Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Yinka Orafidiya was first introduced to clay as a freshman in high school, recalling that as soon as she touched the material, “everything clicked.” Yet she decided not to study ceramics in college. Instead, she majored in chemical engineering and math, spending any free moments in the ceramics studio. Clay has always been integral to who she is, though until recently, she had trouble articulating why both clay and science have always been equally important to her. In the past, she feared others in the ceramics world might think her academic pursuits would mean she wasn’t serious about clay. But now she realizes, “If these things coexist and are harmonious in me, then they must work together and be related.”
Orafidiya tends to go through cycles of productivity, becoming passionate about a project or idea and going to the studio for intense periods of time. In 2018, she was taking postbaccalaureate prerequisite courses at Temple University in Philadelphia in preparation for her medical-school application, and her academic commitments weren’t allowing enough time for creativity. She began to yearn for a major clay project. At the same time, she was feeling frustrated by the lack of representation and diversity in the ceramics world. “I’d often hear people say they’d like their galleries to be more diverse, or that they’d like to include more Black women in their show, but there just aren’t enough Black ceramic artists.” Orafidiya knew this wasn’t true, but at the time, she could only name a few dozen herself. So, she embarked on a mission to discover more Black female artists. As she reminds us, “The ceramics tradition in Africa has been around for millennia, but when Black people were brought here and enslaved, those who were potters didn’t necessarily have the option to pass down those skills, and so the tradition was lost.” Orafidiya was interested in helping other Black women reconnect with those lost skills, so she decided to take a break from her pre-med studies and travel to Ghana, West Africa, to study with a group of women master potters. Orafidiya’s trip launched what would become Crafting Community, a movement to reclaim what was stolen, and reconnect Black women to their shared history as ceramic artists.
Travel to Vume
Ceramic artist and sculptor Winnie Owens-Hart travels annually with a group of students to a secluded pottery village in Kuli, Ghana, where the women have been making pots for generations. Orafidiya applied for a fellowship with the Independence Foundation to travel with Owens-Hart, but by the time the funding came through, the group had already left. Orafidiya decided to travel on her own, with Owens-Hart facilitating contacts and arrangements in the town of Vume, Ghana. Orafidiya says it was a lot to adapt to at once, living in a small village where she didn’t know anyone and didn’t speak the language. The master potter instructing her didn’t speak any English, which forced Orafidiya to tune in to what the woman was doing with her hands. She says she learned more by being quiet and simply observing. Before long, she became adept at understanding her instructor’s intentions through body language and gestures. Fortunately, when applying for the fellowship, Orafidiya never entertained the notion that not speaking the language would be a barrier. She now sees that it was actually a benefit, opening her eyes to another way of learning.
Before traveling to Vume, Orafidiya was a self-proclaimed “wheel worshiper.” She jokes that she never understood why someone would work with slabs or coils when they could use a wheel. But watching the women in Vume, she learned to appreciate the process of coil building. She explains, “Every touch, every gesture, even your breath, impacts the clay. It’s all recorded there.” The Vume coiling technique involves rolling large coils in one’s hands, then attaching the coils while walking around the pot. “Pots are made outside on the ground. There are no tables, slab rollers, or fancy tools. You’re bending over the pot and moving around it in this very rhythmic way,” she recalls. This way of working marked a paradigm shift for Orafidiya. She experienced a new kind of engagement with the material, a deeper connection and intimacy, by bringing her whole body into it. “It’s like a dance you’re doing with the pot,” she says.
Orafidiya had been feeling what she calls “othered” in the clay world long before traveling to Vume. “There tends to be a certain attitude that if you haven’t done a residency at the right place, then you’re not a real clay artist. There are certain names you’re supposed to know, people you’re supposed to have worked with, and schools you’re supposed to have attended to be relevant.” Orafidiya carried a certain anxiety about all of that, experiencing a dissonance between what she felt she was supposed to do and what she actually wanted to do.
In Ghana, Orafidiya says she stepped into her own power. “The barriers were gone,” she says. Her experience there, where everyone was generous and welcoming, made her even more aware of the exclusionary gatekeeping that exists in the US. Orafidiya says she had put up with racist encounters in the US out of fear of retaliation because certain well-known people in the ceramics world were protected. This kind of protection allows abuse to go unchecked and further contributes to the gatekeeper mentality. As she became more aware of this, she began to question, “Why are these gates in place at all?” Even as more people began to take notice of her work and invited her to participate in exhibitions, she says, “I felt like I was getting a seat at the table, but why is there even a table?” Her hope was that by creating an equitable space for learning that Crafting Community could begin to tear down these barriers and make ceramic opportunities more accessible.
