Eight McKnight Artists NORTHERN CLAY CENTER
JUNE 20 - AUGUST 9, 2026
Eight McKnight Artists NORTHERN CLAY CENTER McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Arts Elizabeth Coleman Peter Jadoonath McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Arts Birdie Boone Uriel H. Caspi Suze Lindsay Sana Musasama Dorothea Nold KyoungHwa Oh
Essays by Kasey Payette
JUNE 20 - AUGUST 9, 2026
©2026 Northern Clay Center. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, write to: Northern Clay Center 2424 Franklin Avenue East Minneapolis, MN 55406 www.northernclaycenter.org Manufactured in the United States First edition, 2026 International Standard Book Number 978-1-932706-74-7 Unless otherwise noted, all dimensions in inches: height precedes width precedes depth.
EIGHT McKNIGHT ARTISTS
McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program Founded on the belief that Minnesota thrives when its artists and culture bearers thrive, the McKnight Foundation’s arts and culture program is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country. Support for individual working Minnesota artists and culture bearers has been a cornerstone of the program since it began in 1982. The McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program provides annual, unrestricted cash awards to outstanding mid-career Minnesota artists in 15 different creative disciplines. Program partner organizations administer the fellowships and structure them to respond to the unique challenges of different disciplines. Currently, the foundation contributes about $2.8 million per year to its statewide fellowships. For more information, visit mcknight.org/artistfellowships.
Northern Clay Center is honored to partner with the McKnight Foundation to administer the McKnight Fellowships for Ceramic Artists.
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Northern Clay Center’s McKnight Fellowship and Residency Program Northern Clay Center is proud to present the exhibition celebrating the culmination of the 2024-2025 artist cohort with Eight McKnight Artists. The McKnight Fellowship and Residency for Ceramic Artists program recognizes and supports mid-career ceramic artists whose work demonstrates exceptional artistic merit and who have proven their abilities within the field. The awardees used the grants to defray studio, travel, and research expenses; experiment with new materials and techniques; and build upon ideas within their current and past work. The McKnight Fellowship for Ceramic Arts and the exhibition featuring their works are made possible by generous financial support from the McKnight Foundation. Three individuals comprised the selection panel for the Fellowship and Residency adjudication: Tom Bartel, Sara Morris, and Amy Santoferraro.
Tom Bartel is a ceramic sculptor who maintains a studio in Athens, Ohio, where he serves as Professor and Ceramics Chairperson at Ohio University. His artworks are constructed to refer to both the body and charged, stylized, surrogates for the body, such as dolls, toys, and figurines. At the core of his work is the human condition, which is used to investigate the concepts of disguise, identity, fertility, and mortality, among others. Bartel’s work has been exhibited extensively, most recently in the solo exhibitions, Mid-Career Survey Exhibition: Figures from Earth, Holter Museum of Art, Helena, MT (2024), and Figure as Memento, The Massillon Museum of Art, OH (2025). His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, in over 400 exhibitions, including more than 40 Solo Exhibitions. A dedicated educator and active voice in the contemporary ceramics community, Bartel frequently lectures, conducts workshops, and participates in panel discussions across the United States and abroad. His sculptural work is included in numerous public and private permanent collections, reflecting decades-long commitment to pushing the boundaries of contemporary figurative ceramics.
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Sara Morris is an art historian and curator specializing in historic and contemporary ceramics, craft, and decorative arts. In 2024, she was appointed the Ruth Rippon Curator of Ceramics at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California, where her work focuses on researching and expanding the permanent collection, organizing exhibitions, and publishing scholarly work centered on West Coast regional craft. Morris holds a B.A. and M.A. in Art History from San Jose State University and is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a doctoral emphasis in Feminist Studies. Her dissertation, “Clay Bodies: Figurative Ceramics and the Crafting of Identity in Postwar Sculpture,” explores mid-to-late 20th-century American figurative ceramics, examining how West Coast women artists utilized the medium to render their communities visible while pushing past traditional craft boundaries. Her academic and curatorial work is deeply informed by a feminist lens, focusing on how power, identity, and community shape material culture traditions. Prior to her role at the Crocker, Morris built extensive experience with major national institutions, including curatorial positions and research fellowships at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Getty Research Institute. She is the recipient of several prestigious grants, including the NCECA Helen Zucker Seeman Fellowship for Women. Her notable projects at the Crocker include the co-curated exhibition Making Moves, showcasing recent acquisitions by womenidentifying artists, as well as upcoming retrospectives celebrating influential California art movements and diverse regional histories.
Amy Santoferraro, born in Akron, Ohio, is an artist and educator who is currently the Lead Ceramics Instructor at California State University, Los Angeles. She earned her B.A.E. in Art Education and her B.F.A. in Ceramics from The Ohio State University, where she was an apprentice and Undergraduate Research Scholar. She received her M.F.A. in Ceramic Art from The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Santoferraro’s career includes extensive residency work and organizational involvement across the United States. She has been a Summer Resident and Studio Manager at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine, where she previously served on the advisory board. Additionally, she was a Resident Artist at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and spent four years as a Resident Artist at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is also the recipient of a McKnight Residency grant for Ceramic Artists, awarded in partnership with the McKnight Foundation and Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In higher education, Santoferraro previously served as the Ceramics Area Coordinator and an Assistant Professor of Art at Kansas State University. In Portland, Oregon, she was the Spring 2017 Visiting Instructor in Residence at the Oregon College of Arts and Craft and the Program Manager for the joint MFA in Applied Craft and Design program between OCAC and PNCA. She also served as the Joan and David Lincoln Visiting Professor at Scripps College and Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California.
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2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists
Birdie Boone “I’m a conceptual maker, no matter that I make pots,” says Birdie Boone, a ceramic artist and educator based in Meadowview, Virginia. Across her career, much of her work has engaged with social tendencies, personal identity, and the domestic realm, often expressed through assemblages of tableware. Since the first time she touched clay at the age of six in a San Francisco community center, she’s been smitten with the medium. She received her BA in Fine Arts from the College of William and Mary and her MFA in Artisanry/Ceramics from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She has been an artist-inresidence at numerous organizations, including The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China; West Virginia University in Morgantown; Starworks Ceramics in Star, North Carolina; and the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. She traces the origin of her current body of work to the COVID-19 pandemic, a time of isolation and disorientation that brought about what she describes as a “mid-life crisis.” “I’d been making a body of work for twenty years, and suddenly I didn’t want to make it anymore,” she says. This sense of disruption intensified in 2023 after the death of Marlene Jack, who had been her art professor at the College of William and Mary, and who she sees as a major influence and mentor. Jack, who studied ceramics with Warren MacKenzie at the University of Minnesota in the 1970s, was a part of the “Mingei-sota” community. Inspired by the Japanese philosophy of mingei (art of the people), the movement emphasizes functional, handmade, accessible tableware—an idea that remained integral to Jack’s work throughout her life. After Jack died, Boone volunteered to go through her ceramics collection, and was surprised by the pieces she found herself most drawn to. “They were outside my usual aesthetic, but I kept picking them up,” she says. “It turns out they were all by Warren MacKenzie.” Though Boone had
been making Mingei-inspired work for a long time, she hadn’t really tapped into her artistic connection to MacKenzie, or to Minnesota. Part of her motivation for applying for the McKnight Residency for Ceramic Artists at the Northern Clay Center was a desire to connect to this lineage. She even used a portion of her residency stipend to visit the St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour and buy pieces from exceptional Mingei-sotainspired potters to donate to a collection in Jack’s name. Faced with mortality, interconnectedness, and the passage of time, Boone was compelled to shake up her own ceramics practice. Thinking about her studio time at Northern Clay Center, she says, “My ambition got a lot bigger. I jumped off a cliff for three months.” She changed parts of her process, moving from primarily slab-built vessels to an emphasis on pressmolding. She likes the way the press-mold process plays with the progression of time. The shape of a mold is the reverse of the original form, the prototype. Then, the clay pressed into the mold is the reverse of the reverse, a return to the shape of the original. Forward is backward; backward is forward. She also started incorporating more reclaimed clay and other previously used materials, including bits of Chinese saggar grog, which she brought back from her time in China. The material is “charged with bits and pieces of Chinese ceramic history from who knows how far back. There are pieces of brick and old pots, even glass and other melty bits,” she says. “These previously used materials bring the past with them forward into the present and future.” In her new body of work, she endeavors to tap into the collective and make connections across time. “I want inclusivity, not exclusivity,” she says. “I’m looking at archetypal forms. My aim is not to make pots that are unique. My aim is to make pots that are timeless.”
