Jennifer Graff
Jennifer Graff creates functional objects for the table with clean lines, crisp contours, and a sense of overall movement. Graff achieves this movement primarily through surface design. Her colorful glazes are layered above a primarily matte-white foundation to achieve depth and iridescence in the surface. Based primarily in a pastel palette, Graff’s elegant forms and intricate patterns are contemporary additions to modern décor.
Available Pieces
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No Longer Available
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Jennifer Graff at MudFire
Gallery group show Put a Lid on It, May 2007
Jennifer Graff Artist Bio
I knew as a child that I would become an artist. I sensed an innate tendency toward making things; anything. My interest in art was also heavily influenced by family members who loved and collected art. I attended art school at Alfred University in Alfred, New York where I earned a B.F.A. in ceramics and painting. After graduating, I worked as a production potter’s apprentice in my home state of Pennsylvania. Soon after my apprenticeship, I moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan where I managed the Ann Arbor Art Center’s ceramics studio. For nearly 5 years, I coordinated the workings of the studio and gained experience in teaching wheel throwing, hand building, and glaze formulation courses. The pursuit of a graduate degree brought me south to Athens, Georgia where I earned a M.F.A. in ceramics from the University of Georgia. I then worked for two years as an assistant at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine. For the next several years, I earned a living as a studio potter and taught in various ceramic centers in Northeast Georgia. I am currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Gainesville State College in Gainesville, Georgia where I teach ceramics and foundation level art courses.
Jennifer Graff Artist Statement
The main focus of my work in clay has been functional pottery. Making pots serves me as an artist in two very important ways. First, I am most comfortable being the maker of objects that are for use. Second, I am able to satisfy the need to create sculptural form as well as two-dimensional surfaces. I am interested in clay forms that have clean lines, crisp contours, and some sense of overall movement. This idea of movement can be achieved through manipulations of the clay or in the surface design. The colorful glazed surfaces of the pieces are also meant to give a heightened sense of energy to the forms. At times, the pots themselves give clues to what the surface design should be. More often, the surface designs come from the need to fill empty space with some construct of ordered line. I use porcelain clay and fire the work to cone 6 temperatures in an oxidation atmosphere in an electric kiln. The glazes are layered to achieve depth to the surface.
