Samantha Briegel’s sweetly feminine ceramics draw inspiration from textile crafts such as quilting, weaving, and cross-stitching, all traditionally carried out by women. Every time she designs a new vessel—her collection includes shapely cups, bowls, vases, and plates—Briegel imagines dressing a Southern belle from head to toe, layering detail upon detail the way a stylist might add pearls, gloves, or kerchiefs to a gown.
Briegel’s process involves the use of actual fabrics, giving her work a realistic fashion feel. She pours plaster over sheets of textured fabrics such as lace or sequined mesh. Once the plaster dries, she carefully peels the fabric off, revealing a mold with which she can emboss the texture onto porcelain.
The colors and patterns seen in the smoother sections of her vessels also derive from clothes. She’ll scan a garment—usually a vintage item that she loves—into her computer and then use Adobe Illustrator to make a screen print, which eventually becomes an underglaze for porcelain. “I have amassed a large collection of textures and prints over the last five or so years,” Briegel says. “I use this catalog to generate slabs of porcelain to piece together, and have all the details I’ve always wanted to include in my work.”
While her pieces look much too precious for everyday use (rickrack rims! tiny protruding flowers!), Briegel insists they are fully functional.
Born and raised in Tennessee, she now lives and works on a four-acre farm outside of Baltimore, where a barn holds the various kilns needed to fire up her dainty pieces, some of which will be on view this fall at the American Pottery Festival in Minneapolis.
Paola Singer, a freelance writer in New York City, is a frequent contributor to American Craft.
The ceramist holds a cross-stitch dimple mug on her farmhouse porch.