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Moon Jar No. 1: Mischief Moon, from the Temporal Series, 2025, Press-molded midrange dark stoneware, crackle slip, translucent glaze, electric kiln, 9” x 7.5” x 7.5”
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2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists
Uriel H. Caspi Uriel Caspi’s artistic practice revolves around the interplay between ancient craft and studio art. In the past decade, his focus has been large, sculptural ceramic work referencing ancient forms. “A lot of my sculptures are based on pots. They emerge from the pot,” he says. “Part of my practice is researching traditional techniques from the Mediterranean and applying them in a contemporary way, often as sculptures.” Caspi, who describes himself as a “nomadic artist,” was born in Haifa, Israel. He earned his BFA from Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem and his MFA from Alfred University in New York. His exhibitions, residencies, and fellowships have taken him all over the world. He is drawn to the relationship between vessels and the corporeal, and his work often evokes the human body through a futuristic lens, exploring the boundary between human, machine, and nature. He has spent more than twelve years developing in-depth knowledge about luster glazes, which originated in the Middle Ages from alchemist’s attempts to produce gold from other metals. He describes the effect of luster glaze in his work as “an ancient technique that nonetheless lends a futuristic perspective.” In his recent sculpture series Corpus Archetypus, shapes resembling human organs are finished with a highshine, iridescent, Arabian luster glaze formulated from precious earth metals. He has shown this work in several exhibitions and art fairs, and has found that people have been simultaneously “amazed and repelled,” a paradox which fascinates him. “Organs are within our bodies, as close as can be, yet when represented as sculpture, they become uncanny,” he says. The subject of human organs holds deep personal resonance for Caspi, whose mother died when he was young. She donated her organs, and they
saved the lives of three people. He developed his organ concept further during his McKnight residency at Northern Clay Center. Intrigued by the idea of merging other organic forms with his organ pieces, he found himself drawn to the shapes of seashells. “Organs met the idea of shells. They became hybrid objects,” he says. Beyond their elegance and symmetry, he’s interested in shells as a universal symbol for home. “I’ve immersed myself in many different languages, many different cultures, and I’ve been moving around for a long time without a stable home,” he says. “I wonder what it would be like to have my own shell, my own shelter?” His McKnight residency was bookended by major exhibitions. In early 2025, he exhibited his Corpus Archetypus work at Ceramic Brussels—the first international art fair devoted solely to ceramics—and at Collect Art Fair in London. After the residency, in December 2025, his work was featured in a solo exhibition at the New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum in Taiwan. He wanted to give special attention to the work’s immediate visual impact and ensure it would translate well across cultures, drawing a link between Jewish and Taiwanese histories. The residency, which “provided time to focus without the distraction of exhibitions,” gave him the space to thoughtfully develop his ideas for the show in Taiwan, Shell-ter, which is conceptually linked to the work appearing in the McKnight exhibition. The sense of experimentation and play he was able to access at Northern Clay Center contributed to an especially timely and emotionally direct body of work. “In this time of rising global conflict, violence, and instability, the need for safety and resilience feels increasingly urgent,” he says.
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Hydrobody I, 2025, stoneware, engobe, Arabian luster glaze, reduction firing, 46.5” x 15” x 13”
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2025 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists
Elizabeth Coleman Elizabeth Coleman was a graduate student in Literature when she decided to switch to clay. “I’m interested in storytelling, how to tell a story without words,” she says. This narrative impulse is palpable in her ceramic work, where memory, myth, fairytale, and pop culture collide. She describes her work as “biomythography,” a term coined by writer and activist Audre Lorde for personal stories told through the stories of others. After earning her MA in English and American Literature from the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign, she returned for a BFA in Ceramics and Glass, and later earned her MFA in Ceramics from Ohio State University, Columbus. Now based in Minneapolis, she has been awarded grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, a Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grant, and now a McKnight Fellowship for Ceramic Artists. Her work has been exhibited at venues across the country. For much of her art career, she has focused on architectural ceramics: walls, floors, tiles, and doors. In the last decade, translucent porcelain has become central to her work. She started working with translucent porcelain during a residency at the International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemét, Hungary, an experience she says was formative for her practice. Since then, she has embarked on extensive materials research, looking for a domestic source of translucent porcelain that rivals the clay from Hungary. This journey is ongoing. “Whenever I find a porcelain that’s white enough, it isn’t translucent enough,” she says. When she hasn’t had access to Hungarian porcelain, she uses New Zealand porcelain instead. In recent
works, she has combined translucent porcelain and glass to create illuminated panels and windows, as well as three-dimensional structures. “I’m from a small farming town. My work often references the house or the barn,” she says. In addition to the architecture of her childhood, she incorporates elements of “workingclass kitsch” and cultural symbols of femininity like flowers and dolls, which she complicates and subverts by placing them in unfamiliar contexts. Coleman, who teaches at Northern Clay Center, typically works on her art by squeezing in studio time between classes. “I work here and there, an hour or two in the studio at a time,” she says. The McKnight Fellowship allowed her to take time off from teaching and spend more time in the studio, challenging herself to create ambitious, technically complicated work. For her piece “Flower Doll,” she created a large slipcast mold, almost the size of a human head, a project she says would have been difficult to squeeze into her busy teaching days. She also experimented with new materials, creating ceramics-centric mixed-media works like “My Mom Was a Most Excellent Nurse,” which incorporates glass, wax, and paper alongside illuminated porcelain all framed within a found wooden drawer. This layering of the familiar and the unfamiliar, the canny and uncanny, creates tension and energy in her work. “It can look familiar and pretty, but there’s another layer to it that’s maybe less pretty,” she says. “I like to start with things that appear common at first, and then do something that suggests more to the story.”
