Lace, sequins, fringe, and pearls adorn Samantha Briegel’s pretty, frilly ceramic works.
For the Baltimore-based ceramist, vases, mugs, platters, and teapots function as mannequins, showcasing her fascination with texture and pattern in fashion. Briegel, who has been sewing since childhood, scans items from her vast collection of vintage clothing and textiles into Adobe Illustrator, turning their patterns into screen prints for porcelain. She also creates molds from textured fabrics, among other innovative surface decoration techniques. Adorned with tiny pearls and sequins, the resulting works twinkle with detail. This fall, Briegel’s work will appear at the American Pottery Festival in Minneapolis (September 5–7) and the Flower City Pottery Invitational in Rochester, New York (October 10–12). Paola Singer wrote about her couture oeuvre in “All Dressed Up” in the Fall 2025 issue of American Craft, on sale now.
How do you describe your work or practice in 50 words or less?
I make functional objects from translucent porcelain, inspired by hyper-feminine clothing adorned with pattern and texture. In addition to the clothing-inspired pots, I make a quieter body of work where I abstract elements of full-figured bodies containing soft curves and hard curves. I make “clothed” pots and “nude” pots. I don’t view them as separate. They exist together and both represent the vessel as a stand-in for the body.
Blue Floral Dimple Mug, 2025, porcelain fired to cone 6, underglaze, glaze, luster, 4.5 x 4 x 5 in.
