Courtney Murphy ( she/her )

Courtney first began working with clay while living in Brooklyn, NY in the early 2000s. After several years of working for potters around the city, she moved to Portland to study Ceramics at Oregon College of Art & Craft. In 2009 she moved to Montana for a two year artist-in-residence at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena. After a short term residency at Red Lodge Clay Center, and a long term residency at the Clay Studio of Missoula, she decided to settle in Missoula where she bought a house and built a home studio. Het work has been shown nationally and internationally, and has been featured in many books and magazines including American Craft, Pottery Making Illustrated, and Ceramics Monthly. In 2011 she was honored to be chosen as an emerging artist by Ceramics Monthly. Her designs are influenced by looking at textiles, patterns, folk art, mid-century modern forms and shapes, as well as children’s drawings and historical pots. She pays careful attention to line, both in her drawings, as well as in the profiles or outlines of the forms,, always seeking to make work that is clean, simple, and elegantly utilitarian. She tends to work in a series, and I tries to always include something new in every firing, whether it is a pattern, color combination or form that she hasn’t tried out before. She is intrigued by the subtleties and imperfections found in handmade objects, and the way in which these marks reflect the maker of the piece.

Courtney Murphy is a full time ceramicist based out of Missoula, MT. She studied ceramics at the Oregon College of Art & Craft, and spend several years moving around the country for different residency opportunities before landing in Montana in 2009. Her work is a combination of wheel thrown and hand-built contemporary tableware.