Creating Crafting Community
In her Independence Foundation fellowship proposal, Orafidiya envisioned “Crafting Community: Africa to America” as a two-part project. Part one involved traveling to Ghana to learn ancient techniques from master-level Black female potters. Part two involved sharing that knowledge with other Black women in her community through a series of workshops upon her return, with the goal of creating fellowship and sisterhood among Black women of varying demographic backgrounds. Most had no prior clay experience. Once the pots made in the workshops were fired, they would be taken by drum-procession to the African American Museum in Philadelphia where the pots would be ceremoniously welcomed and displayed.
The workshops took place at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and ran daily over a four-week period, with morning and afternoon sessions. Afternoon participants would pick up where the morning crew left off. The pots were built using a high-grog red-earthenware clay that was very forgiving for beginners. “At first, there was anxiety about messing up the pots,” Orafidiya says. To alleviate fears, she emphasized that “these pots are ‘our’ pots, not just the pot of the person who started it. There’s nothing you can do to destroy this pot.” The goal was about process, not the end product, so any contribution was valuable. Some people didn’t want to get their hands dirty, so they would do sgraffito decoration. Others would attach only one or two coils. One woman returned multiple times, traveling by Greyhound bus from New York.
In the spirit of how she learned the coiling technique in Vume, rather than give oral instructions, Orafidiya encouraged participants to watch and mimic her movements. By removing the language from her instruction, she said the process became more communal and collaborative, offering, “I’ll put my hands on your hands and we’ll do this together.”
It didn’t take long for the women to let down their guard. Spontaneous conversations touched on relationships, divorce, kids, and mental health. Orafidiya says the space felt intimate quickly. “There was such softness and vulnerability.” She could sense that softness arising in her too. As an admitted introvert, she was able to engage with people in a way she doesn’t typically do. She says something about the shared experience and the nature of clay made her feel more open.
Orafidiya didn’t realize she was fulfilling a need for Black women who were just as hungry as she was to work with clay. To this day, she gets requests from women interested in the workshops. Given the interest, Orafidiya’s next big project is to open a brick-and-mortar Crafting Community Studio where she can continue to offer workshops. Since she started medical school in 2019, Orafidiya won’t have the time to operate the studio full time. Instead, she envisions a communal space where resident artists can engage with the community. She also hopes to bring female master potters from Africa here for residencies. Pots made in the original workshops will be housed in this space, to stand as a symbol that anyone can explore with clay.
The Clay Community and Race
I asked Orafidiya about the conversations around race and representation that have been taking place in the ceramics world and whether she thinks things are beginning to shift. She said there are times in ceramics spaces when nothing is outwardly racist, yet she feels uncomfortable. “Maybe it’s because I’m the only person of color there.” Orafidiya has navigated white spaces her entire life. She says she’s become a master at code-switching to the point where it’s become unconscious.
“White people can’t cultivate this change on their own,” she offered. Institutions have asked her why they can’t seem to get more Black and Brown students to enroll in their programs. She often asks in return, “How do you let people of color know it’s a safe space and that you support them?” Posting a black square on Instagram and using anti-racist terminology are not enough. Allyship needs to be backed up with action. “It’s been over a year since the murder of George Floyd and lots of organizations are still fumbling, asking the same questions they were a year ago. But have you made changes to your leadership and programming? Is diversity a part of your values, or are you just looking for the next performative trend to post on social media?”
Orafidiya says she’d prefer to work with organizations who are already choosing to do what’s right over what’s easy. “It’s challenging to have conversations about race. White people often center themselves in the conversation where it feels like a personal attack. This can make people defensive and intent on proving that they aren’t racist, which derails the conversation entirely. But we have to be able to talk openly about how we got here and how we can move forward.”
Awareness is a great thing, but it’s only the first step. Orafidiya invites those interested in seeing a true shift in the ceramics world to think about mentorship and providing financial support to those smaller organizations who are already doing the work. Studios owned and operated by people of color, like Pot Studio LA, People’s Pottery Project, Bronx Clay, and the one Orafidiya hopes to create, are popping up all around the country. “As a Black ceramic artist, do you spend your time trying to reform institutions who are still grappling with their complicated legacies? It may be easier and take less emotional energy to start your own space,” she says. Some are critical of such endeavors, suggesting that people of color will be further separated from the rest of the clay world, but Orafidiya doesn’t see it that way. She sees it instead as amplifying those who are building the places they wish had existed in the ceramics community. “We’re figuring out for ourselves how to create what’s been missing.”
To learn more about Yinka Orafidiya and Crafting Community, visit yinkaorafidiya.com and follow on Instagram @crafting.community. To contribute to Orafidiya’s community clay studio, visit her GoFundMe page at: gofundme.com/f/oya-studio. To learn more about the Oya Studio Museum, follow them on Instagram @theoyastudio.
the author Susan McHenry is a studio potter, writer, and educator based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She has an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College. To learn more, visit emptyvesselpottery.com or follow on Instagram @emptyvesselpottery.
