Demonstrations MSClayworks 2023

The 2nd clay conference in Mississippi will have two days of clay demonstrations in the Cadence Conference Center in Tupelo.
Registered potters are encouraged to buy from our Vendors and Suppliers in the Vendor booth area.
A pottery market open to the public. 
Round table discussions on Sunday. Please send us your proposal.

Meet our demonstrators for Aug 25-26, 2023

David R. MacDonald was born in 1945 in Hackensack, New Jersey, and graduated from Hackensack High School in 1963. He was awarded an athletic scholarship to Hampton University in Virginia where he majored in art education. 
After graduating, he was awarded a graduate fellowship at the University of Michigan.

David received his Master of Fine Arts degree and joined the faculty of the School of Art and Design at Syracuse University in New York. MacDonald's work received most of its creative inspiration from his investigation of his African heritage. He draws much of his inspiration from the myriad examples of surface decoration that manifests itself in the many ethnic groups of sub-Saharan Africa. MacDonald's work spans the complete spectrum of ceramic forms of a utilitarian nature.

MacDonald received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) in 2011.

​“For more than four decades, David MacDonald has masterfully created richly patterned utilitarian objects from clay that have come to symbolize tremendous integrity and endurance. Despite the national recognition MacDonald has earned for his superb work, he remains committed to, and most content when he is producing, functional works of art in beautiful forms that will be touched, held, and most importantly used by people who will admire and appreciate their inherent beauty.” Everson Museum of Art

Website: David MacDonald Pottery
Eric Botbyl is a studio potter who is living and working in Humboldt, Tennessee. He received the Best Thrown and Altered award at the Strictly Functional Pottery National in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Botbyl teaches community classes in his home studio, and presents hands-on workshops throughout the United States and Canada. He and his wife, Jill, own Companion Gallery, a retail business featuring over 40 ceramic artists. 

Eric has taught over 20 workshops in the US & Canada and written articles for Ceramics Monthly & Studio Potter Magazine.

"There is a softness and warmth about the ceramic vessel that
carries with it every touch of the potter and mark of the flame.  Clay is 
unique in its ability to record the history of its own making, and the preservation
of this process is a vital element of my work. Much of my  work is inspired by the idea of “entasis,” an architectural design technique used by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks ..." 

Website: companiongallery 
Social: @ericbotbyl 
Stacey Johnson Hardy is a visual artist working primarily in clay. She spent her childhood in the Mississippi Delta, a land of diverse cultures and intense history. Her figurative work is a nod towards storytelling, an embrace of the vernacular and landscape of the Deep South. She works intuitively, reacting to the medium and finding a balance with it.

​From her earliest days in art, she has been influenced by Art Brut and outsider artists. Stacey is interested in creating layered, painterly surfaces filled with marks and small moments of botanical and cosmic references. Her work can be read and explored, like pages in a book or sections of a map. 

Stacey holds an MFA in ceramic sculpture from The University of Georgia and a BFA from Loyola University. She has been actively teaching and working in clay for over thirty years. She is a two-time recipient of a Mississippi Arts Commission artist fellowship and was honored by the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters as the 2020 Visual Arts Award winner.

Her work is exhibited throughout the United States.

Website: Stacey Hardee Studio 
Social: @staceyhardystudio

MSClayworks 2022 (flashback)