Shea Burke makes vessels that contain thoughts on Black identity, history, and craft tradition. Weaving together inspiration granted from West African functional pottery, raw textured surfaces, and a style of coiling all their own, they craft queer ceramic bodies. These vessels act as a storage place for the wisdom we need to hold on to, until we are ready to pour that wisdom into ourselves. Ceramics can be the centerpiece in connection across the diaspora; reuniting us with the way we used the earth before colonialism.

Shea Burke was born and raised in Rochester NY. They have participated in multiple exhibitions including at Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami, FL and David Klein Gallery in Detroit, MI. Shea received their BFA from Alfred University in 2017 and an MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021. They were the recipient of a Zenobia Award for a residency at Watershed Ceramics in 2018. Following their MFA, Shea recently completed a Residency at the Harvard Ceramics program.

As an artist, Colby Charpentier formulates, tests, and designs alternative ceramic materials and processes. The resulting works are vessels that showcase these technologies. Recent projects include soft paste porcelain as an approximation of Western replication of Eastern porcelain, plaster-clay mixtures to capture the immediacy of wet plaster, and brick lattice to subvert the visual weight and expectations of brick and ceramic materials.

Colby Charpentier received his BFA in Ceramics and Glass from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2013, and an MFA in Ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2021. He has worked as a studio assistant to artists Daniel Clayman and Chris Gustin; and completed residencies at Sonoma Ceramics in Sonoma, CA, The Morean Center for Clay in St. Petersburg, FL, The Ceramics Program, Office for the Arts at Harvard University and American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, CA. He taught classes at these residencies as well as Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Austin Riddle’s pots are made as companions for you and your home. A vase for your table, full of freshly picked flowers as you and your partner eat breakfast and plan your day’s activities. Large platters and compartment trays to present home-cooked meals with friends on a warm summer evening. Whiskey sippers that nestle in warm hands, topped off as needed from a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels.

Austin Riddle recently received his MFA in ceramics at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. He received his BFA in ceramics at the University of Utah in 2016. He has been an Artist-in-Residence at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, The Bright Angle in Asheville. North Carolina, and at Art Center West in Roswell, Georgia. He was awarded emerging artist by Ceramics Monthly in 2019 and has exhibited his work all over the United States.

As an artist, Megan Thomas seeks to tell stories about how people and animals respond to biological and emotional scarcity. Vessels are inspired by anthropomorphic pottery that appears in the early ceramics records of many cultures. While very old pottery may not divulge all secrets to modern viewers, many of these pots seem to be prayers for bounty or attempts at understanding. She finds interest in how environmental and personal collapse might mirror each other. As cycles of ecological boom and bust manifest themselves in the archaeological records of past cultures, so might the cycles of emotional dearth and plenty manifest themselves in the archaeological record of one human’s soul.

Megan Thomas grew up in Hamilton, Ohio. She studied ceramic sculpture and painting at Bowling Green State University as an undergraduate student and graduated with an MFA in ceramics from Utah State University in 2020. She is an enthusiastic birdwatcher.