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My Mom Was a Most Excellent Nurse, 2025, Porcelain, paper, wax, light, vintage drawer, 16.5” x 9.5” x 4”
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2025 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists
Peter Jadoonath Peter Jadoonath, a studio potter based in Shafer, Minnesota, says he “stumbled into pottery by accident.” He went to Bemidji State University intending to major in graphic design and took an interest in becoming an animator. “The key to being an animator is learning to draw anything in ten seconds,” he says. To develop speedy drawing skills, he wanted to take figure drawing, but found the class was only available to students pursuing an art major or minor. He added an art minor and ended up in 3D classes, including ceramics. “Soon, I wasn’t doing anything but clay,” he says. “It was like some primordial thing took over.” In 1998, he graduated from Bemidji State with a BFA in Ceramics and Painting. Since, he has been the recipient of a Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grant, the Red Wing Collectors Society Foundation Award, a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, and now the McKnight Fellowship for Ceramic Artists. He considers his art practice to be a matter of straightforward hard work and devotion. “If you want to be a plumber, do what plumbers do. If you want to be a mechanic, do what mechanics do. I wanted to be an artist, so I did my best to do what artists do. I made business cards. I applied to shows. I started doing it.” He has worked from clay studios in St. Paul, one in Lowertown and one in the basement of his home. These days, he lives with his family in Shafer, where he’s been putting on backyard pottery sales since 2010 and is now a host of the annual St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour. In Shafer, he works from the back half of his pole-barn garage, which he converted into a studio outfitted with a soda kiln, electric kiln, and clay mixer. He estimates about a third of his pots are wheel-thrown and the other two-thirds are handbuilt
using a combination of slab, pinch, and coil methods. When he first set up the studio, he says he’d become so accustomed to working in a basement that all the light felt unnatural. He took down the overhead lights, installed clamp lighting, and painted the walls dark. In addition to being particular about studio lighting, he has specific taste in listening material. While working, he likes to listen to audiobooks of mystery novels, as well as dub music (an electronic genre that grew from the reggae tradition) and the late-80s English rock band The Stone Roses. In recent years, Jadoonath says his work has become more personal. “When I was younger, I didn’t have as many stories to tell,” he says. He looks to the COVID-19 pandemic as a turning point. During the lockdowns, he asked himself, “Am I even going to live through this? If this is the end, am I happy with how my art career went?” He started to challenge himself in new ways and push his artistic ambitions. While he’s always been driven to create “pots that are stories and stories that are pots,” the narratives of his pots have become increasingly complex, blending humor, pop culture, music, fantasy, myth, and daily life. “The McKnight Fellowship changed everything for me,” he says. One of his main goals during the fellowship period was to “dive deep into the science of comic books.” He spent a good chunk of his grant year taking classes through the Sequential Artist Workshop, a nonprofit comics school based in Gainesville, Florida. He wanted to start with the art of making comic books and let the clay forms follow from there. He developed an interactive comic book made of ten to fifteen separate pieces, using both paper and clay, all based on the principle of comic books as objects. “It was a total rebirth of my art-making practice,” he says.
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Songbird Vase, 2025, Groggy red clay, painted with underglaze and glaze, fired to cone 3 electric, 21” x 12” x 9.5”
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2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists
Suze Lindsay “Function is the springboard for everything I’ve done,” says Suze Lindsay, who has been making a living as a studio potter for the past 30 years. Over the course of her career, she has focused on creating expressive pots for daily use. She incorporates handbuilt elements and surface decoration—patterning and painting with slips and glazes before salt firing—to imbue each piece with a distinct personality. “I’m curious about forms that reflect human qualities, like open or jolly or giving,” she says. Before claiming pottery as her life’s work, she first pursued it as a hobby, taking classes one day a week while teaching in the New Orleans public school system, then attending a summer workshop at the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina. She later applied for and was accepted into the Penland Core Fellowship Program (1987–1989) before earning her MFA from Louisiana State University. She further developed her studio practice as an artist in residence at Penland from 1993–1996. In 1991, she met Kent McLaughlin, a fellow potter who would become her beloved partner in life and art. The pair built a home and studio less than 20 miles from Penland, together founding Fork Mountain Pottery in 1996. The past six years of Lindsay’s life and work have been marked by rupture. In 2021, McLaughlin died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Faced with enormous loss and grief, Lindsay forged ahead, continuing her studio practice and keeping the pottery running on her own. Then, in 2024, Hurricane Helene swept through Western North Carolina, damaging buildings on the property of Fork Mountain Pottery
and devastating the surrounding landscapes and communities. “Fork Mountain Pottery is located within a national forest where fifty percent of the trees were lost,” says Lindsay. The hurricane affected every aspect of her ceramics practice, down to the clay body she used. Highwater Clay, the distributor where she purchased her stoneware, washed away in the hurricane. “For many artists, suffering can fuel their work,” she says. “I’d never really expressed myself in that way because of the parameters of function.” The 2025 McKnight Residency for Ceramic Artists presented her with an opportunity to try something new: exploring her experiences of loss and change through clay. “I got off the potter’s wheel and moved to the tabletop, using a new clay body that was heavily grogged.” She started deconstructing dinnerware, forming plates in their usual shapes of round and square, then taking a knife to them. She removed and added clay, creating doors and windows. Her work became more sculptural and larger in scale, meant for display on the wall. She pounded and tore and ripped the clay. She incorporated Nichrome wire and left parts poking out. Some of the forms are based on the barns and buildings on her property that were damaged by the hurricane. “My goal was to develop a canvas, concentrating on experiences of loss, with the clay itself having the rough and rocky texture of a heavily raked surface suggesting the rawness of our interior spaces,” she says. “I wasn’t trying to make something beautiful. I was trying to make something emotive.”
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Endoskeleton into Landscape, 2025, Woodfired stoneware, cone 10, 19” x 14” x 4”
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2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists
Sana Musasama Sana Musasama’s handbuilt sculptures have a raw, emotive quality, contending with self and body, history and violence. Her art practice is connected to her international travels, historical research, and commitment to human rights, especially concerning the safety of women and girls. Born and raised in New York City, she first came to clay in the 1970s as an anthropology student at City College. Every day, she passed the ceramics studio on her way to class and was intrigued by what she observed. She remembers “the smell of clay, dirt on everyone’s hands, people talking about the Vietnam war, and dominant women talking about feminism and burning their bras.” “I wasn’t having those conversations in my anthropology classes,” she says. “I thought to myself, this is the real anthropology.” The ceramics professor noticed her interest and encouraged her to sign up for a class. As soon as she got her hands on clay, she felt intuitively connected to it. “My heart started to beat really loud,” she says. “The clay was responsive to my touch. It spoke to me in a language without words.” She embarked on independent materials research, checking out books from the library and studying the role of clay in cultures around the world. Instead of applying to graduate programs, she decided to travel, starting with Sierra Leone in West Africa, where she studied pottery with the Mende people. After years of global research, she earned her MFA in Ceramics from Alfred State College in New York. Over the past 40 years, her sculptures have been exhibited in venues across the United States and abroad. She is known for works such as her Maple Tree Series, sculptures based on the abolitionist history of using maple syrup as a sweetener to protest slave labor on sugar cane plantations, and her Unspeakable Series, which engages with female circumcision practices in Sierra Leone. In 2007, she traveled to Cambodia, where she has returned every year since (with the exception of two years during the pandemic). There, she makes art with survivors of sex trafficking, a volunteer practice that has grown into The Apron
Project, which provides sustainable income to girls and women who have escaped from sex trafficking and are reintegrating into society. Musasama recently retired from 23 years of adjunct teaching, working six different jobs, six days a week to make ends meet. Since retiring, she has returned to a travel-centered life, going back to many of the residencies she attended 40 years ago at the beginning of her ceramics career. “After I retired, I said to myself, you’re seventy-something years old. If you don’t follow the beat of your heart now, when will you?” It’s exhausting, she admits, to travel so much in her 70s, but she’s driven to keep making and learning, and feels she still has much to prove. As a child in the 1960s, she was enrolled in an elementary school where she was the only Black student in her classroom. There, she persevered in the face of hate and exclusion. Since early childhood, she’s learned to move through the world with sheer determination, fighting to get what she wants. Lately, she’s returned to her House Series, a group of human-scale terracotta sculptures she began after her mother’s death and worked on for ten years, including through the isolation of the pandemic. “These sculptures were my way of rebuilding myself,” she says. During the McKnight Residency for Ceramic Artists, she focused her studio time on the House Series. And, as is her way, she immersed herself in the local community. “I found my heartbeat there,” she says of the Northern Clay Center. She also became a regular at the Seward neighborhood’s Somali cafés, and volunteered at Nawayee Center School, an alternative school for American Indian youth in the Phillips neighborhood. “I learned everything about Indigenous culture that I’d never learned in books,” she says. As an African American, she felt some comfort and companionship in the recognition of shared, connected trauma. “I felt my shoulders relax,” she says. In her return to a life of travel, prioritizing her studio work, and revisiting her House Series, she’s rebuilding herself again.
