julián de la Herrería, and his wife, the Spanish-born Paraguayan artist and cultural influencer Josefina Plá. What follows is a layered story about Latin America’s influence on US studio ceramics before the post-war era.

To talk about cultural appropriation alone means putting cultures in categories distinct and separate from one another. Each culture as an island, never influenced by another – reality just doesn’t support that.

I hope, now, that my ongoing research and future publications will highlight this model of community building both within and beyond the contemporary art world, in a way that could serve society at large, helping researchers in the humanities build a better understanding of how and why people choose to work together, and more importantly, how they do so productively.

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 myself awestruck and absorbed, drawn across the room by smallish pyramid-shaped gems – the brilliance of "Glaze Flow Blocks" by Karen Thuesen Massaro had me gripped.

Although 2020 was a challenging year that exhausted us all, 2021 needs to be the year that we move forward to create impactful change. The change that we need – the anti-racist ideals that we should all strive to embody – require deliberate action, attentiveness, courage, discomfort, conflict, and ultimately a release and restructuring of power.

The Value of the Vessel

There seemed to have been a greater freedom for the makers to explore variations in form during the developmental stages of a civilization.

... 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.

The power of art lies in its capacity for alchemy, the ability to reach beyond given circumstances and change perception. For both Santiago and Hefetz, the power that propels their work transcends technique. Unflinchingly direct about sadness, they reach for hope, speaking to the inner core of our being. Santiago’s figures reach for re-humanization and dignity. Hefetz’s work asks us to recontextualize experience. Implicit at the heart of their work, however, is the idea of freedom.

Brightly colored columns stand throughout the industrial site of Mission Clay Building Products on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona. Their presence, amidst outdoor horizontal stacks of terra cotta pipe, signals that artists are at work on eight-footextruded clay pillars.