Indiana Clay Conference 2025
October 4-5
Ball State University
L. A. Pittenger Student Center, Muncie, IN
JOIN US for our 4th biennial clay conference highlighting the clay community in Indiana featuring Suze Lindsay, Richard W. James, Sarah Anderson, and Sam Chumley as demonstrating artists. Our featured Keynote Speaker is Bill Griffith, former Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts Administrator.
The juried State of Clay in Indiana IV exhibition is open to current and former Indiana residents.
Bill Griffith, Dwelling, 2024
Schedule from previous conference. New schedule coming soon
2025 Demonstrating Presenters
Suze Lindsay
Suze's formal ceramic studies started with a 2 year CORE fellowship at Penland School of Craft, followed by earning an MFA at Louisiana State University. She then returned to Penland School of Craft as a long term artist in residence. After completing 3 years in residence, her goals focused on creating life as a full time studio potter, setting up her studio in Penland's rich craft community with her husband, and fellow potter, Kent McLaughlin. Working with stoneware clay, Lindsay subtly suggests figure and character by manipulating forms after they are thrown. An integral part of her work includes surface decoration to enhance her pottery forms by patterning and painting slips and glazes for salt firing. Her mark making is strongly influenced by studying historical ceramics from cultures in Japan, Crete, Chile, China, and Native North American. Lindsay has said, "I make things to entice the user to take pleasure in everyday activities, inviting participation, promoting hospitality.” Currently, she owns and operates Fork Mountain Pottery. She lives and works in the mountains of western North Carolina.
Richard W. James
Richard W. James is currently an assistant professor of ceramics at Miami University, Oxford OH. Prior to this, he was the assistant professor of sculpture and ceramics at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi and held long-term artist-in-resident positions at The Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, MT (2017-2019), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee (2016-2017), and Zhenrutang in Jingdezhen, China (summer 2015). Richard received his BFA from the University of Tennessee at Martin in 2001 and his MFA in ceramics from the University of Kansas in 2016, where a portion of his thesis work received the 2016 International Sculpture Center and Sculpture Magazine Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award. He was the recipient of the James Renwick Alliance Chrysalis Award (2019) for emerging artist in contemporary craft as well as the Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist Award (2018). He has written multiple articles for Ceramics: Art and Perception, Ceramics: Technical and Ceramics Monthly. His work is featured in numerous private collections, publications, and websites including HI-FRUCTOSE and Glass Tire. He continues to exhibit regularly across the country, as well as past exhibits in China and Italy.
Sarah Anderson is a full time ceramic artist that creates illustrative characters on the surface of clay through the use of sgraffito. Bright colors and exaggerated creatures are obvious statements in her work, creating a uniquely identifiable brand for herself. She graduated from Ball State University as a sculpture major, using multiple mediums to create large scale work. She was the ceramic department chair for a non-profit Art Center for three years before leaving to pursue her own work full time. Her work has been featured across the nation at multiple galleries and studios, winning awards like the Best Teapot for the Strictly Functional Pottery National at the Lancaster, PA Museum in 2021. Sarah has been featured in many articles and publishers like Ceramics Monthly and Indianapolis Monthly, as well as featured as a demo artist at the Amaco booth during NCECA 2023.
Sarah Anderson
Sam Chumley received his BFA in ceramics from Indiana University Southeast in 2017 and his MFA in ceramics from Ball State University in 2020. Often alternating back and forth between painting and screen printing with underglaze, Sam creates functional ceramics with elaborate surface decoration by thinking of pots as a canvas. His pots and imagery are influenced by personal experiences, pop culture, and tattoo culture. Sam has exhibited his work across the United States and Canada including exhibitions and demonstrations with the National Council for Education of the Ceramic Arts. His work has been published in various ceramic publications. In recent years Sam has shifted his focus from studio practice to doing more teaching and working in non profit studio spaces. Sam currently resides in east Tennessee and works as a studio manager for Arrowmont School of Art and Craft.
Sam Chumley
Pannel Discussion Topic
Seth Green teaching his students how to throw bowls at the PFW studio.
The Vitality of Clay in Indiana:
How to keep clay an essential part of K-12 education and beyond
Moderated by Seth Green, Associate Professor of Ceramics at Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW). & Director of the Indiana Clay Conference.
More information to follow…