Susan DeMay

NEWS

NEW WORK FOR 2025

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Explore techniques for glaze application through dipping

Explore techniques for glaze application through dipping This workshop, held at the Appalachian Center for Craft from July21 through July 23, explored techniques for glaze application through dipping, pouring, resists, nozzling and sponging. The demonstrations covered glazing for inside walls of bowls, flat plates and outside surfaces of taller forms. Discussions of glaze qualities, such as fluidity, viscosity, transparency, and opacity, were incorporated into discussions of form. Students brought their own bisqued ware and explored the various techniques demonstrated. Several firings were done during the weekend and the results got better and better.

Susan DeMay is the 2022 recipient of an award given by her undergraduate university, Eckerd College.

Artist Talk by Susan DeMay '77 The Jim Crane Art Alumni Award was created in memory of Jim Crane, a beloved Art professor at Eckerd College. It recognizes an alumna/us who has demonstrated significant achievements as an artist, leadership in visual arts education, and contributions to the creative arts.

In conjunction with being given the award, Susan gave a lecture at the Cobb Gallery on campus. The talk covered many stories of her youth leading to her entrance to the College, memories of her years in the Visual Arts Program and the Education program there, mention of the degrees that come after and highlights of the career that followed. The PowerPoint presentation included numerous images of her work through her life time as a developing and eventually successful artist.

Susan DeMay

Artist's Statement

Susan DeMay produces functional and decorative stoneware pottery and other artistic forms, such as wall works, sculptural vases, and tile projects. She maintains a studio, Made by deMay, in Smithville, Tennessee with the help a number of assistants. Her work includes a production line of tabletop wares as well as a series of art pieces. All clay work uses colorful glazes with a variety of surfaces, put together to create rich, expressive palettes and distinctive designs. Each series has evolved from many years of working with electric kilns fired to cone six.

Dual Careers

Susan DeMay has had a dual career in clay as both a professorand as a studio potter. She has been active in both paths sincethe early 1980’s. She studied ceramics - along with other arts –and earned degrees at Eckerd College, Peabody/ VanderbiltUniversity and the Appalachian Center for Craft at TennesseeTech University.

She set up her first ceramics studio on Highway 70 inSmithville in 1981and began teaching in the early 80’s as well.

Susan developed the ceramics program at Vanderbilt as a part-time lecturer, teaching one class in the Fall semester and one inthe Spring. Over her nearly 35 years there, she moved the claystudio 3 times, to three different buildings, and ended upteaching 4 classes each semester. She started out with 12students during each semester, and as a Principal SeniorLecturer , ended up with 40 students each semester with awaiting list of 40 students. She retired from Vandy in 2019.

Her pottery business also grew over the years, establishing thefirst studio with a partner in a small space; and two years later,moving to a bigger facility, expanding that with four additionsto the building. At the height of her business, she had nineassistants and filled orders to over 20 different accounts – thebiggest one being the Smithsonian Museums.

Susan has written a number of articles and has conductednumerous workshops, mostly focusing on glazing techniquesfor cone 6 electric. She was one of the first potters in thisregion to bring colorful glazes, imagery and motifs to thesurface of stoneware pottery.

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