Many student potters come to Brown picturing an easy transition for their ceramics careers, given Brown’s resources and affiliation with the Rhode Island School of Design. But to the surprise and disappointment of around 900 creatives on the Brown Pottery Club’s mailing list, cross-registering for RISD ceramics classes is a near-impossible task, and there is no space on Brown’s campus to get your hands muddy.
In November, however, the club secured a partnership with ceramic sculptor Ellen Blomgren’s Mudstone Studios in Pawtucket, thanks to an introduction from former Mudstone member Zaivion Hampden ’27. It took two semesters to establish. “We had never had anything that simple and straightforward in the lifetime of this project,” says president Jasper Lincoln ’25. Recent efforts to secure a pottery studio began around 1998 but no arrangement has lasted more than a year or two.
The largest challenge is finding space on Brown’s busy campus. Another challenge is that—aside from fictional psychoceramics professor Josiah S. Carberry—Brown doesn’t have ceramics faculty. The effort to establish a space “is completely student led,” says Lincoln. “I think part of the issue was being taken seriously and prioritized.”
“We’ve been at this for so long,” reflects Rachel Harrison ’27, the club’s vice president. “And so to actually be getting people in and working with clay has been really rewarding.”
Ella Christini ’28 was centering a small lump of clay at one of the club’s first Mudstone sessions one Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. “At Brown, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to do many things with your hands,” she observes. Pottery “is a nice respite.”
When Julia Gu ’27, the club’s events officer, is working to express body language in clay—an interest inspired by her professional ballet training—she describes herself as “head empty, no thoughts…. It’s a little escape.”
“If I’m agitated, it’ll come out in the piece,” says Lincoln, “so it’s a good measure of how I’m doing mentally…. It forces you to be calm, I guess.” He took on the work of club president because he wanted a creative outlet. “I only take STEM classes, basically,” he says. “I felt very one-dimensional. Having the art outlet was important to me.”
The club is still searching for an on-campus home. A few weeks after establishing a partnership with Mudstone, members met with Brown Design Workshop leaders. Past attempts had failed, but this time, Lincoln says, “It seemed like the general sentiment toward pottery had changed.”
Adds Gu: “This semester, we did a lot of one-time workshops where we couldn’t really keep anything. And I guess that kind of stuck with people, because obviously it’s really sad—you spent two hours making something out of clay just for the people who offer the event to say they’re gonna destroy it.”
Eventually, the club wants pottery “to be accessible to almost anyone at almost any time”—so, Hampden says, “job’s not done.” Members would love to hear from alumni who are doing ceramics now or did at Brown, says Harrison. Contact the club at ceramics@brown.edu.
