Deco Bowls, Incised and inlaid with slip trailed dots, 22K gold luster accents, Porcelain Cone 6 oxidation, 2020
Cut-rim Vase, stamped and carved, 22K gold luster, Porcelain Cone 6 oxidation, 2020
My name is Jess Palmer. I'm a studio potter living and working in Port Chester, New York with my husband Pete. For the past 13 years I have been making functional porcelain pots and ceramic jewelry in a thriving shared community clay studio. My former career as a Creative Director and Designer has greatly influenced my body of work. The objects I create are thrown, rolled, altered, decorated, and manipulated with my own two hands. Each piece is handmade, by me, in every way.
Meticulously designed surfaces coupled with modern elegant forms.
My work explores the intersection of design, art, and fine craft through functional wheel-thrown pots. I seek to elevate these objects by balancing form and decoration with a focus on design. My former career as a Creative Director and Graphic/Interactive Designer has greatly influenced my approach to clay. My designer's mind boils everything down to geometry, line, pattern, repetition, and color. I draw influences from architecture, botanicals and nature, and historical and graphic patterns.
I am a highly detail-oriented person, for this reason, my medium of choice is porcelain. The clean smooth surface gives me a perfect canvas for the delicate details I employ. Incised lines create patterns that are at once contemporary and yet signal to more luxurious design periods from the past. Slip trailed dots add a raised tactile quality and stamped and carved details allow for glazes to pool and run creating movement.
Soft colors and contrasting matte and shiny glaze surfaces are common in my work. Conceptually, the play between hard and soft are of interest to me in my work. My pots are approached individually with variations on the surface design themes making each one a unique piece of art. Gold luster adorns the objects as a way to elevate them from every day to exquisite.
Working with clay has helped me heal in many ways. This medium is so forgiving, yet has a way of humbling and challenging you at every turn. Clay has truly changed my life and I'm grateful for having found it.
BIO
Jess Palmer is a studio potter living and working in Port Chester, NY. She received a BFA in Communication Design from SUNY Buffalo. After leaving her full-time career as a Creative Director in advertising Jess discovered a new medium of clay. Jess’s work has been published in the May/June 2019 issue of Pottery Making Illustrated and the September 2018 and April 2023 issues of Ceramics Monthly. She has shown her work in both juried and national invitational exhibitions at; The Clay Studio, PA, Flower City Arts Center, NY, Clay Art Center, NY, Baltimore Clayworks, MD, Companion Gallery, TN, Charlie Cummings Gallery, FL, Clay Arts Vegas, NV, Silvermine Arts Center, CT, Saratoga Clay Arts Center, NY.