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House Series 1, 2025, Ceramic, 12”H x 13” x 3”
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2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists
Dorothea Nold Dorothea (Doro) Nold is a sculptor who works mainly in ceramics. Currently based in Berlin, she has traveled the world through her art practice, and the ideas behind many of her sculptures and installations have emerged from these travels. Born in Southern Germany near the border of France and Switzerland, she went to art school at the Beaux-Arts de Paris (formerly the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts), and is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg (Hochschule für Bildende Künste, or HFKB). Her work has been exhibited internationally, and she has been awarded residencies in China, Mali, Armenia, Switzerland, and elsewhere. Her travel bug predates her arts career. As soon as she graduated from college in Germany, she bought what she describes as an “old wagon,” and made plans to drive it to India. Though the journey didn’t quite go according to plan—she made it as far as Iran, and eventually to India but without the car—the year she spent on the road left an impression on her. Acknowledging her wandering spirit, her boyfriend at the time suggested that she study art. “I didn’t come from an artistic family, but he helped convince me that art is a real profession,” she says. Her sculptures, which resemble delicate buildings, have an alive, creaturely quality. In many, there’s a sense of movement, a tenuous wobble, as if they’re about to fall over. “I’m very interested in architecture and the way architecture affects us as humans,” she says. In a variety of cultural contexts, she has observed the relationships between people and their built environments. Her work considers
connections between bodies and architecture, and the body as architecture. In 2008, she experienced a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in China, an event that changed her work forever. Since, she has consciously incorporated elements of instability in her work, especially in the form of materials whose properties contradict their use. When making her sculptures, she starts with a drawing, then translates 2D to 3D. She sculpts clay using only her hands and sometimes a small knife. “It’s an adventure for me!” she says. “There’s always some element of risk and surprise. Clay doesn’t always want to cooperate with what I impose on it.” She appreciates the unexpectedness of working with clay. It’s part of why she gravitates toward ceramics as her primary medium. “Clay is not so much an object as a dialogue. Clay has character. It has so much will of its own.” Thinking about ways her work has changed and developed over time, she says the evolution is “not circular, but cyclical.” “I’m always gathering new material, but always returning to the same ideas,” she says. It’s not surprising, then, that the architecture of Minneapolis was one of her main sources of inspiration during her McKnight residency at Northern Clay Center. “I loved being in Minneapolis. It’s such a particular place,” she says. She became fascinated by the city’s industrial heritage, and the shapes of its historic mills and factories made their way into her work. “The city itself is a sculpture!” she says. She describes her work appearing in the McKnight exhibition as “my translation of my observations of the shapes of the city.”
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You Never Know, 2025, Ceramic, engobe, gas fired, 62.25” x 15.25” x 12”
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2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists
KyoungHwa Oh KyoungHwa Oh is always returning to water. Her intricately carved porcelain pieces—both functional and sculptural—are often based on floral and botanical shapes, with water as the unifying element. “Water can represent a range of emotions, from peacefulness to anger,” she says. Her porcelain forms flow, drip, eddy, bulge, spatter, splash, and spiral. Oh grew up in Seoul, South Korea, where she studied and worked in fashion design before moving to the United States. Though she wanted to go to New York or some other major fashion city, she made a compromise with her mother and ended up in Topeka, Kansas. There, she attended Washburn University, where she took classes in a variety of fine arts mediums, including ceramics. “I felt so at home in the ceramics studio,” she remembers. “I fell in love with clay, and I never looked back.” She graduated from Washburn with a BFA in ceramics and later earned her MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Since, she has moved around the country, living in Illinois, Upstate New York, Texas, and now Colorado, where she teaches ceramics at Colorado Mesa University. “When I am homesick, I go to nature, to a nearby lake,” she says. But part of her fascination with water is the mixed emotions it stirs in her. “I’m also afraid of water. I can’t swim.” Tensions and dualities—physical, emotional, and cultural—show up repeatedly in her work. One of these dynamic tensions is the interplay between her Korean
and American identities. She grew up around Korean ceramics—her parents had a nice Korean celadon dinnerware set, characterized by Jade glaze and intricate craftsmanship—which influenced the focus on porcelain and celadon in her work. She characterizes Korean culture as “conservative, calm, and quiet,” and American culture as “open and wild,” similar to water’s varying modes. In her work, she starts with orderly, mostly wheel-thrown, forms. Then, she adds wild expressiveness through carving, cutting, and adding. During her McKnight residency at Northern Clay Center, she prioritized testing new techniques, rapidly creating new work to test as many ideas as possible. “As a teacher, I’m always fighting for time, but I was on sabbatical during this residency and worked in the studio from 9 am to 9 pm, twelve hours straight, every day.” While in residence, she created lots of functional pieces, some of which were included in the American Pottery Tour, as well as larger, sculptural work. “Creating lots of smaller pieces allowed me to test more things,” she says. She experimented with different ways of painting on porcelain, including painting with underglazes, and finding new ways to make carving and painting work together in a form. She added bold pops of color, heightening the drama of her work, and tried different glazes and patterns to push the possibilities of the shapes water can take. “Water is the change in nature,” she says. “I want to evoke the movement of water.”
EIGHT McKNIGHT ARTISTS
Influenced_Blue, 2024, Porcelain, wheel-thrown and hand-carved, celadon, cone 10 reduction-fired, Left: 10.5” x 10.5” x 2.5” | Right: 8.5” x 8.5” x 2.25”
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2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists
Birdie Boone (American, b. 1971, Bluefield, West Virginia) Lives and works in Meadowview, Virginia
EDUCATION 2005 MFA in Artisanry, Ceramics, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth • 1994 AB in Fine Arts, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia
NCECA sponsored exhibition, Art League Houston, Texas • 2010 Soft, NCECA Sponsored Exhibition, University Gallery at St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Faculty Biennial, The 1912 Gallery at Emory & Henry College, Virginia
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2025 Utilitarian Clay VII Symposium Presenters Exhibition: Celebrate the Object, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee • 2024 Teapots X, Baltimore Clayworks, Maryland • 2020 Re-presentations (coorganizer), NCECA sponsored exhibition, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, Virginia • 2018 Floating Islands: Ceramic Ikebana Vessels, District Clay Gallery, Washington, D.C. • Critical Function, NCECA sponsored exhibition, FrameHouse & Jask Gallery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • 2016 In the Between, Arch Contemporary Ceramics, Tiverton, Rhode Island • 2014 Sink, Carbondale Clay Center, Colorado • 2012 reDomestication, William King Museum of Art, Abingdon, Virginia • 2009 Dis(h)function, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, Montana • 2005 Familiarity is Everything…and the Kitchen Sink, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, New Bedford
SELECTED AWARDS 2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2022 The Studio Potter Magazine Grants for Apprenticeships Award, Meadowview, Virginia • 2008 Lincoln Fellow, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, Montana
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2022 Plant CraA-Zed, Red Lodge Clay Center, Montana • 2021 Table Companions, Trax Gallery, Berkeley, California • Pearl: 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2015 Staff Meeting, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, NCECA sponsored exhibition, New Bedford Art Museum, Massachusetts • 2014 Table of Contents, Trax Gallery, Berkeley, California • 50 from 6: Contemporary Ceramic Art from Six Rocky Mountain States, Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery at Southern Utah University, Cedar City • 2013 Connections and Directions: UMassDartmouth Ceramics Graduates Pushing Boundaries in Contemporary Ceramics,
