Digital Sculpture: RE34-1-word, 2001.
Raymon Elozua, American born West Germany, 1947. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Auricle, 2003, ceramic and glass.
Elizabeth Surbeck Biddle, American born 1941. Loaned by the artist to the Woodmere Museum of Art, Philadelphia in 2022
Untitled, 2007 (Mama Pot), 2007, stoneware.
Ruth Duckworth, 1919-2009, American. Smithsonian Museum of American Art
Mary Lou Furcron, 2010, terracotta with acrylic paint, graphite and wood.
Syd Carpenter, American born 1963. Smithsonian American Art Museum
A bird’s eye view of a homestead built by Mary Lou Furcron living in rural Georgia based on a map of such homesteads belonging to African Americans made in the 1980s.
Scoopbowl service, 2010, porcelain with microcrystalline glaze.
Gwendolyn Yoppolo, American born 1968. Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC
A Night Out, 2011, glazed ceramic, painted hardwood, and cast concrete.
Arlene Schechet, American born 1951. Whitney Museum of N. American Art, NY
Patron Santiago – TIWANAKU, 2012; clay, underglazes, glaze, casein paint, wax, gold and silver leaf.
Kukuli Velarde, American born Peru 1962. Loaned by the artist to an exhibition at the Philadelphia Art Museum in 2021
Basin Theology/The Pipe, 2013, glazed ceramic.
Sterling Ruby, American born Germany, 1972. Whitney Museum of N. American Art on show in 2020
Vase with Landscape and Dinosaurs, 2014, porcelain with pigments and glaze.
Steven Young Lee, American born 1975. Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC.
The artist formed and then deconstructed this vase as an exercise in confronting boundaries.
198 of Thousands, 2014-2015, stoneware, glazes, and decals.
Ehren Tool, American born 1970. Smithsonian Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC
Orange chromatic ewer, ceramic and casein paint, 2015.
Douglas Herren, American born 1962. Loaned by Peters Projects Gallery to the 77th Juried Show at the Woodmere Museum of Art, Philadelphia in 2018.
This is partly wheel-built and partly hand-built.
Hope Spots: Bahamian Reefs II, 2015; glazed stoneware.
Courtney Mattison, American, no DOB. Brandywine River Museum in 2022.
At the instigation of the oceanographer, Sylvia Earle, more than 140 ‘Hope spots’ have been designated to protect marine areas critical to ocean health.
This is one of the artist’s tributes to these rich biospheres.
Seeing is Believing, 2015, glazed ceramic, paint and steel.
Arlene Shechet, American born 1951. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A creation which incorporates almost every technique of the ceramicist.
A dozen glazes have been used including pebbling and glazing. This is pottery which is neither functional nor aesthetic and that is the potter’s aim, apparently.
Mentori MN 013, 2016.
Peter Callas, American born 1951. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Lament, stoneware, porcelain paper clay, 2016.
Judith Rosenthal, no DOB. Juried Show at the Clay Studio, Philadelphia in 2018
Rockets House, 2017, fired clay.
Matthew Courtney, American born 1965. Loaned by the artist to the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia for the 2018 Juried show.
The artist represents V-2 missiles as a part of the male body in a statement of his disregard for the political doctrine of endless war.
Bad Ombres; 2017; 3D printed ceramic vessels. Ronald Rael, American born 1971. Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC.
Weedrock, stoneware with slip and underglaze decoration.
Don Nakamura, American born 1955. Loaned by the artist to the 2018 Woodmere Museum, Philadelphia juried show.
The name is from a parable of a mythical plant.
Thought to be a weed, the plant, growing on the slopes of the Haleakala dormant volcano in Maui, Hawaii, was pulled out by someone. It was saved, protected and grown.
Handhelds, 2016, reduction fired stoneware.
Raymond Rorke, American unknown DOB. 2018 Clay Studio Biennial, Philadelphia
The artist found an old and rusted horseshoe when he was digging in his garden one day.
Holding it and looking at it brought him into that long human memory, partly in the mind and partly in the fingers, of the things made, used by our species.
Black Covered Jar, 2017, coloured porcelain.
Justin Donofrio, American, no DOB. 2018 Clay Studio Biennial, Philadelphia
Storage 1, clay, glass, steel wood, 2017, and details.
Syd Carpenter, American, born 1953. Collection of the artist on loan to the Woodmere Museum of Art, Philadelphia 2018 Juried Show.
The artist is representing her mother and the land. The glass contains lentils. There is also a representation of kidney beans.
Philly Philodendron, 2017, ceramic
Jacintha Clarke, American born 1986. Courtesy of the artist to the 2019 Woodmere Museum of Art, Philadelphia Juried Show
Dryad, ceramic, 2018.
Laura Kastin, American, no DOB. 2018 Clay Studio Biennial, Philadelphia
Pink Sheath, 2018.
Elisa D’Arrigo, American born 1953. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Bump, 2018, wood, salt-fired stoneware, NC clay slip, iron oxide.
Takuro Shibata, no DOB. Juried show at the Clay Studio, Philadelphia in 2018
Texture, Study 1, 2019, glazed stoneware.
Courtney Mattison, American. Artist loan to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2022
The artist imagines the decimation of the more fragile flora of the ocean beds in favour of monospecies more able to survive the change in water temperatures and ocean pollution.
Community, 2019, watercolour, acrylic, South Carolina clay, and plaster.
Colleen Kennedy, American, no DOB. On display at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2021
Scraped Away From Center, 130lbs. (Night), glazed and pigmented stoneware, hardware.
Brie Ruais, born 1982. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia
The museum noted that the artist tears and scrapes and spreads clay on the ground in quite large structures, sometimes. She then fires this in a kiln.
