About Marsha Silverman

I work in porcelain because it feels wonderful when I'm throwing, creamy and soft. Since it has no iron in it, porcelain is the perfect clay for my interest in glazes. I'm able to get a wide variety of visual and tactile effects.  My early porcelain pieces were small pods and petal bowls, wheel-thrown and then altered. They were finished using both colored clay and glazes.  To further bring out the three-dimensional quality of the forms, I added surface carving. I then took a detour and began to focus on carving bottles. However, the glazes that best suit carved work were too limiting, considering my fascination with glazes.  I am now producing thrown pieces, some of which I still alter into forms inspired by nature. This has permitted me to return to the micro-crystalline glazes I love and expand into development of matte-crystalline glazes. The pieces are fired up to 2350° Fahrenheit. I use both propane gas and electric kilns.

Marsha Silverman was born in New York City in 1943 and moved upstate to Schenectady, NY. She trained as a ballerina, and even now, movement is implicit in her forms. She left home at 16 to move back to New York, finishing high school at Professional Children’s School while she studied ballet at the old Metropolitan Opera and Joffrey Ballet. After deciding ballet was not going to be her career, she enrolled in the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where she majored in ceramics. She was awarded the Boit Prize and the Clarissa Bartlett Traveling Scholarship in 1971.  She set up her first studio in Rexford, New York, in 1972. After marrying in 1975, she moved her studio to Anchorage, Kentucky. Her studio is now located in Miami, Florida, where she has lived and worked since 1981.

Recognition

Awards include the Buyer’s Award for Excellence in Clay at the Philadelphia Museum of Arts Crafts Show, Best in Clay Disney Festival of the Masters. was invited to exhibit at Kyrstallos 2007 International Crystalline Exhibition, Teapot Show, Mint Museum, Lattice Structures Crystalline Show Red Star Studios Kansas City, MO, ,. Eight States Crafts Exhibition, J.B. Speed Museum, Louisville, KY. Her gallery shows have included The Archive, Coral Gables, FL, Bluestone Gallery, Milford, PA, Azuma Gallery, Seattle Washington Dannecker Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland, Artisans Gallery, Great Neck, NY, Joann Rapp Hand in the Spirit Gallery Scottsdale, AZ The Following Sea, Honolulu, Hawaii, Walnuts Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, and Ariodante Gallery, New Orleans. For more than two decades she exhibited at various ACC Craft Shows including Baltimore Winter Market, ACC San Francisco, ACC Tampa, ACC Charlotte, and the original ACC Rhinebeck, NY. Other shows include Philadelphia Museum of Arts Craft Show and both Westchester and Washington Craft Expos. Her work has been sold through Henri Bendel's New York City, NY, Macy's, New York City. Her porcelain and earlier stoneware is in private collections both in the United States and in Europe.