Women Working with Clay Symposium

Osa Atoe is a Nigerian American studio potter living in Sarasota, FL who uses her work to honor nature and the heritage of African ceramics, and as tools to promote social and environmental justice. Her business, Pottery by Osa, grew out of her kitchen in New Orleans in 2015 and has since expanded to a full-sized studio. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology, and she’d been involved in activist groups for many years, but her passion was music. She played in various punk bands for 15 years, touring all over the US and Europe. Aside from music, she wrote a zine (turned book) about Black punks & outsider artists called Shotgun Seamstress. Atoe took her first pottery class at age 34. A few years later, she completed a year-long post-baccalaureate program for ceramics at Louisiana State University and has pursued various alternative learning opportunities since. She encourages others in their path to ceramics by leading Kaabo Clay, a community for Black potters.

Demonstration Description

I will be demonstrating the creation of my Earth Tone pots—wheel thrown, intricately carved pieces, decorated with a combination of glaze and terra sigillata made from both commercially available and wild foraged clays. I will show how I arrive at my voluminous wheel-thrown forms that are influenced by historical (often coil built) pots; how to plan and execute symmetrical and balanced geometric patterning; how to form functional and attractive handles and spouts; and how to create and apply refined decorating slips called terra sigillata. I will also bring clay samples and test tiles to show, as well as recipes to share.

Artist Statement

Osa Atoe is a Nigerian American studio potter using her work to honor the heritage of African continental and diasporic ceramicists who molded pots for sustenance, ritual, and community. Through her work, Atoe returns to mid-20th century Nigeria to build upon the concept of an African studio pottery movement. At Abuja Pottery, ancestral coil building and decorating techniques made famous by Ladi Kwali, combined with wheel throwing, glaze and firing technologies brought to Nigeria by Michael Cardew. Employing indigenous pottery techniques within a contemporary studio setting, Atoe’s work represents her belief that applying combinations of indigenous wisdom and global technology can restore balance and heal our social and environmental ills.

Given Atoe’s lack of exposure to any evidence linking Black people to ceramics within educational clay contexts, her work stands as the culmination of years of independent research and study. Through her focus on Black clay cultures, Atoe manages to find a universal language in clay—one that speaks across cultures. Her African- and nature-inspired pottery is a testament to our shared humanity. Atoe’s pottery creates points of connection that highlight our commonalities rather than our differences, a balm in our increasingly polarized society. She believes her pottery manifests as symbols of idealism, and provides a visual and tactile respite from violence, division, cynicism and injustice.

Andréa Keys Connell is an Associate Professor at Appalachian State University. Her work has been featured internationally in publications and exhibitions. Andréa also works on large-scale public art commissions. She was one of NCECA’s Demonstrating Artists during NCECA, Richmond, and she teaches clay workshops internationally at institutions including Penland, the MET, and most recently, out of her home studio.

Demonstration Description

Hollow building techniques are the primary methods I use for hand building my sculptures- pinch, slab, coil, repeat. These techniques allow me the opportunity to shape my forms from the inside out. This internal shaping is ripe with metaphors for how I talk about human experience and the body. During my demonstration, I will dive deep into my processes and how these techniques feed the content of my work. I will discuss necessary technical considerations for building large scale, with immediacy. I will also cover the basics of a good sculpture clay body, firing procedures, and much, much more.

Artist Statement

In 2021 I lost most of my artwork to a fire. This experience offered me the opportunity to find what I value most in my work. In sifting through the debris, I began to clearly see shards of pieces I knew I would miss and then, often, the opposite would follow. I would uncover a piece that felt ok to lose. 

The result of this is a body of work that better expresses my desire, love, and joy for making. I am fully leaning into my obsession with clay- its ability to hold memory and mark the imprint of time. I am creating sculptures that are inspired by my affection for family, landscape, color, and light- things that bring me joy- joy that is equally as complex as the material my sculptures are made from. Ceramics can speak to permanence and impermanence simultaneously. I embrace this tension by sculpting images of the moments, things, people, and feelings I wish to hold onto- with the knowledge that they, like most things, can be fleeting.

Shikha Joshi is a studio potter based in Round Rock, Texas. Born and raised in New Delhi, India, Joshi learned ceramics through community classes and workshops in the US. Her work has been featured at prominent galleries like Companion, Charlie Cummings Gallery and Clayakar. She has exhibited at the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts where her work is part of their permanent collection. Joshi has been published in Ceramic Monthly, Surface Design for Ceramics, and 500 Platters. She has taught numerous workshops nationally as well as online, sharing her passion for creating surface variation in an electric kiln.  