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Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Yinka Orafidiya was first introduced to clay as a freshman in high school, recalling that as soon as she touched the material, “everything clicked.” Yet she decided not to study ceramics in college. Instead, she majored in chemical engineering and math, spending any free moments in the ceramics studio. Clay has always been integral to who she is, though until recently, she had trouble articulating why both clay and science have always been equally important to her. In the past, she feared others in the ceramics world might think her academic pursuits would mean she wasn’t serious about clay. But now she realizes, “If these things coexist and are harmonious in me, then they must work together and be related.”
Orafidiya tends to go through cycles of productivity, becoming passionate about a project or idea and going to the studio for intense periods of time. In 2018, she was taking postbaccalaureate prerequisite courses at Temple University in Philadelphia in preparation for her medical-school application, and her academic commitments weren’t allowing enough time for creativity. She began to yearn for a major clay project. At the same time, she was feeling frustrated by the lack of representation and diversity in the ceramics world. “I’d often hear people say they’d like their galleries to be more diverse, or that they’d like to include more Black women in their show, but there just aren’t enough Black ceramic artists.” Orafidiya knew this wasn’t true, but at the time, she could only name a few dozen herself. So, she embarked on a mission to discover more Black female artists. As she reminds us, “The ceramics tradition in Africa has been around for millennia, but when Black people were brought here and enslaved, those who were potters didn’t necessarily have the option to pass down those skills, and so the tradition was lost.” Orafidiya was interested in helping other Black women reconnect with those lost skills, so she decided to take a break from her pre-med studies and travel to Ghana, West Africa, to study with a group of women master potters. Orafidiya’s trip launched what would become Crafting Community, a movement to reclaim what was stolen, and reconnect Black women to their shared history as ceramic artists.
Travel to Vume
Ceramic artist and sculptor Winnie Owens-Hart travels annually with a group of students to a secluded pottery village in Kuli, Ghana, where the women have been making pots for generations. Orafidiya applied for a fellowship with the Independence Foundation to travel with Owens-Hart, but by the time the funding came through, the group had already left. Orafidiya decided to travel on her own, with Owens-Hart facilitating contacts and arrangements in the town of Vume, Ghana. Orafidiya says it was a lot to adapt to at once, living in a small village where she didn’t know anyone and didn’t speak the language. The master potter instructing her didn’t speak any English, which forced Orafidiya to tune in to what the woman was doing with her hands. She says she learned more by being quiet and simply observing. Before long, she became adept at understanding her instructor’s intentions through body language and gestures. Fortunately, when applying for the fellowship, Orafidiya never entertained the notion that not speaking the language would be a barrier. She now sees that it was actually a benefit, opening her eyes to another way of learning.
Before traveling to Vume, Orafidiya was a self-proclaimed “wheel worshiper.” She jokes that she never understood why someone would work with slabs or coils when they could use a wheel. But watching the women in Vume, she learned to appreciate the process of coil building. She explains, “Every touch, every gesture, even your breath, impacts the clay. It’s all recorded there.” The Vume coiling technique involves rolling large coils in one’s hands, then attaching the coils while walking around the pot. “Pots are made outside on the ground. There are no tables, slab rollers, or fancy tools. You’re bending over the pot and moving around it in this very rhythmic way,” she recalls. This way of working marked a paradigm shift for Orafidiya. She experienced a new kind of engagement with the material, a deeper connection and intimacy, by bringing her whole body into it. “It’s like a dance you’re doing with the pot,” she says.
Orafidiya had been feeling what she calls “othered” in the clay world long before traveling to Vume. “There tends to be a certain attitude that if you haven’t done a residency at the right place, then you’re not a real clay artist. There are certain names you’re supposed to know, people you’re supposed to have worked with, and schools you’re supposed to have attended to be relevant.” Orafidiya carried a certain anxiety about all of that, experiencing a dissonance between what she felt she was supposed to do and what she actually wanted to do.
In Ghana, Orafidiya says she stepped into her own power. “The barriers were gone,” she says. Her experience there, where everyone was generous and welcoming, made her even more aware of the exclusionary gatekeeping that exists in the US. Orafidiya says she had put up with racist encounters in the US out of fear of retaliation because certain well-known people in the ceramics world were protected. This kind of protection allows abuse to go unchecked and further contributes to the gatekeeper mentality. As she became more aware of this, she began to question, “Why are these gates in place at all?” Even as more people began to take notice of her work and invited her to participate in exhibitions, she says, “I felt like I was getting a seat at the table, but why is there even a table?” Her hope was that by creating an equitable space for learning that Crafting Community could begin to tear down these barriers and make ceramic opportunities more accessible.
