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Io Palmer

@io.palmer

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Looky Looky Yonder ………… Saturday morning studio thoughts.

I’ve been drawing variations of this shape over and over for several months now. Pages and pages of them. I knew I wanted to find a way to bring these drawings into clay, but I wasn’t quite sure how.

While showing the sketches to a friend, I said, “I want to make these out of clay.” She said, “You have to let the clay do its thing. Use the drawings as your jumping-off point.”

That stayed with me.

Around the same time, I gave my clay students a pinch-form assignment , and I started pinching too. A lot. I’ve now made what feels like hundreds of these little forms, letting repetition become a way of figuring things out.

Accumulation has been part of my work for a long time, but making these pieces freestanding has introduced a whole new set of problems. I have to time the building just right, letting one area firm up enough to support another, adding height while seeing how far I can open the form before gravity takes over. I’m especially interested in creating more breaks, passages and negative spaces within all that density.

Mostly, I’m loving watching the language of my wall pieces leap off the walls and move into three-dimensional space.

I’m thinking differently about color here, too. Rather than bringing all of the bright color into the clay, I’m imagining these mounds in whites and warm off-whites, with brightly colored spindles and extensions inserted after firing. A quieter accumulated series of forms to pair with the louder wall work.

Merry Making. 🪷💎 by @io.palmer

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23 days ago

🪻Clay, and… opened yesterday at Saratoga Clay Arts !

The exhibition brings together artists who use clay in conversation with other materials, a progressive and wonderfully expansive way of thinking about contemporary ceramic practice. I’m honored to have been invited and so grateful to Leigh @ltmick who envisioned and brought this exhibition together.

And a very big WOOHOO: 🎉 …. Clay, and… has been accepted as an exhibition at the upcoming NCECA conference in Baltimore!

One of the great joys of being an artist is watching the tendrils of the work travel, finding her way into new spaces, new communities, and new conversations across the country. I’m so happy to see work continuing on its journey. And am particularly grateful to have the work hang in such stellar company. 💫 ….. @saratogaclayarts …… see more images of the show at @ltmick by @io.palmer

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2 months ago

A little update from the studio. ✨one panel of nine that will be installed at The Evergreen State College.

Nearing the end of this very big project - my first commission. A learning curve indeed. So many new materials, processes, decisions, problems to solve, and things I simply had to figure out along the way.

I’ve learned an enormous amount making this work, and it’s wonderful to start to see all of those small pieces beginning to come together.

Getting closer. 💛 #artswa #theevergreenstatecollege #ceramicmurals by @io.palmer

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2 months ago

✨🪷Thank you to everyone who stopped by during the Assembly Art Fair and the Seattle Art Fair. So grateful to @amce.creative.arts McLean for believing in the work and for creating such a lovely space for us to show. It was a joy to meet collectors, reconnect with old friends, and make new ones. We were so busy talking to folks , we never made it to the oyster 🦪 bar ! Well worth it though , as our conversations were special. These spaces remind me that artwork has a way of finding the people it was meant to meet. Thank you. 🙏🏽 @amce.creative.arts @seattleartfair @assemblyfair by @io.palmer

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3 months ago

Seven days to install. 🐝

Looking forward to sharing this new body of work at @assemblyfair with the wonderful @amce.creative.arts in Seattle next week. I’m excited to have this opportunity to show and share this work.
Hope to see some of you there……..✨……… #assemblyartfair #assemblyartfair2026 #seattleart #ceramicinstallation by @io.palmer

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3 months ago

Place your bid on stunning artworks made by Wurlitzer alumn at the Summer Arts Fest Auction, this July 18th, 2026.

TODAY'S AUCTION PREVIEW:

"Bramble" 2026
by Io Palmer
Clay, underglaze, glaze, wood, paint, wire

The piece is a wall-mounted sculpture composed of hand-formed ceramic elements, wire, and wood. Organic forms and linear structures gather into a dynamic composition inspired by growth, movement, and systems found in nature.

Inspired by interior and exterior home decor landscapes, Io Palmer's artworks explore the complex issues surrounding class, capitalism and societal excess. Trained originally as a ceramicist, Palmer uses a variety of processes and materials including fabric, steel, sound and wood. Io has been featured in several national and international exhibitions including Dakart-International Arts Biennial, Dakar, Senegal; Working History, Reed College, Portland, OR; Hair Follies, Concordia University, Montreal and Rush Gallery, New York City, NY. Solo exhibitions at the Boise Art Museum, ID, PDX Airport, OR, York College, CUNY, Jamaica, NY; Deluge Contemporary, Victoria, BC; The Art Gym at Marylhurst University, Marylhurst, OR. by @io.palmer

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4 months ago

Spending time making new bodies of work. ✦ this is one pairing.