Demonstration Description

The focus of my clay journey has been an exploration in developing surface variation within the constraints on an electric kiln. Much of that surface development begins at the making stage. In my demonstration, I will be using both wheel throwing and hand building techniques to create rustic, organic forms that embody the essence of Wabi-Sabi: beauty in imperfection. Using slips, inclusions and sodium silicate, I will illustrate how I create a canvas that is conducive to surface variation in an oxidation environment.

Artist Statement

My creative process results from an interplay between form and function. I like to explore form, to create pots with strong shapes, with the underlying guiding factor being, achievement of good functionality. The rich earthy hues strongly appeal to the artist in me, which in turn dictate the choice of my clay and glazes.

I find myself being drawn to the Japanese aesthetic of “Wabi Sabi”. Loosely translated, it means beauty in imperfection. Consequently, the surfaces of my pots have slowly transitioned from intricately carved to being rustic, earthy and organic. I hope my pots echo the silent austere beauty and simplicity of the natural world and infuse the user with a feeling of meditative peace.

Colors and textures of rocks, tree bark, algae are some of the things that inspire me and I am constantly experimenting with slips, glazes, colorants and inclusions to recreate that look. The desire to emulate the rustic surface of wood fired ceramics within the constraints of an oxidation kiln continues to guide me on my evolutionary journey as a potter.

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Crystal Morey completed her BFA from the California College of the Arts in 2006, and received her MFA from San Jose State University in 2015. She has been an artist in residence at The LH Project, Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, and the Penland School of Craft. Her work has been shown in galleries and museums, including the Foundation Bernardaud in Limoges, France, the Frick Pittsburgh Museum and the Scripps College Ceramic Annual. Morey’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Monterey Museum of Art in Monterey, California, The Crocker Museum of Art in Sacramento, California, and Scripps College in Claremont, California. She lives and works in Oakland, California.

Demonstration Description

I will demonstrate my hand-building techniques for creating expressive mid-sized human-animal figures in porcelain. I’ll guide you through my process, including how I prepare porcelain for construction, build figures in components, and control the moisture levels to ensure strength and durability. I will also highlight the tools I use, as well as methods for adding intricate surface details and finishes.

I’ll showcase how I create hollow forms, layering both additive and reductive details to achieve a dynamic sense of movement and emotion. In addition, I’ll discuss the development of my techniques, covering key concepts such as proportion, anatomy, and gesture. You’ll also gain insight into the crucial role of water content in porcelain, as well as the subtle details that give my work its expressive power.

Artist Statement

Our overuse of resources has destroyed our planet’s natural balance. The skies churn, rivers flood, oceans rise, and forests burn. The world is a changed place, and the most vulnerable feel the effects first.

Crystal Morey’s human-animal-plant hybrids are an imagined antidote, like seeds awakened by wildfire that embody adaptations to these disastrous circumstances. They defy science, giving us a hopeful second chance. They plant the precious seeds they carry with them, beginning a journey back to a sustainable, flourishing environment. Yet their fragility and delicacy is a reminder of the struggle of fringe and endangered species that is a consequence of the apocalypse that has been created by rapid industrialization.

Through these hybrids, Morey addresses issues like ocean acidification and habitat consumption while drawing attention to nature’s beauty, adaptability, and interconnection. By suggesting that they could change what feels like an inevitable trajectory, she creates empathy for the most vulnerable, allowing us to hope that it isn’t too late.

Keynote Speaker

Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy is New York-based curator and writer, advocating for underrepresented communities, stories, materials, and approaches in the art world. She has curated and juried exhibitions across the United States, including at the Crocker Art Museum, CA; Mindy Solomon Gallery, FL; Center for Craft, NC; albertz benda, LA; and the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), NY, where in 2023 she presented her critically acclaimed exhibition Funk You Too! Humor and Irreverence in Ceramic Sculpture, contextualizing contemporary ceramics within the legacy of Funk ceramics and their makers. She recently co-curated R & Company’s design triennial, Objects: USA 2024, featuring work by 55 artists and designers. She is the Director of the New York City Department of Transportation Art program helping to bring public art installations to all five boroughs.  She formerly served as Assistant Curator at MAD, where she helped organize over twenty projects, including leading the Burke Prize, a prestigious contemporary craft award. She was also a 2020 Curatorial Fellow at the Center for Craft. 

Vizcarrondo-Laboy has written for many exhibition and collections catalogs, including the upcoming Shinichi Sawada: Agents of Clay, and publications like Cultured, American Craft, and the Journal of Modern Craft. Her new book, New Women’s Work, with Smith Street Books, reflecting on the relationship between “feminine” crafts and contemporary art through conversations with artists, launches October 1, 2024. She co-created and co-hosts the podcast Clay in Color, celebrating some of the brightest emerging and established voices working with clay.She holds a BA in art history from the University of Florida and an MA in Decorative Arts, Design History, & Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center, NY.