Ray Brown

I make utilitarian pottery with the intent to provide the user with an entrance into a memorable and contemplative experience. Crafting works that are soft, inviting, generous, and strong, I intend for the user to leave with a sense of thoughtfulness and curiosity. I wish to achieve cohesive forms that capture a confidence of line, with supporting crisp and energetic surface decoration. Both in surface and form, I strive for a captured, pressurized volume within my work, as if they are inhaling. Furthermore, I am interested in translating curvilinear patterns and line work into three-dimensional forms inspired by architecture and forms from the Streamlining Era. By exploring these iterations, I create forms that are grouped or assembled into utilitarian pottery focusing on jars, flower vases, and teapots. Overall, through playing with proportions, surface, and color I hope to create a tactile and visual experience that prompts the user to slow down.

Ray Brown was born in Houston, Texas, and received his BFA with Honors from the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi under Matt Long. During the summers, he assisted ceramic artists Chris Gustin in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and Christopher Spitzmiller in New York City. He continued to receive an MFA in Studio Art with emphasis in Ceramics at West Virginia University, learning under Shoji Satake, Robert “Boomer” Moore, Jen Allen and Shalya Marsh. Over his time at WVU, he assisted Julia Galloway in Missoula, Montana, as well as help build a large tube wood kiln on the WVU campus. His work has been displayed nationally and internationally in numerous juried shows, including work displayed in Jingdezhen, China at the Mufei Gallery, where he attended a semester long residency at the Pottery Workshop. In 2019, he received the Studio Potter Merit Award at NCECA’s National Juried Student Exhibition in Minneapolis, MN. The same year, he was featured in an article on Studio Potter’s website as part of the award. In 2024, he was included in Ceramics Monthly’s Emerging Artists as part of their May issue. Currently, he is the Instructor and Ceramic Studio Technician for the University of Mississippi.