Artist: Shanna Fliegel

Shanna Fliegel, MONTANA
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ARTIST BIO

Shanna Fliegel is a ceramic artist and educator whose work explores the intersection of drawing, storytelling, and functional form. Working primarily in clay, she creates pots and sculptural objects layered with obsessive mark-making, experimental surfaces, and expressive color. Her practice embraces both precision and spontaneity, allowing imperfections, texture, and process to remain visible. Alongside her studio work, she is Art Department Chair and Gallery Director at the Governor's Academy in North Shore Massachusetts. Over the last 20 years she has experienced a range of international residencies and has taught at workshops on surface and red earthenware building techniques.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My functional pottery begins with the belief that everyday objects can hold emotion, memory, and presence. I am interested in the quiet intimacy of pottery with obsessive surfaces as they are touched repeatedly and become part of daily ritual. I use drawing as a way of thinking through the surface of clay. Lines, symbols, flora, fragments of figures, and layered patterns move across each piece like a visual diary. I’m drawn to tension: refinement against rawness, control against spontaneity, beauty against awkwardness. Glaze becomes another language; sometimes atmospheric and soft, sometimes strange and electric. I want my pots to feel alive. Slightly imperfect and capable of creating connection through use.

EDUCATION
2009
MFA Studio Art: Ceramics, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL
2001
BFA Studio Art: Ceramics, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Department Chair, Gallery Director, Ceramics Faculty, The Governor’s Academy, Byfield, MA (2018-current)

Ceramics Art Faculty, Sidwell Friends School, Washington, D.C. (2017-2018)

Assistant Professor of Art, Montana State University Billings (2010–2014)

ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Cub Creek Foundation, Appomattox, VA

Pentaculum, Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts, TN

Kent Island, Canada

Greenwich House Pottery, New York, NY

Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT

Clay Art Center, Port Chester, NY

Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME

 Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center, Denmark

International Artist Exchange, France

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

Bowdoin College, ME

Boston Sculptors Gallery, MA

 Featherstone Center for the Arts, Martha’s Vineyard, MA

3S Artspace, Portsmouth, NH

Truro Center for the Arts, Truro, MA

WORKSHOPS

Upcoming: La Meridiana, International School of Ceramics in Tuscany, Italy (Summer 2026)

Castle Hill, Truro Center for the Arts, MA

Gaya Ceramic Arts Center, Bali, Indonesia