Artwork by Andrea Gill

"This vision can be explained by the extraordinary ways these artists have chosen to live their lives: 9 are studio ceramicists-they make their living from their work; 12 are university professors-continuing to explore their own work, and exhibit, as they influence younger artists. All have taught workshops in the best craft schools in the world, given papers at conferences on ceramics, written articles for books, and have therefore widened horizons for others. A number of them have generously trained apprentices who have assisted and learned from them in their studio practice for several years at a time (Granatelli, Polseno). One is the editor of The Studio Potter, a highly respected ceramic journal (Barringer); another owns TRAX Gallery, the respected ceramics gallery in San Francisco (Simon); another has been a visiting artist in Ile Ife, Nigeria, and worked with the female potters of the Volta Region of Ghana and in Ipetumodu, Nigeria. This artist/activist's works rail against female cutting in that region (Owens-Hart); one was one of Bernard Leach's last apprentices at his famed St. Ives Pottery and has sought to incorporate his beliefs and way of life in her practice today (Christiansen); another helped build the nationally prominent clay program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Kendall); four are discussed in the seminal publication Women Designers in the USA 1900 - 2000 (Shankin, Winokur, Owens-Hart, Sikora); two are receiving the prestigious 2012 American Craft Council Fellow Awards during the SOFA Chicago 2012 weekend (Gill and Currier); the younger sculptors are raising families as they contribute to their communities and satisfy their need to work in clay-as did their teachers and mentors before them. 

Artwork by Jan McKeachie Johnston

"If a person's commitment to a field is determined at some point in her life by SEEING how a life in her field is lived, then one of my curatorial criteria has been to feature women who are not only working artists but also mentors, teachers and influential examples to the young ceramic artists of the future. Many of these women were university students when their teachers told them to go home and have babies. They persevered, and the lives they have created are examples to younger women of what is possible if they choose to be ceramic artists.

Virginia Scotchie, Ellen Shankin, Linda Sikora, Sandy Simon, Susanne Stephenson, Jerilyn Virden, and Paula Colton Winokur.  

Artwork by Sandy Simon

Curator: Linda Hillman
Linda Hillman has a B.A. in Art and Art History, a M.S. in Visual Communication from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and a M.S. in Applied Linguistics from the Illinois Institute of Technology. She is an artist working in ceramics, following 35 years as an ESL teacher, teacher trainer, writer, and founding director of the English Language Academy at DePaul University, Chicago. She has published articles about noted potters in New Ceramics, Ceramics Monthly, and in Clay Times. Visit:  www.lindahillmanpottery.com.