GALLERY REPRESENTATION The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • Red Lodge Clay Center, Montana • Trax Gallery, Berkeley, California SELECTED COLLECTIONS College of William & Mary President’s Permanent Collection, Williamsburg, Virginia • Archie Bray Foundation Permanent Collection, Helena, Montana • San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts Contemporary American Ceramics Permanent Collection, Texas PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2025 Workshop Instructor, Color Me Cone 6, Penland School of Craft, North Carolina • 2017 Residency: Visiting Faculty, WVU College of Creative Arts and Media Ceramics in China Program, The Pottery Workshop, Jingdezhen • 2014 Workshop Instructor, No Unnecessary Details, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Aspen, Colorado • 2007-2009 Full-time Resident Artist, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, Montana • 1999-2001, 2010-2011 Instructor/Adjunct Professor of Art, Emory & Henry College, Virginia
EIGHT McKNIGHT ARTISTS
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2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists
Uriel H. Caspi (Israeli, b. 1994, Haifa, Israel) Lives and works in Tilburg, Netherlands
EDUCATION 2021 MFA Division of Ceramic Art, New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University • 2016 German Studies, Goethe Institute • 2018 BFA Ceramics and Glass, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2025 Uriel Caspi: Shell-ter, New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan • 2021 OASIS, Sculpture Space, New York • DAR – Terra Incognita, The Robert C. Turner Gallery, Alfred, New York SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2026 Ceramic Art London • Tel Aviv Biennale of Crafts and Design, Eretz Israel Museum • A Ceramic Odyssey 2126, County Hall Pottery, London • Ceramic Brussels, Belgium • 2025 Kikuchi Biennale, Musée Tomo, Tokyo • Boundaries of Metamorphosis, Galerie Schenkweitzdörfer, Cologne, Germany • Collect Art Fair, London • Talente – Masters of the Future, Munich • Evident Talent, Galerie Terra Delft, Netherlands • 2024 Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum • C-14, Salon de Céramique Contemporaine, Paris, France • 15th Westerwald Prize, Keramikmuseum Westerwald, Höhr-Grenzhausen, Germany • La Fête, Musée de Carouge, Geneva • TERRA, 38CC Art Space, The Netherlands • 2023 62° Premio Faenza Ceramics Biennale, Faenza International Ceramics Museum, Italy • Freshpaint Art & Design Fair, Tel Aviv • I Contain Multitudes, 2023 NCECA Annual, Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio • Eve’s Rib, Field Projects Gallery, New York • 2022 The Archie Bray Resident Artists Exhibition, Kolva-Sullivan Gallery, Spokane, Washington • The Archie Bray Fellowship Exhibition, The Holter Museum of Art, Helena, Montana • Breaking the Barriers of the Material – Highlights from the
Tel Aviv Biennale of Crafts & Design, New Taipei City • 2021 International Ceramics Exhibition Mino, Japan, Mino Ceramic Art Museum, Gifu SELECTED AWARDS 2024 Special Mention, Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan • McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2022 Artis Residency Grant, Artis Foundation of New York • The Sunday Morning Grant, European Ceramics Work Center, Oisterwijk, The Netherlands • 2021 Honorable Mention, International Ceramics Exhibition Mino, Japan, Mino Ceramic Arts Museum, Gifu GALLERY REPRESENTATION Yossi Milo Gallery, New York • Galerie Schenkweitzdörfer, Cologne, Germany • Galerie Terra Delft, Netherlands • County Hall Pottery Gallery, London SELECTED COLLECTIONS KeramikKünstlerHaus, Neumünster, Germany • New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan • Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, New York PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2025 Visiting Artist, New Taipei City Yingge Academy of Creativity and Design, Taiwan • 2024 Visiting Artist at CERCCO, HEAD - Geneva University of Art and Design, Switzerland • 2023 Artist-in-Residence, European Ceramics Work Center, Oisterwijk, Netherlands • 2022 Artist-inResidence, Yingge Ceramics Museum, New Taipei City, Taiwan • 2021-2022 Long Term Artist-in-Residence, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, Montana
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2025 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists
Elizabeth Coleman (American, b. 1966, Oberlin, Ohio) Lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota
EDUCATION 2003 MFA in visual art, Ohio State University, Columbus • 2001 BFA in ceramics and glass, University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign • 1990 MA in English and American literature, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign • 1988 BA in English, University of Iowa, Iowa City SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2023 Flower Girl and Friends, Rumriver Art Center, Anoka, Minnesota • 2018 Facade: New Work by Elizabeth Coleman, Murphy Lecture Room, Minnetonka Center for the Arts, Wayzata, Minnesota • Facade: (Mostly) New Work in Porcelain and Glass by Elizabeth Coleman, Paul Whitney Larson Gallery, Student Center, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, St. Paul • Hope is the Thing With Wings, Hudson Hospital and Clinic, Wisconsin SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2024 Teaching Artists of NCC, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2023 Entomophagous Dining (Eating Insects), The International Museum of Dinnerware Design, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Mary Jo Bole, juror • 2022 Come As You Are! A PRIDE Art Exhibition, Bloomington Center for the Arts, Minnesota • Artistry Faculty Exhibition, Northtown Library, Blaine, Minnesota • 2021 Minnesota Women Ceramic Artists: A Survey of Current Work, St. Mary’s University, Lillian Davis Hogan Galleries, Winona • Breakfast, The International Museum of Dinnerware Design, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ursula Hargens, juror • 2020 Up Close and Sculptural, Minnetonka Center for the Arts, Wayzata, Minnesota • 2019–2020 Vessels, Minnesota Women Ceramic Artists, Anderson Center, Red Wing • 2019 Artists of NCC, NCECA Concurrent Exhibition, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • CLAY. HERE. NOW. NCECA Concurrent Exhibition, Minnetonka Center for the Arts, Wayzata, Minnesota • Butter, The International Museum of Dinnerware Design, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Anne Meszko, juror • 2018 Illuminata: New Work by Marion Angelica and Elizabeth Coleman, Homewood Studios, Minneapolis • 2017 Decadence of Display: Ceramics for Dessert, Whitaker Gallery, Hood College, Fredrick, Maryland
• 2016 György’s Life Changing Hungarian Adventure, NCECA Concurrent Exhibition, The Drugstore, Kansas City, Missouri, Elizabeth Coleman, curator • CAKE, The International Museum of Dinnerware Design, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Heather Ann Leavitt, juror • 2014 Special Artist Group, International Ceramics Studio, Kecskemét, Hungary • 2011 Three Jerome Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2008 Voices: The 2008 NCECA Invitational Exhibition, Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Holly Hannessian and Kate Lydon, curators • 2004 7th International Open, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, Illinois. Claudia DeMonte, juror • SOFA Chicago, Illinois, Represented by Ann Nathan Gallery. SELECTED AWARDS 2025 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota • Flexible Support Grant, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Minnesota • Arts Impact for Individuals Grant, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Minnesota • 2021-22 Creative Support for Individuals Grant, Minnesota State Arts Board GALLERY REPRESENTATION Cinema Gallery, Urbana, Illinois • FOCI Minnesota Center for Glass Arts Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota SELECTED COLLECTIONS DeVos Art Museum, Marquette, Michigan • International Museum of Dinnerware Design, Ann Arbor, Michigan • Kapolna Gallery, International Ceramics Studio, Kecskemét, Hungary • University of Minnesota–St. Paul, Public Art Collection PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2022, 2014, 2012 Artist-in-Residence, International Ceramics Studio, Kecskemét, Hungary • 2007 Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, Maine • 2004, 2003, 2002 Belden Brick Residency, Canton, Ohio • 2010-2026 Teaching Artist, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2006-2009 Instructor, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
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2025 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists
Peter Jadoonath (American, b. 1975, St. Paul, Minnesota) Lives and works in Shafer, Minnesota
