How can we hold contradiction and remain sincere (rather than ironic) in work that references the past? I explore this question in my ceramics as I seek a synthesis of my personal voice and the grammar of American redware. Pottery and vessels are universal and communal. I strive to identify and absorb the vernacular of Maryland’s Eastern Shore into my craft. Our cultural traditions and singular landscape reflect the traditions of Native Americans who nearly-always dwelled here, European settlers, enslaved Africans, and ourselves who lend-and-borrow too. By choosing the rural utilitarian vocabulary of crockery and tile, my work has a path for research and refinement of technique. Of course, the imperfections and hand-hewn quality of this approach reveal a deeper beauty, meaning, and authenticity. Topics include Protest to Poetry.
About the Artist
Mike Pugh learned to craft American pottery in the North Carolina tradition from Jerry Beaumont in Phoenix, Maryland. He earned degrees in Architecture and History, later doing graduate studies in Education. Before opening his pottery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Mike Pugh practiced architectural preservation, taught for DC and Baltimore City Schools, and even worked at a local grain elevator. In his work, he seeks to understand the rich vernacular of his surroundings in telling his own story through clay. This year, the Harriet & James mural diptych won First Place in a juried exhibition of work in the legacy of artist Jacob Lawrence: Black Prometheus at Norfolk State University, an HBCU. Mike is the recipient of a 2021 Maryland State Arts Council Independent Artist Award for excellence in the field, recently completed a fellowship project for the Kent Cultural Alliance/Chesapeake Heartland African American Humanities Project (partnering with the Smithsonian), and won a certificate of Merit at the CraftForms 2021 International Juried Exhibition for Contemporary Fine Craft. His current project, a twenty-five-foot ceramic and glass mural for Adkins Arboretum, focuses Maryland trees and their interdependence with other flora, fauna, and fungal communities. Mike lives with his husband and porch dog in a 1782 Quaker farmhouse called Friendship.Artist's Statement
Red Clay stoneware: often altered and layered with engobe (colored slip), sgraffito (detailed incising), and colored oxides. Dalle de Verre: architectural mosaics of faceted slab-glass make a tile mural semi-transparent and luminescent. It seems I am the first (and only) artist to unite ceramic sculpture with dalle de verre.Featured Work
Photos
Featured Work: Photos
Harriet Tillison Was Not Allowed to Speak for Herself When She Was Tarred & Feathered for Helping the Enslaved to Escape: June 23, 1858, Chestertown, Maryland
Wall Mural in stoneware with stained slipwork and sgraffito (intended to be permanently grouted onto a wall)
2021
Who was Harriet Tillison, and what happened to her? We only know about her from pro-slavery newspapers that described her as a free Black washerwoman in her fifties who wandered Kent County as a sort of dwarfish sorceress preacher who bewitched the enslaved to escape. She was hidden from the mob by a free Black man named Butler, who was brutally beaten for his brave act. Here, the tar & feathers become a metaphor for surviving trauma. Harriet transformed into an “expanding supernova of an historical figure” who offers us wisdom and guidance today. The fragmented title swirls in starts-and-stops as a sort of beat poem rather than as an explanation on her behalf.
Created during my fellowship, a collaboration between the Kent Cultural Alliance and Chesapeake Heartland. The purpose of the fellowship was to create an artistic work based on an historic moment preserved in the Chesapeake Heartland archive of the local African American experience that would invite the public to discover and want to learn more. Chesapeake Heartland: An African American Humanities Project is an innovative new collaboration between Washington College, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), and a broad array of community partners in Kent County.
For Sale
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James Lamb Bowers Was Able to Speak for Himself When He was Tarred & Feathered for Helping the Enslaved to Escape: June 23, 1858, Worton, Maryland
Wall Mural in stoneware with stained slipwork and sgraffito (intended to be permanently grouted onto a wall)
2021
The Kent County News published Tillison & Bower’s names for helping the enslaved to escape via the Underground Railroad in 1858. Quaker farmer James Lamb Bowers performed the rare act of filing assault charges and naming each in the mob of thirty men in a detailed narrative after they were expelled from Maryland under threat. His wife, Rebecca, unmasked the assaulters and protected her husband even though she was about to give birth. They returned to Worton after the Civil War and lived out their lives in peace. They are buried next to their home in the Quaker cemetery on Lambs Meadow Road. Here, the tar & feather of the traumatic event transform into the pen & ink that James used to tell his story in a widely-circulated narrative. His story (and emphasis on facts) shaped opinions and laws on the eve of the Civil War. The discombobulated blocks bring a fragmented discomfort and shadow to the whole.
