Featured Articles

New Chapter at Contemporary Craft

June 21, 2021

Pittsburgh’s Contemporary Craft begins its second half-century this year with a new Executive Director in a new facility in a new neighborhood, carrying on the tradition of what began as The Store for Arts and Crafts and People-Made Things in 1971. Southwest Pennsylvania native Rachel Saul Rearick steps in to take her place among the leaders of the organization founded by Elizabeth Rockwell Raphael. Begun with the intention of providing support for artists working in craft materials, Contemporary Craft retains that mission, with fifty years of showcasing work, supporting artists, and encouraging the Pittsburgh community to explore creativity through craft.

The Future of Ceramics Education: Saratoga Art Center Resident Artists Paige O’Toole and Mark Tarabula

June 04, 2021

The 21^st century is emerging as a time of radical change in human interaction. The digital revolution that brought us into the new millennium pervades every aspect of modern life, from our homes, our schools, and our workplaces, to our very sense of who we are and what we aspire to in life. For young artists, navigating this new world requires reevaluation of historic norms and a keen sense of how the new artist stands as interpreter and philosopher for a new age. Mark Tarabula and Paige O’Toole are ceramic artists in residency at Saratoga Clay Arts Center in Schuylerville, New York. At the beginning of what each hopes will be a long career in the arts, the artists recently shared their ideas about the current state of ceramic education, exhibition, marketing and purpose.

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Pandemic Zoom Group Becomes Forum for Potters

April 07, 2021

When Deborah Bedwell transitioned from Executive Director to Trustee of Baltimore Clayworks, she made a point of continuing to teach one class each semester. Her retirement at the end of 2011 from the organization she and a group of artists founded in 1980 did not curtail her enthusiasm for teaching. For over a decade, Bedwell has continued to guide potters in a variety of topics in her Thursday morning class. In March of 2020, she was doing just that when the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered Baltimore Clayworks. The determination of Bedwell and her students not to be idled led to a response that transitioned from a simple on-line Zoom substitute for class to a generative forum that speaks to the collective nature of the origins of Baltimore Clayworks itself.