Making a Difference: Social and Political Activism in Clay

Ann Agee

Hand-Warmers

Date:
2016-2018

Description:
Although the "Hand-Warmers" look like the subject is shoes, their function and reason-to-be is to comfort cold, hard-working hands. As the need shrinks for human beings around the world to make things with their hands, I see my hand-warmers as a conceptual force, hanging on to the eroding territory of the hand made world, however quiet this project may seem.

Roberto Lugo

New Slaves: The Cycle Continues (Della Robske series)

Medium & Materials:
White earthenware, slip, china paint, luster

Measurements:
35"x 35"x 5"

Date:
2017

Description:
I think about the cultures typically represented in various facets of historical artwork and am inspired to give a voice to under-represented minorities by revisiting these traditional techniques but proudly depicting faces that look like mine. Italian Della Robbia tiles from the 1400s are an important movement in the history of art. The stark white glaze on its sculpted figures presented in my mind as a blank canvas. In my work, I have reverently applied black skin, the skin of my ancestors. I also reference orange and black Greek pottery motifs alluding to the orange jumpsuits worn by so many black faces in the US prison system.

Sharif Bey

Gold Bird

Medium & Materials:
Earthenware, mixed media

Measurements:
28" x 28" x 4"

Date:
2018

Description:
My necklace-inspired wall sculptures are made in proximity to the body. In preparation for my earlier series I conducted research on non-western forms of adornment, and explored traditional notions of power and opulence, while questioning collective verse individual identities. I hope my current works will transcend bodies, body-types and social constructs such race, class, and gender. Previously I created works to elevate the status of black and brown bodies in particular. My current works are made for celestial bodies. I now endeavor to adorn bodies but consider notions of power beyond that which can be personified.

Russell Biles

Vote

Medium & Materials:
Slipcast porcelain, wood

Measurements:
15" x 70" x 15"

Date:
2018

Description:
I construct my work as though I am telling a story. Visually, everything matters and must be weighed. In VOTE, I'm not just saying "vote" I'm telling you why you should vote. I give multiple examples of the most powerful and evil dictators in the world that control billions of people that don't have the right to vote. Overstating has a residual effect if delivered in a palatable way.

Mark Burns

Old Queen

Medium & Materials:
Handbuilt and slipcast earthenware, china paint, luster

Measurements:
33 x 21 x 10"

Date:
1998

Description:
Surprisingly, there are many definitions of “difference”, according to Mirriam-Webster’s famous dictionary, such as “the quality or state of being dissimilar”, “the element or factor that separates or distinguishes contrasting situations”, or “a significant change in or effect on a situation”. Of these three, the third feels the most apropos to the artist/maker and what each individual artist brings to effect that significant change.

Syd Carpenter

Pearl Fryar

Medium & Materials:
Ceramic, iron

Measurements:
36 x 24 x 30

Date:
2017

Description:
The series of farm portraits titled More Places of Our Own calls attention to the legacy of African Americans who remained on farms in southern states through Jim Crow and the Great Migration. The history of African American farming and gardening is layered. The ensuing hardships of sharecropping and Jim Crow laws obstructed the ability of black farmers to accumulate land, sell their produce in the open market and prosper from their labor. These obstructions inhibited those who would have otherwise remained on the land from viewing it as a viable source of upward mobility.

Richard Notkin

The Consent of Silence - Hill Jar Series

Medium & Materials:
Stoneware, glaze

Measurements:
13 3/4" x 10" x 10"

Date:
2016

Description:
Global warming is quite real, and we must each take stock of our personal carbon footprint, and adjust our homes, businesses, and lifestyles to lesson our impact. The time in which change must occur is rapidly running out. There is a Kenyan saying, "Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children."

Mara Superior

Mother Nature Says Wake Up

Medium & Materials:
porcelain, underglazes, oxides, glaze, wood, paint, gold leaf, frame

Measurements:
16" x 24" x 2 1/2"

Date:
2008

Description:
In our time, gun violence is reported daily in the schools and on streets; climate change, floods and fires all devastate our country; and fake news, propaganda, disinformation, lies, name-calling, election manipulation, and anti-immigration are all touted by members of our government. This is all profoundly unsettling to the global world order, and artists are challenged to give voice to the unease that citizens must stomach.

Kukuli Velarde

San José y El Niño

Medium & Materials:
Low fire clay, underglazes, casein paint, white gold leaf

Measurements:
24" (height) x 20" (diameter)

Date:
2017

Description:
I am a Peruvian-American artist. My work, which revolves around the consequences of colonization in Latin American contemporary culture, is a visual investigation about aesthetics, cultural survival, and inheritance. I focus on Latin American history, particularly that of Perú, because it is the reality with which I am familiar. I do so, convinced that its complexity has universal characteristics and any conclusion can be understood beyond the frame of its uniqueness.

Rebekah Myers & Tim Berg

This way lies madness...

Medium & Materials:
Neon

Measurements:
22" x 22" x 3"

Date:
2017

Description:
Our work is multi-layered; seductive formal qualities, recognizable popular iconography and wry humor, operate together as a gateway to the deeper content. Through the repetition of forms, the use of vivid colors and strategic presentation we produce a sensory experience that is meant to mimic a conceptual aspect of the work. Reading the circular neon sign This way lies madness lies… the viewer, like King Lear who uttered a similar phrase, gets caught in the tautology of the statement. Whether the viewer continually reads the circular statement or only focuses on the empty space at its center they mimic Lear’s loss of control due to his incessant attention on only one concern.

Paula Winokur

Global Warnings

Description:
I started getting really focused on [global warming]. And with that piece [Global Warnings], it was actually making specific statements. Each one of them is like a little globe, and it has messages on it about what we’re doing—I don’t think you can read it on there—messages about what we’re doing to the environment… and what we should be doing. Not all of them have texts, but a lot of them do.

Ayumi Horie

Menbachi Bozu Ramen Bowl

Medium & Materials:
Porcelain, decals

Measurements:
3.5 x 7.75" x 7.75"

Date:
2018

Description:
Truth telling, allyship, and using the luck we were given have been the best ways for me to try and make positive social change. Anyone who says that politics don’t belong in the classroom or on social media ought to take a closer look at how our political system has failed to honor their full humanity. As makers in ceramics, we are the fortunate position to use the relational nature of pottery, our history as material culture, and daily function to create objects and experiences that chip away at our everyday fear to get through to our more compassionate and powerful selves.

Tim Berg & Rebekah Myers

Turn a Blind Eye

Medium & Materials:
Porcelain, wood

Measurements:
Various

Date:
2018

Description:
Half of the proceeds from sales of the canaries will go to the ACLU and half to The Clay Studio. Click through to purchase.

Syd Carpenter

Willie and Jelena Gray

Medium & Materials:
Earthenware, graphite

Measurements:
28x24x7in

Date:
2009

Roberto Lugo

Armed and Dangerous: WEB DuBoise

Medium & Materials:
White earthenware, china paint

Measurements:
20" diameter

Date:
2018