2025
ARTIST STATEMENT
Clay remembers. It records pressure, heat, collapse, and time in ways that feel both geological and deeply human. I make ceramic vessels that preserve those traces, allowing fire, atmosphere, and material to become collaborators in the work. Their cracked, blistered, and layered surfaces are not decorative finishes but evidence of transformation.
Long before I began working in clay, I was drawn to surfaces altered by time. Rusted steel, weathered concrete, cracked earth, eroded stone, and lichen-covered walls reveal histories that cannot be manufactured or erased. I photograph them, sketch them, collect them, and return to them repeatedly. Those observations become the foundation of my studio practice, translated through clay, slips, oxides, glazes, and atmospheric firings.
My current body of work, Scorched Earth, began as a response to ecological collapse but has evolved into a broader meditation on endurance, adaptation, and material memory. I am interested in how landscapes are shaped by slow forces, how erosion becomes a form of drawing, and how geological processes mirror our own experiences of change. Every vessel begins with intention, yet the kiln always has the final word. Heat, gravity, chemistry, and atmosphere introduce uncertainty, creating surfaces that could never be fully planned.
My background as an industrial designer informs my understanding of form, proportion, and material, but ceramics asks something entirely different of me. Design often seeks precision and resolution. Clay rewards attention, patience, and the willingness to relinquish control. Rather than solving problems, this practice allows me to ask questions and to remain open to what the material reveals.
I think of these vessels as quiet records of survival. They do not hide fracture or instability; they carry it. Their surfaces speak of pressure, persistence, and change, suggesting that transformation is rarely clean, but it is always possible.
BIO
Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman is a ceramic artist, designer, and educator whose sculptural vessels investigate material memory, geological time, and the transformative power of fire. Inspired by weathered landscapes, eroded stone, rusted metal, and the quiet evidence of change, she creates hand-built ceramic forms that embrace uncertainty through atmospheric firing, layered slips, oxides, and reactive glazes.
Her recent body of work, Scorched Earth, reflects on endurance, adaptation, and the marks left by both natural and human forces. In 2026, she completed a residency at the Medalta International Artists in Residence program in Medicine Hat, Alberta, where she expanded her exploration of atmospheric firing and developed new work informed by the Canadian Badlands.
Rebeccah maintains studios in Brooklyn and Hudson, New York. She is represented by galleries in North Carolina and Maine and has exhibited nationally. She is also the founder of Interwoven Design Group and has taught industrial design at Pratt Institute for more than twenty-five years.
EXIBITIONS – 2026
Contemporary Clay 11th International Biennial 2026
The Art Center of Western Colorado, Grand Junction, CO
Vessel no. 16 & Monolith no. 25
June 2026
gjartcenter.org/exhibitions/contemporary-clay-2026
August 4 Ways
Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, ME
20 Chawan Tea Bowls
August 2026
www.coreydanielsgallery.com/augustfourways
Shino Odyssey
Baltimore Clay Works, Baltimore, MD
Vessel no. 67
September 2026
www.baltimoreclaywork.org/shino-odessey
Small Favors
The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
Small Works no. 63 & no. 99
October 2026
https://www.theclaystudio.org/exhibitions/small-favors-2026
Download
Artist CV
Academic CV
Tableware Catalogue
Studio
595 Madison Street
Brooklyn, NY 11221
410 Water Street Road
Hudson, NY 12538
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Representation
Wells, ME
Corey Daniels Gallery
2208 Post Road
Wells, ME 04090
www.coreydanielsgallery.com
Asheville, NC
Mark Bettis Gallery
123 Roberts St
Asheville, NC 28801-3632
https://www.markbettisgallery.com
Kent, CT
Kenise Barnes Fine Art
7 Fulling Lane
Kent, CT 06757
www.kbfa.com
