Featured Articles

Tom Turnbull: Just the Beginning

November 19, 2024

Part of what makes Standard Clay an appealing company is the way it mirrors the arts society in its company culture of family and community. Both Ceramic Supply Chicago and Ceramic Supply Inc. in the New York area have dedicated staff members who foster relationships with the artists who purchase their products, building a communal group with a shared purpose. The central Pittsburgh business propagates this spirit, sustained by generations of the Turnbull family. Headed by Jim, who succeeded his father James, Sr., and managed by his son Graham, Standard is synonymous with the Turnbull name. Jim’s vibrant personality makes connections between ceramic artists throughout the world while Graham steadily mans the helm. But the Turnbull story includes another son of James, Sr., a prodigal son of sorts, who completes the triangle as an accomplished and distinguished ceramic artist. A young man who set off to find his own way, Tom built a life that always came back to clay and is now facing a journey that is launching him on a retrospective trip through his life and ideas that is pertinent not only to him but to anyone who has pondered the meaning of a life in the arts.

Brian Grow: Educator and Maker

October 21, 2024

Brian Grow is a DC area potter whose long journey in teaching and creating led him to an organization that fits perfectly with his artistic vision. The Director of Ceramics at The Art League, in Alexandria, VA, Grow says that the vitality and variety of artmaking at this august, long-standing institution matches his own thought processes. “The rotating schedule of classes,” he explains, “not only in pottery, but in all the disciplines, makes for stimulating conversations in the hallways among instructors, artists, and students.”

PennOhio Clay Guild: Nurturing Artists

October 01, 2024

Something has been brewing in New Castle, Pennsylvania among the area’s clay artists for a few years. At the PennOhio Clay Guild, people are talking, equipment is changing hands, ideas are percolating. To understand this association of potters, you must try to wrap your head around two wandering pioneers named Septimus and Jen Bean. The couple made a home in this small Northwestern Pennsylvania city in 2018, stopping along a circuitous route that they have travelled together since their college days at Kent State University in Ohio. Both consider themselves educators, not only in the traditional sense but through a far-reaching conceptual ethos that defines their lives. At first glance, one might think the PennOhio Clay Guild is like many collective clay studios run by artists searching for a way to balance a creative life with paying the bills, but a conversation with Septimus and Jen will take you on your own journey that quickly lets you know that this is much more than a studio.