Ceramics Monthly Articles (Simple)

Elisabeth Kley creates installations and sculptural vessels as well as ink drawings and printed textiles with stark black-and-white patterns.

Information on submitting work for exhibitions, fairs, and festivals.

Brit McDaniel established Paper & Clay in 2013. The business grew and expanded, but eventually became challenging to sustain. Since deciding to sell, McDaniel has begun a new chapter in the Arkansas Ozarks.

With an intentional workflow and plenty of open shelving, Joe Singewald has carved out a studio space in his home that allows for proximity, productivity, and balance.

Working with clay carries a playful immediacy, where unexpected outcomes often spark new ideas. Clay brims with contradictions—fragile and fluid yet anchored in weighty permanence.

All of my work is made on the wheel or through the assembly of wheel-thrown components. This process has helped me to generate a visual vocabulary determined by very specific ways of manipulating material.

Collage is a great source of inspiration and I am particularly interested in the seam and rip capacity of clay. I will be incorporating painterly techniques as I move along with collage as a major pursuit.

I work at a living history museum as one of the village potters and that experience opened up a deeper connection to the history of the pottery that was produced near my home in the early days of the country.

In my practice, I question memory and recollection, art history, and functionality (both theoretical and practical). It is the union of these themes and topics that makes my work possible.

I use a variety of methodologies to develop my forms and surfaces. Currently, I have been looking through a book Parallel Botany by Leo Lionni, which is a fantastical world of fictional plants, and another book by Maria Barnas.

In my current portal series, I’ve been exploring windows and arches—things that we physically pass or look through. I borrow these architectural elements and conceptually frame them as portals or gateways to the past.

I feel that experimentation in one’s studio practice is rooted in their willingness to be vulnerable with the medium.

I’m interested in collective power. When you grow up feeling powerless, you’re taught to believe you have no say. But that’s a lie. Systems don’t change on their own—people force them to.

The inspiration behind my work comes from highly tactile processes—handcraft traditions like sewing, quilting, and knitting.

My research is multi-faceted, driven by my desire to capture moments of psychological realism. In addition to the study of anatomy, I’m fascinated by the brain-body connection, trauma responses, and the ways our bodies hold and tell stories.

Whether I am teaching in a classroom or talking with friends, I encourage everyone in my life to make something, no matter what it is or how good it turns out.

For me, working in clay is about shaping a narrative that reflects my identity as someone who is half Korean and half white.

I draw inspiration from various landscapes and how they evolve over time. When developing forms, I focus on volume and breath to convey growth, resulting in forms that appear to bloom from the table.

Having studied anthropology before pursuing ceramics, I have always admired the existing fragments of material culture from generations past, particularly metal cooking implements.

The nature of my work is chaotic and precarious. I can try to push against it, but it’s always more rewarding to see where it wants to take me.