Porcelain Love Letters

Current Exhibition

Porcelain Love Letters

The Art of Mara Superior

May 10 - Oct 26

Mara Superior, A Collection of Teapots, 1987. High-fired English porcelain, ceramic oxides, underglazes, and Cornwall Stone glaze,16 x 12 x 1 1/2 in. Collection of Deborah and Melvin Neumark, New York City. John Polak Photography.

Artist Mara Superior has a deep love for porcelain—a dedication that helps her master this ancient and often unpredictable material. She works with slab construction and fires her pieces in a high-temperature reduction atmosphere, techniques that make the process even more challenging and increase the risk of warping or breakage.

Trained as a painter, Superior discovered the beauty and creative possibilities of porcelain in the late 1970s. Since then, she has focused entirely on this bright but delicate material, appreciating both its fragility and its strength. She describes porcelain as a “magical three-dimensional canvas,” where she carefully paints detailed, whimsical images and adds sculpted designs to create pieces that are both visually striking and rich with meaning.

Superior’s work is inspired by many interests, including art history, patriotism, environmentalism, and everyday life at home. These themes come together to create an artistic style that feels both romantic and thoughtful. Each piece is like a love letter from the artist to the world, honoring tradition while expressing a vision uniquely hers.

Ceramics Gallery, Variety Unit

Timing

May 10, 2025 - Opening

Oct 26, 2025 - Closing

Portrait of the Artist with The Nymph of Spring (After Lucas Cranach), 2021. John Polak Photography.

Artist Mara Superior is known for her sculptural porcelain works that blend fine art with the decorative arts. Her high-relief platters and intricate objects feature painterly motifs that explore themes ranging from domestic life to cultural, political, and environmental issues. Superior’s work offers thoughtful commentary on contemporary culture through a historical lens.

Her manifold achievements include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the prestigious Guldaggergård Residency in Denmark, and multiple Massachusetts Cultural Council grants.

Superior’s art has been exhibited at institutions such as the American Museum of Ceramic Art, Scripps College, and the Fuller Craft Museum, and is held in collections of national importance among them the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Racine Art Museum.

Kosmos

Mara Superior (Williamsburg, Massachusetts, b. 1951)
Kosmos, 1983
High-fired porcelain, ceramic oxides, underglaze, and glaze
Courtesy of Mara Superior

Standing 25-inches tall, Kosmos is Mara Superior’s largest vessel. It combines a grand scale with detailed imagery that explores themes of loss, spirituality, and the journey beyond life. She created this piece in 1983 after her father passed away, using it to reflect on the soul’s path after death.

Like, Paradiso, the third part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, the vase’s design moves upward in layers. The front starts with aqua (representing water) at the base, then rises through earth and air, ending with heaven at the top. On the back, the design begins with Superior’s home in western Massachusetts and ascends through space, passing Jupiter and Saturn, which are framed within the vase’s handles or “ears.”

A noticeable crack on the back, repaired with gold leaf in the Japanese tradition of kintsugi, highlights both the challenges of working with large porcelain slabs and the beauty of imperfections.

Mara Superior’s Process:

Mara Superior, Birth of Venus (after Sandro Botticelli, ca. 1485), 2021. High-fired English porcelain, ceramic oxides, underglazes, Cornwall Stone glaze, gold leaf, epoxy, and digital print, 17 1/2 x 14 x 2 in. Courtesy of Mara Superior and Ferrin Contemporary. John Polak Photography.

Inspired by Botticelli’s iconic painting, Mara Superior’s Birth of Venus platter is part of her series called Reimagining the Renaissance Nude. Superior says the series, “brings old masterpieces to life in a modern way, thinking about the future of our world and the dangers of climate change.”

In this artwork, the goddess of love is surrounded by flowers blown by Zephyr, the god of the west wind, and says, “I love roses / Bees need blooms.” This highlights Superior’s concern about the population decline of pollinators like bees. Bees are very important for growing food, but their populations are shrinking fast because of habitat loss, disease, and harmful chemicals.

FRONT

Mara Superior (Williamsburg, Massachusetts, b. 1951) The Pursuit of Happiness, 2012-15. High-fired porcelain, ceramic oxides, underglaze, glaze, wood, gold leaf, brass, bone, and paper. Courtesy of Merle and Barry Ginsburg.

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Commissioned by Barry and Merle Ginsburg in 2012 and completed in 2015, The Pursuit of Happiness is Mara Superior’s biggest and most complex work yet. This large, multi-layered sculpture not only stands out because of its size but also because of its nonpartisan patriotic message. Superior worked closely with the Ginsburgs during the creative process, leading to a piece that represents the founding ideas of our country.

Echoing the Declaration of Independence, the Ginsburgs hope that The Pursuit of Happiness will inspire others as “a symbol of the enduring ideals of our Union and the bedrock of our democratic government: the unalienable rights of all people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

The sculpture was first imagined as a dining table centerpiece, meant to be seen from all sides. But as the work took shape, it became too big for the space. Luckily, it ended up fitting perfectly on the Ginsburgs’ 18th-century American sideboard. This sideboard sits in front of a beautiful Zuber wallpaper scene showing the American Revolution. This unexpected placement made the sculpture even more powerful, combining history and modern art in a special way.

Two statue busts of Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson stand on top of the Capitol, each with a special bottle of alcohol. Washington has a bottle of whiskey made at his Mount Vernon estate, while Jefferson has a bottle of his favorite Madeira, a sweet Portuguese wine.

Below the White House’s North Portico, the base of the sculpture displays portraits of Benjamin Franklin and President George Washington on either side of its title, between two supporter eagle seals.

Under the White House’s South Portico, the base is decorated with a portrait of President Abraham Lincoln and his stovepipe hat bearing the famous phrase from his Gettysburg Address: “For the people, by the people, and of the people,” framing E Pluribus Unum—Latin for “Out of many, one.”

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