About Jason
Jason Edmonds is a ceramic artist and educator based in Northern California. Originally from Mississippi, his early experiences with Southern folk traditions, handmade objects, and rural material culture continue to inform his approach to ceramics. His background in anthropology and archaeology also shapes his interest in pottery as both an object of daily use and a record of human presence.
Jason has worked in wood-fired ceramics for over a decade, creating functional and sculptural work with custom clay bodies, wheel-thrown and handbuilt forms, and long atmospheric firings. He is a ceramics technician, ceramics instructor, and anthropology instructor at the community college level.
Artist Statement
My work is rooted in process, material transformation, and the long history of ceramics as a human technology. I create wood-fired functional and sculptural ceramics using custom clay bodies mixed from raw materials, along with a combination of wheel-thrown and handbuilt methods.
I fire in wood kilns because flame, ash, heat, and atmosphere leave visible traces on each piece. The surface records the conditions of the firing: where the piece sat in the kiln, how the flame moved around it, how ash collected, and how the clay responded under sustained heat. These surfaces are not accidental or purely random. They emerge through physical labor, close observation, and repeated engagement with the firing process.
My background in anthropology and archaeology strongly shapes how I think about pottery and material culture. Ceramics are among the oldest and most enduring human technologies, often outlasting the cultures that produced them. A pot can carry evidence of touch, use, environment, and history across centuries or even millennia. That continuity between past and present remains central to my practice.
Many of my functional forms are influenced by historical utilitarian pottery and tea culture, while my sculptural work draws from biology, geology, and forms that feel weathered, evolved, or excavated. Across both approaches, I want the work to feel grounded in material, process, and human presence.
