Akilah Scharff-Teoh, who spearheads the Western Massachusetts-based Studio Feeler, and I originally met through a Kaabo Clay Collective workshop that I gave on artist statements and bios. In exchange for Kaabo’s sponsorship of me going on the 2023 Studio Potter retreat in Red Lodge, Montana to commune with experienced ceramicists and materially intelligent writers, I did a knowledge-share session with community members.
Our paths converged through Kaabo Clay, an organization for Black potters, that combats the systemic barriers to Black ceramicists through funding and access to other ceramicists in intentional ways, providing a forum for knowledge-sharing that connects us across the states and even internationally.
Scharff-Teoh’s Studio Feeler operates similarly and rhizomatically by emphasizing the collective rather than the individual. Earlier this summer, Scharff-Teoh took my course on the history of African American craft that chronicled pre-colonial West and Central African aesthetics to the present. We established a rapport that has blossomed into a wonderful kinship.