Hiya!

Raina Phipps here! The showcased works throughout my portfolio measure time and my growth as an artist. I’ve not just included my work as an undergraduate but also as a student when I was in high school. I value each piece, they each represent different times in my career. I’ve experimented, obsessed, dabbled, succeeded, failed, and tried again in multiple mediums. I am so grateful to share my timeline with you!

I earned my Bachelor’s of Science in Studio and Digital Art with a minor in Theater with the State University of New York at Oneonta by the spring of 2023. They tell you that your time spent at a university is the most primal and precious stages of your career. I can most certainly agree. I had the most wonderful opportunity being introduced to new mediums, materials, techniques, tools… I could go on and on!

I had ceramics 1st period, my junior year of high school. Little did I know would that class change my life for the better. My preferred medium as an artist is clay; ceramic pottery and sculpture. My professor was an inspiration and still one of my most respected role models today. Clay gave me the chance to sculpt and create from scratch. There are endless possibilities and experiments, each piece undergoes a plethora of phases, you’ll never know its outcome until the very last glaze firing. This medium keeps me on my toes.

The British Ceramist Argon Angle once said “ceramics is a medium that, with every passing decade, becomes easier for the untrained to manipulate- more rampant, versatile, and demystified, and perhaps more worthy of a clarified position within the wider history of sculpture”

I was granted a rare opportunity with SUNY Oneonta’s Art program, I studied under their Ceramic Professor, Chris Pettingill as a teaching assistant. From there I worked in the glaze lab, learning the basic components and organic make up of the materials at hand. We experimented with pigments and kiln temperature. This gives me a rush, I belong in studio. Not only was I able to work with a fully equipped studio but also hand and hand with other students. Most of which whom had never even heard of pottery, I had the pleasure of watching others grow and thrive in a new medium. I take enormous pleasure and gratitude being apart of a student’s journey, to pass on the knowledge and passions of my own to others is rewarding on it’s own.

Sincerely and covered in clay,

-Raina Phipps