For the past two years, Austin Coudriet’s calendar has been marked with engagements, each month sending him to a different country or US state to present his furniture-making workshops.  Coudriet is not a woodworker – he is a ceramic artist – and his large ceramic pieces include chairs, tables, lamps, and sculptural pieces.  This young builder who was named the 2024 Emerging Artist by Ceramics Monthly magazine and the received the 2025 Emerging Artist Award by NCECA has caught the attention of the ceramics world and has ignited interest in big clay pieces.  While Coudriet’s pieces stand out, it is the community behind the work that motivates this artist not only to build big, but to think, plan, and dream big.

The scene at Peter Lane’s Scholes Street studio in Brooklyn looks like a mother’s nightmare – a group of boys on their hands and knees, pants and sleeves stained brown, a massive pile of mud.  But these aren’t boys and this is not mud.  They are Lane’s team of ceramicists and this is clay.  The group is working on a huge architectural installation for a client.  This New York based ceramic artist works on an unprecedented scale, creating architectural features for private and commercial spaces, along with furniture and decorative work.  His fidelity to the nature of clay guides the process and the finished work, as he manipulates the material through a journey that magnifies its most essential elements in the final product.

Beth Morean, well-known artist and philanthropist, has taken the next step in her 40-year quest to solidify St. Petersburg as a top destination for ceramic artists and continues to build on the ever-evolving expansion of the city as a worldwide arts destination in all mediums. Originally relocating to the area for family business reasons, Beth quickly fell in love with the clay community in St. Petersburg and decided it was going to be her legacy to create something special for the local art community.

Florida-based Sculpture House is a business with a long history in the greater New York area that traces a century old history through the tutelage of two families.  By the end of this summer, Standard Ceramic’s Turnbull family will become the third line of craft-oriented businessmen to extend part of that tradition.  Standard will acquire the Ceramics Division of Sculpture House as Bruner Barrie, the company’s CEO, moves closer to a full retirement.