Virtual Artist Talk with Aisha Harrison

Ceramic artists are at the heart of Baltimore Clayworks. Artists are at the center of the mission of Baltimore Clayworks, and provide the organization with talent and innovation to inspire our community and to enliven the artistic impact of ceramics in our region. Their professional and personal networks provide a kaleidoscope of interactions with peers, galleries, and academic institutions, which keep the organization at the forefront of contemporary ceramic art.

Artist Bio

Aisha is a studio and public artist working primarily in clay and bronze. They discovered clay in a community studio, while working toward a degree in Spanish at Grinnell College in Iowa. After graduating, she spent the next two years teaching third and fourth grades in Atlanta, Georgia, and exploring clay at Callenwolde Fine Arts Center in Georgia, and Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. Aisha decided to go back to school and received a BFA from Washington State University, and an MFA from University of Nebraska- Lincoln. Aisha uses the body as a site to explore the lived experiences of racism, ancestral (human and non-human) connection, and, as a mixed-race Black person, the complicated blend of histories held within their body. Their work shows reverence for real bodies while also incorporating elements that are physical manifestations of the intangible. The humans they make are often interconnected with elements of the natural world, many of whom are native to the Pacific Northwest where Aisha’s family has lived for four generations. Aisha’s work attempts to balance the individual and the collective, where each piece contains a unique individual but also references a larger collective of people and/or our relatives from nature. Aisha is currently working on a large-scale outdoor public art commission with The University of Washington Tacoma and the Washington State Arts Commission. She is also working on pieces for a solo exhibition at the Bainbridge Museum of Art.

Aisha’s studio work is shown nationally with recent work at Pottery Northwest, The Whatcom Museum, The Bascom: Center for the Visual Arts, Crocker Art Museum, Northern Clay Center, Wa Na Wari, Bainbridge Museum of Art, Jordan Schnitzer Museum at WSU, and at the Leonor R. Fuller Gallery at South Sound Community College. Aisha has done residencies at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Women’s Studio Workshop, and Baltimore Clayworks. They have taught workshops/courses/programs at Pottery Northwest, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Penland School of Crafts, The Evergreen State College, Bykota Senior Center, Baltimore Clayworks, University of Nebraska- Lincoln, and the Lux Center for the Arts.

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