Past Resident

Courtney Murphy, 2010–2011 Lincoln Fellow
resident 2010–2011, summer 2009

Courtney Murphy began working with clay while living in Brooklyn, New York. After several years of working for potters around the city, she moved to Portland, Oregon to study ceramics at Oregon College of Art & Craft. After graduating, she spent three and a half months at a ceramic residency in Denmark, surrounded by beautiful ceramics and a very beautiful landscape. In 2006, she returned to the US and began a two year ceramic residency at Odyssey Center for the Ceramic Arts in Ashville, North Carolina. 

Courtney makes hand-built and wheel-thrown tableware and decorative wall hangings. Her designs are influenced by simplified abstractions of nature, children's artwork, folk art, and mid-century modern forms and shapes. She is compelled by the variation found in handmade objects and likes the personal connection that they help to create.

“I am compelled by the variation found in hand-made objects; a slight change in the profile or image on a cup decides whether a person will be drawn to one cup over another. I enjoy the process of scratching into the clay to draw my images and designs. Because of this process, each piece created is unique, and there is a slight variation in each drawing.”

To see more work of Courtney's visit her website at www.courtneymurphy.net.

Nesting Bowls, 2010
earthenware
4" x 9" x 8"

Sugar and Creamer Set, 2010
earthenware
5.5" x 5.5" x 4"