Clay + Culture Shape Local Potter’s Works

There’s just something about using a block of clay as a canvas that feels so raw, earthy, challenging, and intentional. Throwing, pinching, slabs, and handbuilding involve form, balance, texture, color, and even negative space.

Brookhaven contemporary ceramic artist Adrina Richard begins each piece with a memory. She explained, “It could be an ancient vessel I admired decades ago while studying archaeology, a pattern inspired by my mother’s sewing templates, or a shape that captured my imagination. I try to honor the past and the present and keep it interesting to me, and hopefully, to others.”

Although Richard never took an art class growing up in New York, art has always been part of her life. The daughter of an Armenian seamstress and a musician, she was surrounded by creativity without realizing it would one day parallel her own talents. After moving to Georgia, Richard earned a degree in Spanish and Latin American foreign area studies from Georgia State University before embarking on professional careers as a bookseller, and more than three decades in higher education, overseeing purchasing, construction, facility rentals, and auxiliary services for a university.

Later in life, pottery became her full time passion.

“Reading about pre-Columbian art, looking at primitive art and pottery, African and Asian pottery have always inspired me,” she said. Her artistic education came not through a classroom, but through decades of independent study and hands-on experience. Richard has participated in 70 to 80 pottery workshops around the country, learning from nationally recognized ceramic artists through demonstrations and intensive studio sessions. She added, “I’ve done wood firing, atmospheric gas firing, and electric firing. Today, I fire exclusively in electric kilns.”

Richard initially learned to throw pottery on a wheel but soon discovered she preferred a less structured approach. “I kept changing the shapes. Eventually, I realized hand-building was a much better fit.”

Using slabs of clay rather than a pottery wheel allows her to create more distinct forms inspired by architecture, ancient artifacts, and Asian ceramics. Her mother’s sewing taught her construction techniques.

Some designs begin as simple sketches while others start as paper models. “Sometimes, I create patterns out of paper first to see if they’ll work before I make a permanent template,” she said. Each vessel is painstakingly assembled by hand. Every slab is textured before construction begins, giving the finished work visual depth.

“A large, complicated piece can take an entire day just to assemble,” Richard said. “I texture every piece before I put it together.”

After attaching each side and bottom, she delicately adds feet, handles, and finishing details. Her larger basket forms require the greatest precision. She builds them upside down until the feet are attached. Only then can she turn them over and finish the job. As texture is her forte, once fired, each vessel gets a black wash that settles into the carved surfaces, creating an aged appearance reminiscent of archaeological discoveries, “the ancient feeling.”

While Richard’s exteriors remain primarily black, white, and earthy, the interiors surprise with vibrant glazes. Richard shared, “The inside/outside contrast creates interest and surprise.” Brilliant reds, chartreuses, yellows, blues, greens, and purples often burst from within her vessels, sometimes enhanced by crystalline glazes that catch the light. “I want people to experience something unexpected when they look inside.”

Although she occasionally accepts commissioned pieces, Richard prefers creating from her own imagination. “I take commissions,” she said, “but I really don’t like to. My best work comes when I have the freedom to explore.”

She exhibits primarily in prestigious indoor juried art shows throughout Georgia and the Southeast like one of this year’s highlights, the 24th Annual Georgia Perspectives Exhibition, an invitational showcase featuring 50 of the state’s leading ceramic artists which will be held Aug. 22 through Sept. 6 at the Oconee County Arts Foundation in Watkinsville.

A member of The Temple, Adrina’s home shelves are filled with her own work and pottery collected from artists around the country.

“I’m a sucker for great work,” she admitted. For more information, please call 404-402-2781 or email adrina@adrinaearthworks.com.