S T A T E M E N T
My work is made in search of the sacred within my experiences and relationships, particularly with the more-than-human world. I approach making as a form of veneration or ritual through thoughtful and meticulous craft. Some of these rituals include gold leafing the bodies of animals, archiving their forms in porcelain slip, and making ceramic reliquaries or altars. Themes of femininity, ecology, and cycles of life and death guide my practice.
Informed by cultural and personal histories, I embrace clay and the role of the craftsperson as it relates to the hierarchy of labor and women’s work. I see my practice in opposition to modern patriarchal notions of domination, progress, and human exceptionalism. Instead, my aim is to call attention to beings and happenings that may otherwise be overlooked or undervalued.
B I O
Grace Potter (b. 1996, Knoxville, TN) is an artist who grew up in rural Appalachia at the base of the Smoky Mountains. She received her BFA in Ceramics with minors in Art History and Anthropology from the University of Colorado, Boulder (2018). Grace has completed two Post-baccalaureates, one at Louisiana State University (2019) and the other at the University of Oklahoma (2023). She has exhibited her work throughout the country, including Blue Spiral 1 in North Carolina, The Clay Studio of Philadelphia, and the Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana. Grace has spent time working at the Mendocino Art Center in Mendocino, CA (2020-2022), Cider Creek Collective in Albion, CA (2022), Good Hope Pottery in Trelawny, Jamaica (2023), and IaRex l’Atelier in St. Raphael, France (2023). She is currently living and working in Mendocino, CA.
