Palmetto Cup, 2023, Stoneware, Slip Cast
Christina Tietje Carlisle was raised on her family’s rice and crawfish farm on the prairie of Southwest Louisiana. She went on to study Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University. This education gave shape to the worlds of design and art, plants and materials, ecology and architecture, beauty and function.
And it is through this lens that she approaches ceramics. Her recent explorations in clay involve wrapping, shaping, sculpting, and manipulating native plants around wheel-thrown prototypes. A plaster mold of the form is then made allowing her to reproduce the organic impressions of the foliage on to vessels through the method of slip casting. The resulting forms are meaningful tableware pieces that speak to a shared nostalgia of our native Southern landscape.
Never satisfied with her work and always curious about clay she has studied ceramics at the University of South Carolina and Tulane University. New Orleans is now home where she is a full time partner and mother of four children. She wears many other hats: ceramic artist, landscape designer, devoted yogi, church session member, and Scout Den Leader. During the summer months she is a staff member of Sally Jones Pottery where she teaches and shares her love of clay with the Montreat community. Follow her work on instagram @canopy.clay.