Emily Gleason
MFA ’25 Fine Arts 3D
I only want to make art that makes me laugh. A sense of humor, playfulness, and joy is at the heart of my practice. I chase joy like my life depends on it, because it does.
For many years, I was miserable. As a kid, I grew up too fast trying to take care of a mentally ill parent. I started abusing drugs and alcohol at 13. I didn’t think I would live to see 30. After getting clean and sober in 2016, I learned to trade self-destruction for creativity with clay — a medium you can put raw emotion into. You can smash it, pound it, caress it lovingly, claw its eyes out, kiss its wounds.
My current body of work Early Bloomer is an attempt to reconnect with my childhood self and recover that precious time lost. Shaping my memories out of clay, an uncanny healing happens to me. I discover a feeling of power in situations where once, I was powerless. I am able to laugh, and poke fun at the past. The key to joy for me is not taking life too seriously.
Featured in:
Emily Grace Gleason (born 1988 in New Jersey, USA) is ceramic sculpture artist known for her darkly humorous clay figurines. Gleason is the founder of Clay for Recovery, an experimental program which brings clay art workshops to communities affected by addiction. Gleason earned her BA in Environmental Studies at Temple University in 2012, and completed an apprenticeship in ceramics at the Donkey Mill Art Center on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi in 2021. Her work has been exhibited in national juried exhibitions including the Hawaiʻi Craftsman, Mudflat Studios, State of Clay, and at Established Gallery in Brooklyn and is in private collections in Hawaiʻi, Florida, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and France.
