Groveport artist Juliellen Byrne has been creating story-based figurative ceramics for over 40 years. Her recent piece, Tumor Schappel, received the Yassenoff Family Award for Excellence and the Watkins Printing Poster Award in Ohio Designer Craftsmen’s “Best of 2025,” on view at the Ohio Craft Museum in the Grandview Heights area, May 4–July 5.
How did you get your start in clay?
I met my now-husband when I was 16. I had never visited a museum. The first time I visited his family, I noticed the handmade rug in their living room. And his family had handmade cups! It never occurred to me that you could make ceramic cups.
I was the first person in my family to go to college. I knew I wanted to study art; when I took my first ceramics class, I was hooked. I received my BFA and MFA in ceramics from Ohio State. During college, I volunteered for Tim Frederich, a production potter in Dublin—I thought I should work with someone who was making a living at it. And I hated it. I was a terrible potter.
Somewhere along the way, I discovered handbuilding. It really helped me find a voice. One of my instructors—Mark Tomlinson—embraced all kinds of human figuration; the figure didn’t have to be perfect and correct. My coil-built figures had a gestural quality that he allowed me to think was ok.
Where do your ideas come from? How do you start a new series or piece?
I have always kept a sketchbook. Everything I make comes out of that. I’m not in the studio 40 hours a week, so I have to know what I want to make when I am there. My figures have always been odd, and a lot of that is because they come from my drawings. The slow process of coil building gives me time to think about the figure as I’m building it.
My work comes from my conscience and the issues that I’m concerned about, like immigration or religion, but that message isn’t obvious in the piece itself. It’s more of a conduit for me. By using a cast of kings, queens, rats, babies, dummies, the moon, I find my concerns have a voice. I try to create tiny power struggles within the framework of loosely defined narratives. At one point, I made a whole series of work based on dyslexia and the Bible quote, “Saving my darling from the power of the dog,” from Psalm 19-22.
It can be difficult to succeed as a working artist. How have you been able to accomplish it?
I received my MFA in 1988, and in 1989, I got an Individual Artist Award for $5000 from the Ohio Arts Council. It covered 50 months of studio rental, so I didn’t have to worry about that for several years. Right before I graduated from grad school, I got a commission to make tile for a bathroom backsplash. From that, I got another commission, then another. I had a baby by then, so I decided I was going to keep making tile. At the same time, I was creating my figurative sculptures.
Early on, I was awarded a residency at the Kohler Factory in Wisconsin. It was a great experience—I was able to make giant murals in the two months I was there. And I could watch other artists at work, including Ann Agee, who was amazing. They documented everything I did.
I made tile for a living until 1998. I was selling wholesale to three major clients, one in Nashville, Cincinnati and Columbus. I used my own images on each tile; they were my interpretations of everything around me—a woman with a dog on her head, for instance. I sold tile at various art fairs, like the Columbus Arts Festival and the Upper Arlington Art Festival.
In 1996, I started Clay Cafe, a paint-your-own-pottery studio, in Grandview. In just the past few years, I’ve been able to offer throwing and handbuilding classes in the space behind the shop. The very first class cemented my decision to continue them. These things have allowed me to maintain a separate studio where I can still make my figurative work.
Where do you show your work?
Over the past several years, I’ve made enough work to have a number of solo exhibitions, at the Southern Ohio Museum, the Canton Museum of Art, Springfield Museum of Art, and many colleges, like Wittenberg and Rio Grande. My latest solo show was at the Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati. The curator chose to show the ink paintings I made during a recent residency in Galway, Ireland, along with 17 sculptures.
I typically only enter two juried shows a year now, because of their public availability—the Ohio State Fair’s fine arts exhibition and Ohio Designer Craftsmen’s annual “Best of…” at the Ohio Craft Museum. There can be a stigma to museums, but these are two venues that are available to anyone who cares to walk through the door.
Any advice for artists just starting out?
Always maintain a separate studio away from home. And for coil builders, purchase a Shimpo banding wheel. It’s my favorite tool.
@ohiodesignercraftsmen
@juliemakesstuff
