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mark rockwood

@mark_rockwood

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Pots, paintings.

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Following up on my previous post, details of Plants Species Currently and Soon to be Extinct. This piece is intended as a gravesite of extinct or threatened plant species of North America. The forms of the gravestones are modeled after a small Southern folk tradition of potters creating odd shaped gravestones for their dead in a time when individuals couldn’t afford to ship stones to mark graves. These object were made in just a few counties in North Carolina. These gravestones mourn both the dying landscape we live in and the decline of folk traditions in the face of mass produced goods.

These pieces are all glazed with kudzu ash produced from its removal from my gardens in an attempt to abate pressure that threatens the gardens I tend to and to maintain the tradition of using ash as a cheap and easily sourced pottery material. Their presentation on sod while evoking a gravesite also speaks to our need to keep manicured landscapes which also contributes to our declining biodiversity.

Image 1: Schweinitzii’s Sunflower (Helianthus schweinitzii) Endangered with 90 populations in the wild remaining.
Image 2: Georgia Dwarf Trillium (Trillium Georgianum) Existing currently only in Whitfield County, Georgia along Swamp Creek
Image 3: Georgia Dwarf Trillium (view 2)
Image 4: St Clair Hawthorn (Crataegu Fecunda) extinct, last seen 2020
Image 5: Franklin Tree (Franklinia alatamaha) extinct in the wild since 1805
Image 6: Sexton Mountain Mariposa Lily (Calochortus indecorus) extinct since 1948
Image 7: Georgia Aster (Symphyotrichum georgianum) previously endangered, due to conservation efforts it is now considered only vulnerable
Image 8: Appalachian Yellow Asphodel (Narthecium montanum) extinct since 1919
Image 9: Georgia Dwarf Trillium (view 3)
Image 10: example of a North Carolina folk grave marker by @mark_rockwood

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3 days ago

Next up is second year grad, Mark! @mark_rockwood

Mark Rockwood is a ceramicist making Southern, folk-adjacent pottery in Atlanta, Georgia. He has spent the last decade devoted to sustainability, native plant restoration, and keeping a garden. Mark received his undergraduate degree from Georgia Institute of Technology.

“My work serves to esteem the native plant ecology of the American Southeast and foster a more intimate relationship with the environment we’re clumsily destroying. By enmeshing my ceramic production with the environment I reside, I’m hoping to arrive at a more harmonious and informed conclusion of my work.” by @mark_rockwood

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This spring held the end of my first year in graduate school in ceramics. At the end of year one were tasked with presenting the work made over the course of our first two semesters. I've been so honored to have the opportunity to study ceramics more deeply and study the history of the ceramics of the American South. This has opened doors to finding ways that the southern folk pottery tradition, and the fragile ecology of the American Southeast can inform each other.

The work central to this presentation is a series of seven gravestones, denoting, endangered and extinct plant species in our local environment.

I'm excited to find where these works go from here.
thank you @madison__nunes for the photos! by @mark_rockwood

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a month ago

I made this fermentation vessel for @alexwaggoner to gift. features a lit with a water seal to allow for the fermentation of kimchi and other veggies. Can't stop thinking about how common vessels like this would've been in kitchens a century ago... by @mark_rockwood

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2 months ago

I got to trade @roxie_fricton this crock for an incredible overshot coverlet weaving. This crock features an interior glaze using original Albany slip and the exterior decorated with cobalt gosu slip.

#stoneware #folkpottery #shino #pottery #ceramics by @mark_rockwood

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2 months ago

A vase for my lover, made this year. Wild lettuce, sautéed with butter and lemon depicted with gosu slip underneath a shino glaze. by @mark_rockwood

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2 months ago

Mater Vine Foraging Jug
Sculpted tomato vines/ leaves with an ash glaze including rutile taken in Atlanta, Georgia by @mark_rockwood

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3 months ago

A pair of mugs made this year combining some older sgraffito techniques layered under gosu slip/ shino glazing that i have become a recent fan of. Lizella clay. I think the muted blue is kind of fun but could be punchier. taken in Georgia State University's Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design by @mark_rockwood

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5 months ago

Excited to share that I will be a part of the @swancoachhousegallery Summer Invitational! I'll have a collection of new and older work on view. Come out May 28 between 6-9 pm. Cheers by @mark_rockwood

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5 months ago

some new mugs I made featuring glaze made from garden chef ash and Kuzu Ash. You've heard of face jugs but what about face mugs?

#ceramic #ashglaze #highfire #kudzu #facejug taken in Georgia State University's Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design by @mark_rockwood

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7 months ago

look at how big this butter churn is! This is an Alabama style butter turn with the 2 loop handles and one scoop handle. The glaze on this is made from Katsu ash from my backyard. I have to cut the cut you back every year and I have now taken to burning it, saving the ash, making glaze and glazing my pots with it. I really loved how the glaze on this piece turned out and I'm excited to throw more forms like this. I'm thinking gravestones next. by @mark_rockwood

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8 months ago

FACE JUG FACE JUG FACE JUG!
i've recently been playing around with southern American folk traditions and I tried really hard not to make a face jug, I promise, but here we are. i cast the forms of the tomato parts to construct the face from the last of my tomato plants in 2025. The glaze on this is 50% ash from my tomato vines and wildflower chaff from last year along with 50% clay i dug from underneath the gardens.

#lizellaclay #ashglaze #stoneware #folkpottery #ceramics taken in Georgia State University's Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design by @mark_rockwood

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8 months ago