Jamie Westermeyer ( she/her )

My work examines how sensitivity, attentiveness, and emotional labor are learned over time. Sensitivity is often mistaken for empathy, but I am interested in it as a heightened awareness cultivated through vigilance—the constant anticipation of other people’s needs, moods, and expectations. Girls are taught to anticipate, accommodate, and carry what isn't theirs. These lessons accumulate through repetition, shaping how we learn to care for others before ourselves.

I think about absorption as both an action and a condition. We absorb the moods of a room, other people’s needs, and responsibilities that were never ours to carry. Over time, these accumulations shape posture, gesture, and identity. Childhood appears throughout my work not as innocence, but as rehearsal. I create figures whose bodies compress, stretch, and strain under invisible pressures, making visible the weight of continuous adjustment. Like the body, clay absorbs and remembers.

Jamie Westermeyer is a figurative ceramic sculptor and educator. She received her BFA in Ceramics from Missouri State University and her MFA in Ceramics from the School for American Crafts at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2026. Formerly Head of Studio at Clayroom in San Francisco, she has extensive experience in ceramics education, community programming, and artist support. She currently teaches ceramics as an adjunct instructor at Washburn University and is a Foundation Resident at Belger Arts in Kansas City. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including in New York, California, Missouri, Ireland, and China.