Artist: Maddie Gage
Maddie Gage,
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ARTIST BIO
Maddie Gage is a dedicated ceramic artist and teacher from Concord, Massachusetts. After graduating with her BFA in 2024 from Syracuse University, she went on to pursue her artistic and educational career at various community art studios. Maddie has attended several community studios as both a student and an intern, including the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis, Massachusetts, and at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill in Truro, Massachusetts. Currently, Maddie teaches youth and adult ceramics in the greater Boston area while she pursues her career as a studio artist.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I have an inexplicable stamina for ceramics, an organized persistence that is not present in other facets of my life, and certainly not my personality. Clay activates the most prolific, labor hungry parts of my brain that results in iteration after iteration of various forms. This rigorous pursuit for more complexity, stronger craftsmanship, and a deep connection with the user of my
work is the primary driver behind my practice.
My work is born out of both meticulous planning and creative intuition. While I have countless sketchbooks filled with drawings of pots and carefully thought out design placements, a stronger force in my creative output is the process of making itself. A trimmed pot and few guidelines activate a flow state within me, churning out pieces that are uniquely mine. In this state, there are many forces at work: the knowledge that I have picked up from my mentors, the successes and failures of my own past, and most importantly, fantastic pots that I have seen throughout my lifetime. While some of my inspiration lies in the softness of nature, such as flower petals and fish tails, or the rigidness of European architecture and artisan crafts like antique jewelry, more often, my work is born out of my deep appreciation for contemporary pots and their makers.
As my approach has grown more intricate, tactility has become the most valuable aspect of my current body of work. Although my initial exploration into leather hard surface decoration was rooted in visual appeal and an attempt to find my “style”, I have grown to see how much the user values the relationship between my work and their senses. Through additive and subtractive processes, I delve into building up surfaces through soft altering and slip trailing, while using trimming, carving, and line weight variation to work subtractively, resulting in complex, layered pieces that make up my signature aesthetic.
As a maker with deep roots in my wheel throwing practice for nearly my entire artistic education and career, the aspect of functionality and purpose plays a massive role in my fascination with pots as my canvas. With creating pots comes a sense of purpose: my pots, by nature, contain other things. Things that are probably mundane, but can be served with pomp and flair. Bringing unnecessarily intricate and uniquely intimate pieces into the world to make the mundane romantic epitomizes my current and foreseeable purpose as a creative.
Education
2024 BFA magna cum laude, Studio Art (Ceramics), Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Work Experience
2024-2025 Studio Intern, Umbrella Arts Center, Concord, MA
2024 Summer Intern, Truro Center for the Arts (studio intern), Truro, MA
2023 Summer Intern, Cape Cod Museum of Art (studio technician assistant), Dennis, MA
Teaching Experience
2026-ongoing: Intermediate Wheel Throwing (adult semester course), Indigo Fire, Belmont, MA
2025-ongoing: Introduction to Wheel Throwing (adult semester course), Indigo Fire, Watertown, MA
2025-ongoing: Intermediate Wheel Throwing (adult semester course), Indigo Fire, Watertown, MA
2025-ongoing: Youth Handbuilding ages 5-8 (8 week course), Umbrella Arts Center, Concord, MA
2025-ongoing: Youth Handbuilding ages 8-12 (8 week course), Umbrella Arts Center, Concord, MA
2025 Workshop: Alter, Elaborate, and Embellish, Umbrella Arts Center, Concord, MA
2024 Teaching Assistant, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY (Introduction to Handbuilding and Introduction to Wheel Throwing with Peter Beasecker)
2023 Summer Intern, Cape Cod Museum of Art (Youth ceramics)
Residencies
2026 Summer Residency (2 weeks), Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME
Awards/Grants/Fellowships
2026 Workshop Studio Assistant to Ben Owen III, Penland School of Craft
2026 Mass Cultural Council Creative Individuals Grant
2022 Arrowmont Windgate Fellow
2024 Shaped Clay Society Award, Syracuse University
2025 Honorable Mention, ViewPoint57 Juried Show at ARTclectic Gallery
Exhibitions
2026 Invitational: Yunomi 2026, Clay AKAR, Iowa City, IA
2026 Group Exhibition: Enormous Tiny Art (ETA), Nahcotta, Portsmouth, NH
2026 Juried Exhibition: Touché, LUX Center for the Arts, Lincoln, NE
2026 Juried Exhibition: Mudflat Cup Show, Mudflat Studio, Somerville, MA
2025 Juried Exhibition: By Hand, Blue Line Arts, Roseville, CA
2025 Juried Exhibition: Teapots XI, Baltimore Clayworks, Baltimore, MD
2025 Juried Exhibition: Clay Cup VII: Icon, Vessel, Canvas, Bingham Gallery at University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
2025 Juried Exhibition: ViewPoint 57, ARTclectic Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
2025 Juried Exhibition: Put A Lid On It, Belger Crane Yard Gallery, Kansas City, MO
2025 Juried Exhibition: Holding Space, Studio & Gallery, Durango, CO
2025 Magazine Publication: Function Focused, Ceramics Monthly (September 2025 issue)
2025 Juried Exhibition: Better Together: 20 Years of Teapots, Craft Alliance, St. Louis, MO
2025 Juried Exhibition: Mudflat Cup Show, Mudflat Studios, Somerville, MA
2024 Group Exhibition: Castle Hill Benefit Auction, Truro Center for the Arts, Truro, MA
2024 Solo Exhibition: Gallery X, Truro Center for the Arts, Truro, MA
2024 Senior Thesis Show: Resurfaced, Nancy Cantor Warehouse, Syracuse, NY
2024 Group Exhibition: Inked, Art Rage Gallery, Syracuse, NY
2023 Group Exhibition: Spring Study Abroad Final Exhibition, Villa Rossa, Florence, Italy
2021 Juried Exhibition: Terra Form, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA