“I was a very young girl when I announced to my mother, ‘I will never make pottery!’ Why would I possibly do something for a living that was such a chore in everyday life? Helping dig or sifting clay ranked right up there with doing the dishes and cleaning my room. I always wanted to be a painter, a process that took only paint and imagination (or so I thought at the ripe old age of 8).

“A number of years later when I entered my first year of art school, I saw a list of classes to sign up for that might offer an ‘EASY A.’ Ceramics was on the list. How hard could it be? I had grown up with it all my life. Besides, the clay comes in bags ready made, so half the battle was over. By the end of the semester I left the class, having passed only by the skin of my teeth and having had numerous arguments with my instructor about the ‘true process of clay’ and ‘respect for something that comes from the earth.’ “

The one thing for which I will be forever grateful was entering that class in total ignorance and coming out with a complete and profound respect for the processes of clay passed down through generations of my family and other Pueblo potters, and being reminded of the beauty of ritual and the abundance Mother Earth provides. Those concepts were ingrained into me just by proximity, and it is a part of not only my family’s everyday life, but also an entire community. I may experiment with new materials, shapes and concepts, but I’ve never forgotten where both the clay and I come from and how far we’ve come together. I’m hopeful of the journey we’ll continue to take together.”

Like her mother Jody Folwell, Susan Folwell is known to incorporate social and political commentary into her ceramics. Susan Folwell studied fine art photography at the Idyllwild School of Music and Arts in California and later at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit. She has received numerous awards and was one of five American Indian ceramists whose work was featured in the exhibit Free Spirit at the Stedelijk Museum in Hertogenbosch, Norway, in 2006.