Artist Bio:
Shirley Johnson (b. 1928 - 2010) received her MA in English from the University of Wisconsin. She taught and shared studios in Vermont and Minnesota, and she worked at Mackenzie pottery from 1973 to 1982. She was on the faculty at the Northern Clay Center when it opened in 1990. Johnson made functional work from stoneware and porcelain. “I make pots for use–bowls for soup or cereal, cups for tea or wine–all meant as much for the hand as for the eye. I am interested in the way a pot, hand held, seen close up, reveals itself: the rhythms of its making, the character of clay and glazes, the marks of fire as well as those subtle modulations of form that give a pot both its emotional content and its fitness for use.”
