Jillian Mae Seversky ( they/them )

Every member of my family was born in a different state. Other ancestors fled their home countries and migrated elsewhere. These grand departures and arrivals are a throughline, ever-present in my work. I grew up in North Carolina, moving around often, always within the constructs of state lines, but much farther in other ways. As I drifted off to sleep as a child, I was told stories of far-off homelands. The rolling hills of Sicily, California, Guadalajara, and upstate New York blend and echo where I live now— the mountains of western North Carolina. Here I have made a home of my own, where I have been brought back to ancestral earth and red clay. The feeling of clay under my fingernails is a perfect ritual, which holds close my Mexican heritage, my Queerness, and a childhood in rural North Carolina. 

Within my sculptural handbuilding practice, I beckon my ancestry and honor the stories we have been told and, most importantly, tell ourselves. I am informed by my desire to unpack every moving box my family has ever sealed, the ones I lug near and far. Resting within these boxes are large accumulations of memories, objects, great joys, and deep sorrows. 

My sculptures lay the full breadth of our contradictions on the floor, hang them on the wall, and place them on the kitchen table. To intertwine histories with the pursuit of finding a home for them on a ledge, in a cabinet, nuzzled into couch cushions, dripping from a faucet, within your jean pocket, or adorned on collarbones. My practice is a pursuit informed by my desire to witness, to hold, and to unclog the drain, even if you must reach your hand into the murky water below.  

Born in rural North Carolina with Mexican ancestry, Jillian Mae Seversky is a trans ceramic artist who uses red clay to evoke place and memory. They received a BFA in Arts Education with a concentration in ceramics from Appalachian State University, and are currently a long term resident artist at the clay studio of missoula. Seversky’s work has been featured in Ceramics Monthly and the official 2026 NCECA exhibition, among other national and regional galleries. Including The Workhouse Arts Center, 120710 Gallery, The Mana Contemporary, Mudflat Studio, and Scenic City Clay Arts. A former studio assistant to Andréa Keys Connell, Seversky has also served as an assistant at Penland School of Craft and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, where they were a two-time Pentaculum resident and a 12-week Work Study.