About
Bio
Ros O’Brien has been working in clay since 2016, after getting the bug at a handbuilt birdhouse workshop at the John C. Campbell Folk School. She works primarily with textured soft slabs, although her work sometimes incorporates thrown, pinched, or coiled components. She’s grateful to have had the opportunity to study directly with great potters such as Gail Kendall, Lauren Karle, Bill Griffith, and Ellen Shankin, and she was in the 2020 cohort of Naomi Clement’s Finding Your Voice Mentorship Program.
Ros is the founder of the Friendly City Clay & Art Center, a new community clay studio and art space in Harrisonburg, VA focused on creative exploration and community building.
Before finding clay, Ros has been a professional linguist, French tutor, marketer, and graphic designer, and along with pottery, she continues to work part-time in marketing. She is grateful for the groundedness that working with such a humbling physical medium has brought to her life.
Ros works out of her home studio in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. She lives with her partner, Steve, their sweet pit bull rescue, Ollie, and one very bossy cat.
Artist Statement
I’m a recovering perfectionist who’s always found peace in the natural world. My pottery is a practice of exploring why this is, and of bringing more ease, curiosity, and self-compassion into my relationship with myself and the world around me.
In my studio, I ask myself, “what if I let wonder guide me, and let go of control?”. I bring my favorite plants into my studio, pressing them into clay to make bisque molds. The resulting pieces are an ode to the barely-controlled home garden, to plants that grow willy-nilly, wherever there’s good sun. The flower buds stand proud in all their imperfect detail, setting a brave example for us all.
I encourage rogue glaze drips, creating loose boundaries and generous flows. I love the mystery in setting a piece along a path and then letting the final result take form in the kiln, guided by my hands, but ultimately shaped by the fundamental forces of the physical world. I love the humility in working with physical materials, in being reminded that I’m not the boss, in knowing that these materials don’t give away their secrets easily — they require a committed partner, willing to put in the work.
In essence, my work is a personal practice of wonder, of exploring the freedom that comes with meeting life with curiosity rather than resistance…an invitation to peace, presence, and kindness.
