November's Pots for Membership pots are now avaliable! It's the season for special meals with family and friends. Great handmade pots bring warmth and life to a table like nothing else can. Let one of these new pots join your celebrations this year - buy a pot for yourself, or for someone else! We're offering these in our online shop. In exchange for the sale of their work, the artists will receive a one year membership to Studio Potter Journal.
Claire Thibodeau is based in Sonoma, California, where she is a resident artist at the Sonoma Community Center. Originally from Amherst, Massachusetts, Thibodeau earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Alfred University in Upstate New York. Her current body of work is focused in wheel-thrown and cast vessels decorated with mishima and sgraffito techniques.
Thibodeau states that she strives to achieve a practice "where the labor of making is reflective - where the piece materializes the labor of the process, and its use embodies a historically grounded domestic or ritualistic tradition. She says, "Ceramic art carries with it a symbolic resonance, as objects of use become symbols of meaning." And that historic vessel forms "take on new life as they are rethought, remade and recreated through a medium that carries with it its own elements of significance." For Thibodeau, ceramics "creates a tangible and physical method of catching the moments of touch and gesture.”
Purchase Thibodeau's work in our online shop.
Visit Thibodeau's website.
Kathryn Schroeder is a studio potter working to instill contemplation, ingenuity, and joy in our everyday pots. She is currently a special student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and earned a BFA from NYSCC at Alfred University. Kathryn grew up in the heartland, valuing all things smartly made by hand.
She states, "Functional work draws me in with its social nature; people interacting with one another in the kitchen, around pots. Its accessibility offers an inlet for objects that provoke thought. The scale of these everyday objects is transcendent, bringing mindful presence to everyday activities. Making pots pushes back against some parts of our culture in a small, but meaningful ways daily. It encourages embracing a material culture wrought with little snippets of individual stories, in contrast to mass-produced objects that lack human touch."
Purchase Schroeder's work in our online shop.
Visit Schroeder's website.