Curatorial Statement
Exhibition Posted Online: Monday, October 5, 2026 at 10 am MT
Reception with the artist Friday, October 16, 2026, 5-7pm
Both a studio potter and educator, Jane Shellenbarger received her B.F.A. degree from the Kansas City Art Institute, and her M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Following graduate school, she worked as a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, in Helena, MT. Shellenbarger established her studio pottery, Mill Station Pottery, in rural Michigan in 1997.
She has held teaching positions at Northern Michigan University and Kansas City Art Institute and currently is a Professor in the School for American Crafts in the College of Art and Design at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Shellenbarger has exhibited her work in several galleries around the country including Leslie Ferrin Gallery, Lacoste Gallery, Philadelphia Clay Studio, Red Lodge Clay Center and Baltimore Clay works among others.
Her work is in the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; Ohi Museum, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan; San Bao Ceramic Art Institute, Jingdezhen, China; Weisman Art Museum; San Angelo Museum of Fine Art; University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR; The Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts; and The University Museum, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
My work with clay is mainly focused on forms that provide both a utilitarian and ritualized experience with deep and varied surface treatments.
While considering the tipping point between awkward and elegance, crude materiality and refinement, utility and meaning, I question conventional beauty within historical forms. The familiar object becomes the artifact, speaking of multiple histories and the nuanced and complex relationship we have with objects in our everyday lives.
Culture accumulates in layers upon our objects of use, ritual and prosaic. My own intentions are to shed light and perhaps even give reverence to this cultural dynamic.
-Jane Shellenbarger