EDUCATION 1998 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bemidji State University, Minnesota SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2026 Eight McKnight Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • Mom’s Collection, Imbibition, Protest Cup, NCECA, Detroit, Michigan • 2025 The Dark Forest Isn’t Empty, Queen City Clay, Cincinnati, Ohio • 2024 Matthew Metz and Linda Sikora Invitational, Red Lodge Clay Center, Montana • American Pottery Festival, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • Yunomi Invitational, CLAYAKAR, Iowa City, Iowa • Eight Fluid Ounces, The LSU School of Art Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Exhibition Gallery, Baton Rouge, Louisiana • 2023 Even more Exuberant, NCECA, Cincinnati, Ohio • 2022 Flower City Pottery Invitational, Rochester, New York • Pottery on the Hill, Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital, Washington, D.C. • 2021 2021 State of the Art Ceramics Biennial: The Living World in Clay, Parkland College, Champaign, Illinois • Pearl: 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2020 Utilitarian Clay VIII Exhibition, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee • Critical Function II, NCECA, Richmond, Virginia • 2019 Functional Ceramics Exhibition, Wayne Center for the Arts, Wooster, Ohio • 2018 Earth and Water, The Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, Wisconsin • 2014 Contemporary Ceramics in Minnesota and North Dakota, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, North Dakota • 2011 Minnesota Nice, Lillstreet Art Center, Chicago, Illinois • 2010 Ceramics, Then and Now, Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul Minnesota • 2007 Call and Response, Minneapolis Institute of Art • 2006 Ceramic Biennial, New Hampshire Institute of Art, Manchester • [ongoing yearly] St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour, The Backyard Pottery Sale, Shafer, Minnesota
SELECTED AWARDS 2025 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2022 Creative Support Grant, The Minnesota State Arts Board, St.Paul • 2011 Community Supported Art recipient, Springboard for the Arts, Minneapolis • 2009 Red Wing Ceramics Fellowship recipient, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2007 Jerome Grant recipient, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis GALLERY REPRESENTATION Red Lodge Clay Center, Montana • Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis SELECTED COLLECTIONS Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul • Continental Clay Company, Minneapolis • Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota Duluth • Margaret H. Harlow Ceramic Teaching Collection, Bemidji State University PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2025 Workshop Presenter at Queen City Clay • 2023 Workshop Presenter at Rochester Institute of Technology • 2022 Workshop presenter at Alfred University • St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour Host • 2018 NCECA Planning Committee
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2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists
Suze Lindsay (American, b. 1957, Gulfport, Mississippi) Lives and works in Bakersville, North Carolina
EDUCATION 1992 MFA Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge • 19871989 Penland School of Craft, CORE Fellowship, Ceramics Department, North Carolina • 1984 Montessori Certification, Montessori World Educational Institute, San Luis Obispo, California • 1980 BS, Pennsylvania State University, State College SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2022 Boger Gallery, College of the Ozarks, Point Lookout, Missouri • 2019 Featured Artist, Red Lodge Clay Center, Montana • 2011 Soda Chicks – Parallel Paths in Clay, Lorton Art Center, Virginia • 2011, 2008, 2005 CLAYAKAR, Iowa City, Iowa • 2006 Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • 2003 Clayton Staples Gallery, Wichita State University, Kansas • 2000 Andrews Gallery, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia • Gallery 1021, Lillstreet, Chicago, Illinois • North Carolina Pottery Center, Seagrove, North Carolina • 1997 Focus Gallery, Southern Highland Craft Guild Folk Art Center, Asheville, North Carolina • 1996 Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, Missouri • 1995 The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2016 Anderson Ranch Legacy: Mentoring Artistic Excellence, NCECA, Kansas City, Missouri • At Your Service, Baltimore Clayworks, Maryland • Penland Clay: Shaping North Carolina Ceramics, North Carolina Pottery Center, Seagrove • Mint Museum Potters Market Invitational, The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina • 2017 Imaginary Border: Ceramics as a Trans-cultural Language, Hoffman Gallery, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregan • American Pottery Festival, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota • 2017 Arrowmont Instructor Exhibition, Sandra Blain Gallery,
Gatlinburg, Tennessee • A Culture of Pots: 25th Anniversary of St Croix Pottery Tour, Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, Minnesota • 2018 Roses Are Red, Pots Are Brown, Red Lodge Clay Center, Montana • 2019 The Language of Flowers, Coral Gables Museum, Florida SELECTED AWARDS 2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2000 Emerging Artist, NCECA, Denver, Colorado • 1997 Award of Excellence in ThreeDimensional Design, Laumeier Contemporary Art Fair, St. Louis, Missouri • 1996 Emerging Artist Program Grant, Arts Alliance and NC Arts Council, North Carolina • 1993 Best of Show, First Annual Strictly Functional Pottery National, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. GALLERY REPRESENTATION Red Lodge Clay Center, Montana • Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • CLAYAKAR, Iowa SELECTED COLLECTIONS New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan • San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, Texas • Asheville Art Museum, North Carolina • Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, Biloxi, Mississippi PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2024 Invited Artist Demonstrator, National Congress of Fire Art Techniques, Sao Paulo, Brazil • 2021 Invited Artist Demonstrator, NCECA Conference • 2017 Open Studio Artist Residency, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine • 1996 Artist in Residence, Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, Maine • 1993-1996 Artist in Residence, Penland School of Craft, North Carolina
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2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists
Sana Musasama (American, b. 1957, Queens, New York) Lives and works in New York, New York
EDUCATION 1987 MFA, Alfred State College of Ceramics, New York • 1974 BA, The City College of New York (Ceramics/Education) SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2025 Raised Earth, Eric Firestone Gallery, New York • 2024 Returning to Ourselves, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York • 2022 I Never Played With Dolls, Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery, Brooklyn, New York • 2014 Two Views, Galerie 43, Paris • 2010 The Hand, Meta House Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia • 2007 A Season of Abundance: The Maple Tree Series of Sana Musasama, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire • 2001 Outer Beauty/Inner Anguish, June Kelly Gallery, New York • 1995 Maple Tree Series I & II, June Kelly Gallery, New York • 1991 Introductions, June Kelly Gallery, New York • 1989 Uncoverings/Ceramic Sculptures, SoHo20 Gallery, New York • 1987 The Garden Series, Cinque Gallery, New York • 1985 The House Series, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2024 Immersive Worlds, Real and Imagined, Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire • 2023 Harlem 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Eric Firestone Gallery, New York • 2022 Art Basel Miami Beach, Eric Firestone Gallery, Miami, Florida • 2015 Curator’s Choice-Black Life Matters, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York • 2014 In Residence-Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth, Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire • 2013 Body & Soul, Museum of Arts and Design, New York • 2009–10 Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth, Hood Museum of Art, New Hampshire • 2002 Ceramic National 2000, Everson Museum, Syracuse, New York • 2001 Florence Biennale, Italy • 2001 Selected Works from the Permanent
Gallery, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York • 1999–01 Stop Asking We Exist, Traveling Exhibit (American Craft Museum, New York; Society of Contemporary Crafts, Pittsburgh, etc.) • 1999 Black New York Artists of the 20th Century, Schomburg Center • 1994 Uncommon Beauty, American Craft Museum, New York SELECTED AWARDS 2024 NCECA Innovator Award, Boulder, Colorado • McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2024 Pollack-Krasner Foundation, New York • 2018 Outstanding Achievement Award, NCECA, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • 2013 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, New Orleans, Louisiana • 2002 Anonymous Was a Woman Award, New York GALLERY REPRESENTATION Eric Firestone Gallery, New York SELECTED COLLECTIONS The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York • Museum of Arts and Design, New York • Mint Museum of Craft & Design, Charlotte, North Carolina • The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2025 Closing Speaker, NCECA 2025, Salt Lake City, Utah • 2024 Artist-in-Residence, The Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, Montana • 1995–2021 Associate Adjunct Professor, Ceramics, Hunter College, New York • 1985 Artist-inResidence, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York • 1975–76 Artist-in-Residence, Mende Pottery, Mendeland, Sierra Leone
