Functional Clay Textiles with Adero Willard

Potter’s are makers by nature, which means they do so much more with their hands than just work with clay. Activities such as cooking, gardening, clothing making, and quilting, just to name a few, can be seen in as a great influence in many functional wares. Adero Willard grew up in sewing rooms, surrounded by handmade clothes and craftsmanship. These past experiences are now deeply rooted in her ceramic process. Both Willard’s forms and surfaces show signs of textiles and clothing construction. She creates depth in her surfaces through layering, overlap, veiling, revealing, camouflage, and decorating. The result is as if you took swatches of all your favorite fabrics and quilted them into one beautiful and unique piece.

Willard explains the importance of fabric in her work, “I derive meaning from textile design, whether metaphoric or functional, fabric as a layer is essential to the ideas behind the work I make.”

Willard earned her BFA from Alfred University and her MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. In 2007, she did a year-long residency at the Watershed Center for Ceramic Art. While at Watershed, Willard made 500 plates for the annual event, Salad Days. She is a co-founder of Pots on Wheels which is a mobile ceramic outreach program that works to bring the joy and community of ceramics to people of different backgrounds.