Created during my fellowship, a collaboration between the Kent Cultural Alliance and Chesapeake Heartland. The purpose of the fellowship was to create an artistic work based on an historic moment preserved in the Chesapeake Heartland archive of the local African American experience that would invite the public to discover and want to learn more. Chesapeake Heartland: An African American Humanities Project is an innovative new collaboration between Washington College, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), and a broad array of community partners in Kent County.
For Sale
$0.00
Contact the artist to purchase this piece
Loblolly Branch
Slab-built red clay with engobe and incised texture, dalle de verre
2023
Study Panel for current project: a twenty-five foot ceramic & glass mural at Adkins Arboretum in Caroline County, Maryland. Funded by a generous Maryland State Arts Council, Public Art Across Maryland planning grant.
Ruddy red clay is sculpted into a three-dimensional tile with realistic loblolly pine cones. The emerald-green background is built-up with layers of porcelain slip, sculpted design, and oxide stains. Part of a Mary Oliver poem about pine trees is incised on the reverse.
Dalle de verre (a mosaic of thick slabs of hand-faceted glass) completes the square in a geometric metaphor of the pine cones. The facets are created via a dramatic hammering and chiseling process (knapping) that creates an ever-changing luminescence through the panel.
It is my understanding that I am the first artisan to fuse ceramic sculpture with dalle de verre.
Harriet Tillison Was Not Allowed to Speak for Herself When She Was Tarred & Feathered for Helping the Enslaved to Escape: June 23, 1858, Chestertown, Maryland
Stoneware with Engobe & sgrafitto. Half of tile mural dyptich, intented to be grouted permanently to a wall
2021
Who was Harriet Tillison, and what happened to her? We only know about her from pro-slavery newspapers who described her as a free Black washer woman in her fifties who wandered Kent County as a sort of dwarfish sorceress preacher who bewitched the enslaved to escape. She was hidden from the mob by a free Black man named Butler, who was brutally beaten for his brave act. Here, the tar & feathers become a metaphor for surviving trauma. Harriet transformed into an “expanding supernova of an historical figure” who offers us wisdom and guidance today. The fragmented title swirls in starts-and-stops as a sort of beat poem rather than as an explanation on her behalf.
For Sale
$0.00
Contact the artist to purchase this piece
James Lamb Bowers Was Able to Speak for Himself When He was Tarred & Feathered for Helping the Enslaved to Escape: June 23, 1858, Worton, Maryland
Stoneware with Engobe & Sgrafitto (tile mural dyptich intended to be permanently grouted to a wall)
2021
The Kent County News published Tillison & Bower’s names for helping the enslaved to escape via the Underground Railroad in 1858. Quaker farmer James Lamb Bowers performed the rare act of filing assault charges and naming each in the mob of thirty men in a detailed narrative after they were expelled from Maryland under threat. His wife, Rebecca, unmasked the assaulters and protected her husband even though she was about to give birth. They returned to Worton after the Civil War and lived out their lives in peace. They are buried next to their home in the Quaker cemetery on Lambs Meadow Road. Here, the tar & feather of the traumatic event transform into the pen & ink that James used to tell his story in a widely-circulated narrative. His story (and emphasis on facts) shaped opinions and laws on the eve of the Civil War. The discombobulated blocks bring a fragmented discomfort and shadow to the whole.
For Sale
$0.00
Contact the artist to purchase this piece
Loblolly Branch
Stoneware with Engobe and Incising, dalle-de-verre
2023
Reverse Side of translucent panel: a study for a forest mural at Adkins Arboretum with incised poetry (Ridgely, Maryland).
Booking
TBD
I am the founder & owner of Friendship Farm & Pottery, LLC. See resume for reference resources.