Creating Crafting Community
In her Independence Foundation fellowship proposal, Orafidiya envisioned “Crafting Community: Africa to America” as a two-part project. Part one involved traveling to Ghana to learn ancient techniques from master-level Black female potters. Part two involved sharing that knowledge with other Black women in her community through a series of workshops upon her return, with the goal of creating fellowship and sisterhood among Black women of varying demographic backgrounds. Most had no prior clay experience. Once the pots made in the workshops were fired, they would be taken by drum-procession to the African American Museum in Philadelphia where the pots would be ceremoniously welcomed and displayed.
The workshops took place at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and ran daily over a four-week period, with morning and afternoon sessions. Afternoon participants would pick up where the morning crew left off. The pots were built using a high-grog red-earthenware clay that was very forgiving for beginners. “At first, there was anxiety about messing up the pots,” Orafidiya says. To alleviate fears, she emphasized that “these pots are ‘our’ pots, not just the pot of the person who started it. There’s nothing you can do to destroy this pot.” The goal was about process, not the end product, so any contribution was valuable. Some people didn’t want to get their hands dirty, so they would do sgraffito decoration. Others would attach only one or two coils. One woman returned multiple times, traveling by Greyhound bus from New York.
In the spirit of how she learned the coiling technique in Vume, rather than give oral instructions, Orafidiya encouraged participants to watch and mimic her movements. By removing the language from her instruction, she said the process became more communal and collaborative, offering, “I’ll put my hands on your hands and we’ll do this together.”
It didn’t take long for the women to let down their guard. Spontaneous conversations touched on relationships, divorce, kids, and mental health. Orafidiya says the space felt intimate quickly. “There was such softness and vulnerability.” She could sense that softness arising in her too. As an admitted introvert, she was able to engage with people in a way she doesn’t typically do. She says something about the shared experience and the nature of clay made her feel more open.
Orafidiya didn’t realize she was fulfilling a need for Black women who were just as hungry as she was to work with clay. To this day, she gets requests from women interested in the workshops. Given the interest, Orafidiya’s next big project is to open a brick-and-mortar Crafting Community Studio where she can continue to offer workshops. Since she started medical school in 2019, Orafidiya won’t have the time to operate the studio full time. Instead, she envisions a communal space where resident artists can engage with the community. She also hopes to bring female master potters from Africa here for residencies. Pots made in the original workshops will be housed in this space, to stand as a symbol that anyone can explore with clay.
The Clay Community and Race
I asked Orafidiya about the conversations around race and representation that have been taking place in the ceramics world and whether she thinks things are beginning to shift. She said there are times in ceramics spaces when nothing is outwardly racist, yet she feels uncomfortable. “Maybe it’s because I’m the only person of color there.” Orafidiya has navigated white spaces her entire life. She says she’s become a master at code-switching to the point where it’s become unconscious.
“White people can’t cultivate this change on their own,” she offered. Institutions have asked her why they can’t seem to get more Black and Brown students to enroll in their programs. She often asks in return, “How do you let people of color know it’s a safe space and that you support them?” Posting a black square on Instagram and using anti-racist terminology are not enough. Allyship needs to be backed up with action. “It’s been over a year since the murder of George Floyd and lots of organizations are still fumbling, asking the same questions they were a year ago. But have you made changes to your leadership and programming? Is diversity a part of your values, or are you just looking for the next performative trend to post on social media?”
Orafidiya says she’d prefer to work with organizations who are already choosing to do what’s right over what’s easy. “It’s challenging to have conversations about race. White people often center themselves in the conversation where it feels like a personal attack. This can make people defensive and intent on proving that they aren’t racist, which derails the conversation entirely. But we have to be able to talk openly about how we got here and how we can move forward.”
Awareness is a great thing, but it’s only the first step. Orafidiya invites those interested in seeing a true shift in the ceramics world to think about mentorship and providing financial support to those smaller organizations who are already doing the work. Studios owned and operated by people of color, like Pot Studio LA, People’s Pottery Project, Bronx Clay, and the one Orafidiya hopes to create, are popping up all around the country. “As a Black ceramic artist, do you spend your time trying to reform institutions who are still grappling with their complicated legacies? It may be easier and take less emotional energy to start your own space,” she says. Some are critical of such endeavors, suggesting that people of color will be further separated from the rest of the clay world, but Orafidiya doesn’t see it that way. She sees it instead as amplifying those who are building the places they wish had existed in the ceramics community. “We’re figuring out for ourselves how to create what’s been missing.”
To learn more about Yinka Orafidiya and Crafting Community, visit yinkaorafidiya.com and follow on Instagram @crafting.community. To contribute to Orafidiya’s community clay studio, visit her GoFundMe page at: gofundme.com/f/oya-studio. To learn more about the Oya Studio Museum, follow them on Instagram @theoyastudio.
the author Susan McHenry is a studio potter, writer, and educator based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She has an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College. To learn more, visit emptyvesselpottery.com or follow on Instagram @emptyvesselpottery.
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