Anna Graef ( she/her )

Garlic powder might begin as garlic, but it has a flavor profile all its own. Garlic powder is often considered a stand-in for the real thing when fresh garlic is unavailable. But in many households, the imitation becomes its own real thing, its own identifying marker, an essential particular taste in treasured heirloom-recipes. 

The objects I make are based on reality (snippets of experience, memory, curiosity). But they become their own originals as I process them through space and material. As children draw with immediacy and decisiveness, responding to their constraints (paper edges, fanciful proportions, developing motor skills), they reveal images that could never exist in space (i.e. dogs with four legs in a row), and illustrative symbols of shared reality (suns sliced off by the paper’s top edge). 

I hope my excavation and celebration of the beauty, tragedy, labor, intimacy, agency, and absurdity of our human experience inspires others to celebrate their own value, and to extend empathy to each other. Imagination is the essential first step to real-izing change.

Anna completed a BFA in Ceramics at the Pennsylvania State University, and an MFA in Ceramics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Anna is a current long term resident at Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, Montana.