Collection: Shanna Fliegel - Featured Artist

Artist Statement:

My functional vessels and small clay tablets act as narrative artifacts; spaces where personal and collective stories converge. Using silkscreened images, carved lines, and layered color, I explore how memory and experience leave their traces, much like graffiti on urban walls or inscriptions on ancient Sumerian tablets. These marks evoke the fragility of human relationships and the quiet persistence of the natural world in the Anthropocene. Each earthenware surface becomes a canvas for exploring refuge, longing, and the ways we navigate our environments. The tablets synthesize built environment and wild spaces, conjuring both nostalgic memories and transcendent moments. Fired clay’s permanence invites reflection on temporality. What is fleeting and what endures. This is the connection to the very earth we inhabit.

Bio: 

Shanna Fliegel grew up in New Jersey, close to NYC and the Appalachian Trail. This early exposure shaped her love for both urban spaces and the natural environment. After graduating with her BFA from James Madison University in Virginia, Shanna went on to work at artist residencies such as the Cub Creek Foundation, Greenwich House Pottery, and the Archie Bray Foundation. Fliegel’s international travels have brought her to Denmark, France and Costa Rica, furthering her ceramic research. Shanna received her MFA in Studio Art from Southern Illinois University and has since taught at a variety of schools including Montana State University in Billings and the Sidwell Friends School in Washington D.C. Shanna lives with her family in the North Shore and teaches ceramics at the Governor's Academy where she is Department Chair and Gallery Manager.

Find Shanna’s Artaxis page: https://artaxis.org/artist/shanna-fliegel/

Find Shanna on Instagram: @shannafliegel