I completed a road trip along the Eastern Coast(ish) from Georgia to Maine, visiting more than a dozen prominent ceramic arts and craft facilities. Criteria for the centers visited included:
- must offer community access
- must host an artist in residence program
- must not be (exculsively) a University program
In addition to geeking out on pottery and enjoying an extended solo road trip, I also conducted interviews with Senior Staff at each facility to learn more about things like the current environment in US ceramics, organisational and fundraising models, as well as details about the history and prospectus of the centres. In some cases, meeting were more social - such as in Brooklyn, where I simply shared a glass of wine and a chat before entering a pottery thrown down challenge!
The learnings from the trip have inspired a more in depth research project about a question I was asked frequently on the road in the US, "What's Happening in Australian Ceramics?", which will be published as a series of articles in the Journal of Australian Ceramics across 2025. Learn more about it here.