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2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists
Dorothea Nold (German, b. 1981, Lörrach, Germany) Lives and works in Berlin, Germany
EDUCATION 2019-2026 PhD, (Dr. phil.) in Art, Hochschule für bildende Kunst, Hamburg, Germany • 2009 Master, Beaux-Arts de Paris, Studio of Vincent Barré and Richard Deacon • 2008 High School of Fine Arts, Xi’An, China
Botanischer Garten Wuppertal, Germany • 2021 N, Things about Threads, Gallerie Grölle Pass Projects, Wuppertal, Germany • 2020 Sculpture-Triennale, Bingen am Rhein, Germany • 2019 Korean International Ceramic Biennale, Icheon, South Korea
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2025 Enter Art Fair 2025, Kopenhagen, Denmark • 2024 ein zwei surprise, Galerie Grölle, Düsseldorf, Germany • 2023 Hope Step the Lava Flow, BcmA, Berlin • Haus, Basement, Berlin • 2022 Im Kreislauf der Schwerkraft, Galerie Grölle Pass Projects, Wuppertal, Germany
SELECTED AWARDS 2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • Research Grant, Senat, Berlin • 2023 The International Artist-in-Residence and Research Centre for Ceramics, Oisterwijk, Netherlands • 2021 Neustart Kultur, VG Bildkunst, Bonn, Germany • 2020 1-year work stipend, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Bonn, Germany • Gallery Representation • Galerie Grölle, Düsseldorf/Wuppertal, Germany
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2025 Was, wenn es gut läuft, Räume, Berlin • Still Out There, Skulpturenfestival, Metzdorf, Germany • A Family of Rooms, Les Tanneries, Amilly, France • 2024 Female Gaze, Syker Vorwerk, Bremen • Westerwaldpreis, Ceramic Museum Westerwald, Höhr-Grenzhausen, Germany • status quo, rund3, Kambs • On Edge, Kunsthaus Essen, Germany • 2023 Winterschau 23, Haus der Kunst, Palermo, Italy • Winterschau, Galerie Hartwich Rügen, Sellin, Germany • Looking Back, Galerie Grölle, Wuppertal, Germany • MaHalla Open, Berlin • Test Case XVIII, EKWC, Oisterwijk, Netherlands • Bottom Up, Kühlhaus, Berlin • Get Together, BcmA, Berlin • Haut / Skin (Dorothea Nold/ Moran Shavit), Zentrum für Aktuelle Kunst, Berlin • 2022 Punkbotanik und Tresenkräuter, Salon 36, Berlin • Skulpturenprojekt Hardt,
SELECTED COLLECTIONS Mark Rothko Museum, Daugavpils, Latvia • Collection Carola Schmidt, Berlin, Germany PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2015-2018 Artistic Co-Director, alpha nova & galerie futura, Berlin • 2017 5th International Ceramic Art Symposium, Mark Rothko Art Centre, Daugavpils, Latvia • 2010 Artist-inResidence, X-COMA (MADA s.p.a.m.), Xi`An, China • 2008 Artist-in-Residence, Quartier Orange, Bamako, Mali • 2007 Artist-in-Residence, Manoir du Soisay, France
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2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists
KyoungHwa Oh (Korean American, b. 1973, Seoul, Korea) Lives and works in Grand Junction, Colorado
EDUCATION 2008 Master of Fine Art, Ceramics, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • 2004 Bachelor of Fine Art, Ceramics, Art Department Honor, Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2027 Invitational Solo Exhibition, Companion Gallery and East Mitchell Clay, Humboldt, Tennessee • Dallas Pottery Invitational Exhibition, Rosenfield Arts Foundation of Texas, Dallas • 2026 Last Call XI 2026, Invitational Exhibition, Companion Gallery and East Mitchell Clay, Humboldt, Tennessee • NCECA 2026 Conference Expo for Northern Clay Center, Huntington Place, Detroit, Michigan • Contemporary Porcelain: from Tradition to Innovation, Baltimore Clayworks, Maryland • American Pottery Festival, Winter Exhibition, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2025 Utilitarian Clay VIII, Drown Gallery: Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee • Sandra J. Blain Gallery, Knoxville, Tennessee • Geoffrey A. Wolpert Gallery, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee • West Complex Gallery, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee • The Will of The Kiln, New England Woodfiring Conference, National Juried Exhibition, Nazomu Shinohara and Hitomi Shibata, jurors • Massaro Community Farm, Woodbridge, Connecticut • Ceramics 2025, Invitational Exhibition, Companion Gallery, Humboldt, Tennessee • Last Call X 2025, Invitational Exhibition. Companion Gallery, Humboldt, Tennessee • NCECA 2025, Juried Functional Teapot Show III (JFTS III), National Juried Competition, Elisa Helland-Hensen, Anne Mette Hjortshøj, Hamish Jackson, jurors • Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, Utah • Material Mugs X, Companion Gallery, Humboldt, Tennessee • NISDA Invitational Visiting Artists Exhibition, Nantucket Island School of Design and the Art, Massachusetts • 2024 Dirty South Cup 2024,River Oaks Square Arts Center, Alexandria, Louisiana • Last Call IX 2024, Companion Gallery, Humboldt, Tennessee • 2023 Objects of Desire, Red Lodge Clay Center, Montana • Contemporary Pattern II, Companion Gallery, Humboldt, Tennessee • 영감을 주는… Inspirational, Western Colorado Center for the Arts, Grand Junction • Material Mugs VIII, Companion
Gallery, Humboldt, Tennessee • The Invitational Exhibition of the 2nd Clay Conference, Gumtree Museum of Art, Tupelo, Mississippi • Yunomi Invitational 2023, CLAYAKAR, Iowa City, Iowa • Brimful, NCECA Conference exhibition, Indiana University East Gallery, Richmond • Coalescence, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Missouri SELECTED AWARDS 2024 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis • 2022 1st Place Award, Contemporary Clay 2022 National Competition, Fong Choo, juror • 2021 Honorable Mention Award, Cheers! Drink Up! National Juried Competition, Lorna Meaden, juror • 2018 Best of Show Award, International Cone Box Show, International Juried Traveling Exhibition and NCECA, Pete Pinnell, juror • 2017 Director’s Merit Award, Nature: Surface, Form, Content, National Juried Exhibition, The Clay Studio of Missoula, Montana, Adrian Arleo, juror GALLERY REPRESENTATION Companion Gallery, Humboldt, Tennessee • Denver Art Museum, Colorado • Charlie Cummings Gallery, Gainesville, Florida • Red Lodge Clay Center, Montana SELECTED COLLECTIONS University Museum, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale • The International Museum of Dinnerware Design Permanent Collection, Ann Arbor, Michigan • Everson Museum of Art, The Rosenfield Collection, Syracuse, New York • Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Missouri PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2025 Visiting Artist Demonstration and Lecture, Fire Me Up Ceramics & Fine Art Studio, Topeka, Kansas • 2024 Clay Symposium and Artist Residency, Nantucket Island School of Design and the Arts, Massachusetts • 2023 Starworks Artist Residency, Starworks Center, North Carolina • 2022 Visiting Artist Workshop and Lecture, Arapahoe Community College, Littleton, Colorado • 2022 Demonstrating Artist, NC Potters Conference, North Carolina Pottery Center, Seagrove
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N O R T H E R N C L AY C E N T E R
About The McKnight Foundation The McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation, advances a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and planet thrive. Established in 1953, the McKnight Foundation is deeply committed to advancing climate solutions in the Midwest; building an equitable and inclusive Minnesota; and supporting the arts and culture in Minnesota, neuroscience, and global food systems. Program Goal: As creators, innovators, and leaders, Minnesota’s working artists are the primary drivers of our heralded arts and culture community. Artists nurture our cultural identities, imagine solutions, and catalyze social change. Founded on the belief that Minnesota thrives when its artists and culture bearers thrive, the McKnight Foundation’s arts and culture program is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country. Support for individual working Minnesota artists and culture bearers has been a cornerstone of the program since it began in 1982. The McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program provides annual, unrestricted cash awards to outstanding midcareer Minnesota artists in 15 different creative disciplines. Program partner organizations administer the fellowships and structure them to respond to the unique challenges of different disciplines. Currently, the foundation contributes about $2.8 million per year to its statewide fellowships. For more information, visit mcknight.org/artistfellowships.