So interested in my growing investment in abstraction , the freedom to let color, gesture, accumulation, and intuition lead.

Lately I’ve been drawn to a range of color relationships: cobalt and orange, soft pinks, acidic greens, and the moments where luminosity and shadow meet. ◌

Rather than describing a particular place, I like to think these works build their own ecosystems. I’m interested in speculative landscapes, imagined futures, and spaces where memory, ornament, and possibility can gather. 🪺

Influenced by ideas of diaspora and collective memory, the work sits somewhere between foliage and constellation, artifact and future. ✶🌿

Studio views from a new series. 🐚 by @io.palmer

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4 months ago

In progress - a large-scale public art project ✨

This project has involved a huge learning curve for me - thinking through scale, engineering, installation, and how to translate an intimate studio language into something architectural and public.

Drawing has always been an important part of my process and indeed become an important guide through this project as well. Drawing as mapping, freedom ,gesture, accumulation, and movement. A way for me to think through form before it becomes material ✍🏾

I’ve been learning about native plants of the Pacific Northwest, including plants connected to regional basket-making traditions and longstanding ecological knowledge. As a non-Native artist, I’m approaching this research with humility, and reflect on the ways plants carry memory, resilience, migration, and beauty across generations 🌿

Clay demands such patience - warping, failure, adjustment, repetition, slowing down. Learning when to push the material and when to listen to it 🌀

Thinking lately about plants, wood, fragments, scaffolding, and the ways materials hold knowledge 🌱🪵

Hundreds of handmade ceramic elements slowly gathering into larger constellations ✨

Hoping The Evergreen State community responds to the finished product.
#artswa
#theevergreenstatecollege #puplicart by @io.palmer

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5 months ago

✨Honored to be included in Chroma at Queen City Clay. @queencityclay🪴

Group exhibitions can be essential spaces where practices come into dialogue and meaning is built relationally.

For this exhibition, I contributed a series of smaller works that look at color as both form and movement. My practice leans toward maximalism, and these pieces reflect an ongoing effort to pare back but still hold intensity (thinking of Miles Davis and the space between the notes).

Grateful to be included among such a thoughtful group of artists.
Thank you Ling @whoisherry and Cori @coricrumrine for including my work.

Sharing the invitation and a short video of my work. by @io.palmer

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6 months ago

Im pointing emphatically at the importance of art !:) - A little late posting, but I’m still thinking about what a wonderful experience it was to be part of Sacred - the exhibition at AMcE in Seattle. ✨

I’m reminded of how important group shows are not just for sharing finished work, but for gathering around creativity, conversation, content, and process. It’s energizing being in a room with other artists, seeing connections emerge, and ideas expand. 🎨💬

It’s especially meaningful to come together during such difficult and uncertain times here in the U.S. and around the world. So proud to be an artist - helping to create space for connection. These gatherings matter more than ever. 🌍💛

Grateful for the community, the dialogue, and the inspiration. ✨

Thank you so much Sacred Ladies. @amce.creative.arts @hollyhudsonart @seamoonshe @kendrajlarson @nikishereykeenan by @io.palmer

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6 months ago

I feel very lucky to have my work alongside such great artists, but now I I’m excited to say it’s been featured in this lovely article. Link in bio. @amce.creative.arts @hollyhudsonart @nikishereykeenan @io.palmer @seamoonshe taken in AMcE Creative Arts by @io.palmer

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7 months ago

Feeling so grateful today ✨
Thank you McLean at AMcE @amce.creative.arts and to Brangien @brangiendavis for the generous shout-out and support around this work 🤍

Showing in Seattle means so much to me — over the past two decades, I’ve witnessed how this place grows, shifts, and holds space in complex, beautiful, and often difficult ways 🌫️🌱 To see this work acknowledged here feels meaningful, and I’m honored that it finds resonance in thoughtful spaces.

I know this work isn’t for everyone, and I actually love that. I appreciate when it finds community with openness to nuance, labor, and abstraction 🧵🔥

February — and always — I appreciate platforms that uplift Black artists and voices ✊🏾✨ Seattle, like all places, is complicated, and I’m grateful for the ways it continues to make room and hold space for artists of color🌿

Thank you 💫 by @io.palmer

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8 months ago