Her own body sets the size of her sculptures: 130 lbs. is her weight and it is the volume of the clay she uses; the dimensions of the work is determined by the maximum reach of her arms; and her strength and endurance shapes the artwork.
The imprint of her fingers, fists and knees are visible in the piece.
Blue/Purple Ombre with Rocks, 2018; handbuilt coloured porcelain.
Linda Lopez. American born 1981. Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC
Intergenerational Hands, 2018.
Nikki Lau. No other information.
On display at the 2018 Clay Studio juried show, Philadelphia. Honouring the artist’s maternal grandmother who worked in Chinatown, San Francisco in the garment industry; and her mother who works in the US food industry.
Malum Geminos, 2019, glazed stoneware and porcelain.
Courtney Mattison, American, no DOB. Loaned by the artist to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2022
The title is Latin for ‘evil twins’ and refers to the evil of both climate change and ocean acidification. The latter is cause by carbon dioxide emission absorbed by the oceans.
The a representation of bleached and eroded reefs which are dead.
FOLDS CLXVIII, 2019; clay, wood, and powder-coated steel frame.
Jeannine Marchand, American born 1976 Puerto Rico. Smithsonian Museum of American Art
Do you know how hard it is to get a black man through high school, 2019; earthenware and acrylic paint.
Robert Lugo, American born 1981. Loaned by the artist and his gallery to the Philadelphia Art Museum
The artist says he is a ghetto potter, activist, culture-maker, rapper, spoken word poet and educator.
The image on the pot is of Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager who was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, MI in 2014. Brown is wearing his high school graduation cap.
The self-portrait is how the artist sees himself.
He sees his fate as an artist, as a man who has survived, as miraculous because Michael Brown’s fate, he believes, could have been his.
In 2022 American police killed 3 people every day. Slightly less than one third involved the commission of violent crime.
Two thirds of the victims died for suspected minor infractions of various laws.
Phone Jug, 2020, glazed ceramic
Woody De Othello, American born 1991. Baltimore Art Museum
Jane/ Mother of J. H. Lee/ Died Feb 15, 1909/ Age 85 yrs/ Gone to Fairer Land/ of Pleasure & Love/ To Join the Bright Band of Angels Above, Woodfire; 2021;
True Blue Plantation cemetery soil, human hair from Cheryl Person & Tierra H., 2021.
Adebunmi Gbadebo, American born 1992. Photos from her website.
The artist has been collecting soil from True Blue Plantation in Fort Motte, South Carolina where her people were enslaved. She has used this soil to make pots. She has given the names on historic tombstones to these pots.
She has said that she is wanting to remember and memorialize the history of the cultivation of cotton, rice and indigo.
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Signature Study, 2020, high-fired glazed stoneware. Theaster Gates, American born 1973.
Loaned by the artist and his gallery to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2022
From 2010 onwards, the artist began to work with the legacy of a man called Dave the Potter. He was a slave.
His full name was determined to be David Drake and his approximate dates are 1801-1870’s. He worked in a pottery factory called Stony Bluff Manufactory in a kaolin-rich part of South Carolina (Edgefield District).
The African-American community of potters continued their work after Emancipation. The museum notes that this stoneware was very hardy and very useful in a time before refrigeration.
Despite his slave status and the brutal conditions in which slaves lived and worked and died, David Drake was unafraid to claim his creativity by inscribing some of his pots with his name.
It is to this authorship which Theaster Gates has responded. So much of the detailed history of the African-American population is not known or has been submerged, let alone who made a given pot.
Jug, 1858, alkaline glazed stoneware; made at the Stony Bluff Manufactory (c. 1848-1867).
Dave (David Drake), c. 1801-1870s. Private collection loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2022
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Yellowave (black) 1; 2020; black stoneware with underglaze and glaze.
Jiha Moon, American-Korean born 1972. Smithsonian American Museum of Art, Washington, DC
The will to make things happen, 2021, ceramic, glaze and bronze on ceramic tiled plinth.
Woody de Othello, born 1991, works in Oakland, CA; collection of the artist on display in the Whitney Biennial, 2022, NY
Untitled Pot, 2021, earthenware with acrylic paint.
Lisa Holt, born 1980 Cochiti Pueblo, NM and Harlan Reano born 1978 Kewa Pueblo. Smithsnian Museum of American Art, Washington
Frederick Douglass and Ann Murray Douglass Vase, ceramic glaze and enamel paint, 2021
Roberto Lugo, American born 1981. Smithsonian Museum of American Art
Juicy, 2021, stoneware with enamel paint, glaze and luster.
Roberto Lugo, American born 1981. Smithsonian Museum of American Art
In the manner of 19th century vases commemorating George Washington, Lugo remembers the movers of Hip-Hop: Tupac Shakur and The Notorious BIG.
Still Life with Fruit, 2021, ceramics, mixed media, table.
Heather Ossandon, American, no DOB. Winterthur Museum, Delaware
Front and back of Glazescape (Green Shade), 2021, earthenware and slip.
Lauren Mabry, American born 1985. Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC
Applying Pressure, 2021, ceramic and glaze.
Woody de Othello, American born 1991. Loaned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2022
Large Jug, 2021-22, glazed stoneware.
Simone Leigh, American born 1967. Loaned by the artist and her gallery to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2022
Gyre 1, 2022, glazed stoneware and porcelain.
Courtney Mattison, American, no DOB. Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2022
The Earth’s oceans have a system of five major interconnected and rotating currents – ‘gyres’ – which are driven by tides, winds and changing water and air temperatures.