PAST RECIPIENTS 1997 F Linda Christianson F Matthew Metz R Marina Kuchinski R George Pearlman 1998 F Judith Meyers Altobell F Jeffrey Oestreich R Andrea Leila Denecke R Eiko Kishi R Deborah Sigel 1999 F Gary Erickson F Will Swanson R Joe Batt R Kelly Connole 2000 F Sarah Heimann F Joseph Kress R Arina Ailincai R Mika Negishi R Mary Selvig R Megan Sweeney 2001 F Margaret Bohls F Robert Briscoe R Vineet Kacker R Davie Reneau R Patrick Taddy R Janet Williams
2002 F Maren Kloppmann F Keisuke Mizuno R William Brouillard R Kirk Mangus R Tom Towater R Sandra Westley 2003 F Chuck Aydlett F Mary Roettger R Miriam Bloom R David S. East R Ting-Ju Shao R Kurt Brian Webb 2004 F Andrea Leila Denecke F Matthew Metz R Eileen Cohen R Satoru Hoshino R Paul McMullan R Anita Powell 2005 F Maren Kloppmann F Tetsuya Yamada R Edith Garcia R Audrius Janušonis R Yonghee Joo R Hide Sadohara 2006 F Robert Briscoe F Mika Negishi Laidlaw R Lisa Marie Barber R Junko Nomura R Nick Renshaw R John Utgaard
F = Fellowship Recipient • R = Residency Recipient
EIGHT McKNIGHT ARTISTS
2007 F Mike Norman F Joseph Kress R Greg Crowe R John Lambert R Lee Love R Alyssa Wood
2012 F Brian Boldon F Ursula Hargens R Pattie Chalmers R Haejung Lee R Ann-Charlotte Ohlsson R Nick Renshaw
2017 F Xilam Balam Ybarra F Mic Stowell R Derek Au R Linda Cordell R Bryan Czibesz R Ian Meares
2008 F Andrea Leila Denecke F Marko Fields R Ilena Finocchi R Margaret O’Rorke R Yoko Sekino-Bové R Elizabeth Smith
2013 F Keisuke Mizuno F Kimberlee Joy Roth R Claudia Alvarez R Tom Bartel R Sanam Emami R Sarah Heimann
2018 F Brett Freund F Donovan Palmquist R Ted Adler R Alessandro Gallo R Hidemi Tokutake R Leandra Urrutia
2009 F Ursula Hargens F Maren Kloppmann R Jonas Arčikauskas R Cary Esser R Alexandra Hibbitt R Ryan Mitchell
2014 F Kelly Connole F Kip O’Krongly R Jessica Brandl R Jae Won Lee R Amy Santoferraro R Andy Shaw
2019 F Kelly Connole F Guillermo Guardia R Pattie Chalmers R Rebecca Chappell R Hyang Jin Cho R Marcelino Puig-Pastrana
2010 F Linda Christianson F Heather Nameth Bren R William Cravis R Rina Hongo R Naoto Nakada R Kevin Snipes
2015 F Ursula Hargens F Mika Negishi Laidlaw R Kathryn Finnerty R Lung-Chieh Lin R Helen Otterson R Joseph Pintz
2020 F Andrea Leila Denecke F Brad Menninga R Ashwini Bhat R Edith Garcia R Tom Hubbard R Roberta Massuch
2011 F Gerard Justin Ferrari F Mika Negishi Laidlaw R David Allyn R Edith Garcia R Peter Masters R Janet Williams
2016 F Nicolas Darcourt F Sheryl McRoberts R Eva Kwong R Forrest Lesch-Middelton R Anthony Stellaccio R Kosmas Ballis
2021 F Mike Helke F Juliane Shibata R Claudia Alvarez R Eliza Au R Lynn Hobaica R Janina Myronova
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2022 F Tony Kukich F Ginny Sims 2023 F Chotsani Elaine Dean F Anna Metcalfe R Larry Buller R Karima Duchamp R Joon Hee Kim R Ellen Kleckner 2024 F Maggie Jaszczak F Ani Kasten R Birdie Boone R Uriel H. Caspi R Sana Musasama R Dorothea Nold R KyoungHwa Oh R Suze Lindsay 2025 F Elizabeth Coleman F Peter Jadoonath R Jing Huang R Simphiwe Mbunyuza R Shiyuan Xu R Bill Jones R Jinhee Kwon R Stefani Threet
McKnight Ceramic Artist Fellowships and this exhibition are made possible by generous financial support from the McKnight Foundation, Minneapolis (MN) and the McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowships Program.
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N O R T H E R N C L AY C E N T E R
About Northern Clay Center Northern Clay Center’s mission is to advance the ceramic arts for artists, learners, and the community, through education, exhibitions, and artist services. Its goals are to create and promote high-quality, relevant, and participatory ceramic arts educational experiences; cultivate and challenge ceramic arts audiences through extraordinary exhibitions and programming; support ceramic artists in the expansion of their artistic and professional skills; embrace makers from diverse cultures, experiences, and traditions in order to create a more inclusive clay community; and excel as a non-profit arts organization.
About the essayist
Exhibition Supporting Staff for McKnight Ceramic Artist Fellows Anastasia Speer, Artist Services Coordinator Lauren Tucci, Exhibitions & Collection Manager Maria Hennen, Galleries Coordinator Judy Hawkinson, Executive Director
Kasey Payette (she/they) is a writer, editor, and arts journalist based in Minneapolis. She has placed essays and stories in literary publications including Blue Earth Review, Blue Mesa Review, CALYX, Gulf Coast, and Water~Stone Review, among others, and has bylines in American Craft and on craftcouncil.org. She has taught community writing workshops in Minnesota and Washington, and her work has been supported by the Loft Mentor Series Fellowship, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Tables of Contents Regenerative Residency at the Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming in Cold Spring, New York. She is currently completing her MFA through the Bennington Writing Seminars.
The exhibition program is part of a team that excels in supporting one another, so we gratefully acknowledge every staff person who contributed to the success of Eight McKnight Artists.
Board of Directors Mary K. Baumann, Chair Frank Fitzgerald, Vice Chair Mike Karels, Treasurer Craig Bishop, Secretary Lisa M. Agrimonti Inez Bergquist Alison Brown Evelyn Browne James Ebner Mike Karels Kate Maury Marcela Sánchez Ramon Serrano Jeremy Wieland
Honorary Director Kay Erickson Legacy Directors Andy Boss Warren MacKenzie Joan Mondale Directors Emeriti Emily Galusha Sarah Millfelt
Photographs of ceramic works: Peter Lee Portraits: JDRO Studio Design: Joseph D.R. OLeary (vetodesign.com) Editor: Jesse Roth Essayist: Kasey Payette
2424 Franklin Avenue East Minneapolis, Minnesota 55406 612.339.8007 www.northernclaycenter.org