March 25-May 3, 2025

Treading Lightly: Walking the Talk

Our March 2025 show is one of a handful of Featured Exhibitions at the 2025 NCECA conference in Salt Lake City! Curated by Lisa Orr, with assistance from Hannah Niswonger and Adero Willard, POW! will present an exhibition of the work of ceramic artists from the US and internationally, whose practice and artwork focuses on sustainability and care for the environment. Treading Lightly: Walking the Talk gathers a broad swath of makers whose novel approaches to studio practice center on the environment. We aim to provide an educational opportunity for other artists as well as the broader community. In keeping with the 2025 NCECA theme of Formation, our project focuses attention on ways of making, sustainably.

Treading Lightly: Walking the Talk is on view at Mestizo Gallery, 92 S. Rio Grande St., Salt Lake City, Utah

Participating Artists: Bandana Pottery (Michael Hunt and Naomi Dalglish), Bradley Klem, Brandi Lee Cooper, Bryan Hopkins, Chris Alveshere, Jane Bamford, John Neely, Julia Galloway, Justin Lambert, Kate Roberts, Linda Christianson, Paulina Jiménez Gomez of Escuela Nacional de Cerámica, Scott Parady, Yuliya Makliuk

Kiln firing at Escuela National de Cerámica

Bradley Klem at work

September 8, 2024

April 5 2024

POW!’s Stonepool Pottery Cup Fellowship is a unique opportunity for an emerging clay artist to expand their practice, take artistic risks, and receive mentorship from established artists throughout the country. POW! believes in making ceramics accessible and affordable to anyone who is curious about exploring clay, and as part of this mission we want high quality ceramic products to be easily accessible to the public. The selected applicant will be responsible for making 100 cups over a 3 month period, which will become a living part of our Cup Exchange Program. The Cup Exchange is an ongoing community project in which workshop participants create a cup that will travel to a future event while taking home one made previously by community members, or other potters. Cups made by the Cup Fellow will be added to the stock of beautiful handmade cups freely given to the community during our programs.

The POW! Cup Fellow will receive $2,500 to design and produce 100 cups in their own studio, as well as a shipping stipend to cover the cost of mailing completed work to the POW! Headquarters in MA. Artists will receive monthly mentorship from established artists. Mentorship will be shaped by the interests and needs of the Cup Fellow, but may include support in developing a prototype, shipping ceramics and the business of being an artist, artistic feedback, and networking connections. Please note this Fellowship does not provide studio space.

The Stonepool Pottery Cup Fellowship is named in honor of POW!’s founding board member Mark Shapiro, who has long advocated for both mentorship for emerging artists, and putting beautiful pots into the hands of the public.

Saturday, May 18, 2024 from 1-3pm

Join us for a test firing of our newest tiny portable rocket kiln! We’re firing off on Saturday, May 18th, at The Foundry in Cambridge MA. Help stoke the kiln—our “Baby Bucket Rocket” kiln is a highly efficient and low smoke wood fired kiln. We’ll demonstrate the kiln, and have a pottery-making party from 1-3 pm. This is the culmination of our spring program in collaboration with Urbano Project. This event is free and open to the public.

Students building the latest iteration of the “Baby Bucket Rocket” as part of our spring program. "*Empowered Earth: Clay Connections in Community*" is a Youth Artist Project of Urbano Project, taught by Urbano Artist-in-Residence Hannah Niswonger and Lisa Orr in collaboration with Pots On Wheels.

November 18, 2023

Partnership with Urbano Project

In the Fall of 2023 POW! collaborated with Urbano Project to facilitate an 8-session ceramics workshop led by AiR and POW! Founder Hannah Niswonger. In this workshop, students learned to build sculptural and functional clay forms. As a group, they considered places and spaces that are important to them while drawing inspiration from spoken word, poetry, or short essays by a variety of authors. They covered a range of basic clay hand-building and ceramic surface decoration techniques while exploring visual expression and form.
This workshop series is running again in the Winter/Spring of 2024.

NCECA 2023 Exhibition

Clay Holds Water • Water Holds Memory

In March 2023 POW! was a collaborating partner in an exhibit of work by Black women potters and clay artists titled "Clay Holds Water, Water Holds Memory" at the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, NCECA. Clay holds Water, Water Holds Memory. Clay Holds Water showcased the work exclusively of Black female, female identifiying and gender non-conforming ceramic artists. This exhibit was a celebration — like electrical current moving from negative to positive — of work that has been brought about by the perseverance of these artists. The objects tell the stories of our histories, speak to our diverse identities, promote healing and community, and demand real action. Through this exhibition we asked, “What could real diversity, equity, and inclusivity in clay institutions, organizations, and curated exhibitions look like?”

Held during the NCECA 2023 conference in Cincinnati, this exhibit featured work from 19 makers representing the complexity and diversity of Black women, and Black nonbinary artists from the US and Nigeria. Artists included Sana Musasana, Syd Carpenter, Lydia Thompson, Osa Atoe, Yinka Orafidya, Joey Quiñones, Chostani Elaine Dean, Angela Drakeford, Ashlin Pope, Shea Burke, Victoria Walton, Olúbúnmi Atéré, Anne Adams, Chelsea McMaster, Issisa Komada-John, Nickeyia Johnson, April Adewole and Adero Willard. These artists represent a broad range of age and experience. This choice to include such a range reflects the commitment of this community to use the strength of their collective voice to raise up a new generation of makers in clay.

In conjunction with the exhibition, POW! Pots on Wheels provided community outreach programming. POW! programming is inherently interactive and community oriented. For this project, the outreach programming was developed in collaboration with artists from the exhibition, and provided opportunities for both the clay community and the broader community of Cincinnati to respond to the work and themes presented in the exhibition.

For more information about the exhibit clay-water-memory.com

July 13-23, 2022

A 4-day, intensive ceramics Workshop with POW! co-founder Hannah Niswonger, in collaboration with Urbano Project. In this introductory course to clay materials and techniques, Youth Artists learned a variety of hand-building techniques, and glazed and fired their work. They also designed a program which took place on the Greenway in Boston, where they shared the pottery making and decorating techniques they learned with members of the public. This program is funded by the generosity of our supporters, and with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

POW! on the Greenway in Boston!

Saturday, July 23, 2022.

POW! on the Greenway in Boston! Saturday, July 23, 2022.

The POW! truck was on the Rose Kennedy Greenway on Saturday, July 23rd from 11am to 3pm for a free public art-making event.

We taught visitors to make cups using a variety of techniques, and they were able to try throwing on the people-powered treadle wheel. Folks also decorated cups and toured the pottery gallery in the truck. This project was funded by the generosity of our supporters, and with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Hilltown 6 Public Event

In conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the Hilltown 6 Pottery Tour in western Massachusetts, the POW! truck had a prominent place in downtown Northampton as part of the town's monthly Arts Night Out.

Free and open to the public, POW! staged its cup exchange, provided basic instruction on use of the potter's wheel and other techniques, and displayed work in the truck's mobile gallery. The event was held with support from the Artisan Gallery and the Northampton Arts Council.