The work of Judith Motzkin has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with her
unique “flame-painted” clay vessels represented in the permanent collection of the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Danforth Museum of Art.
Her vessels have been chosen for the covers of books—Lark Book’s 500 Bowls, and
Rockport Publisher’s Best of Pottery—and the cover article in Ceramics Monthly
(11/01). Her work was selected as a Mayoral gift to Cambridge’s sister city, Tsukuba, in
Japan. Her spirit keeper jars are often used as a final resting place for the ashes of loved
ones.
Motzkin’s mixed media work integrates the clay work into new materials and ideas. She
has had four solo exhibition of this new work, including series revolving around tea,
stones, secrets, passages and losses. More recent ventures have used the clay and other
objects to create large format digital prints.
Motzkin has taught as visiting artist and workshop presenter at Harvard Office for the
Arts, MIT, Massachusetts College of Art and other colleges and craft programs.
She was born in New York State and has lived in Cambridge Massachusetts since 1977
where she has served on the Board of the Arts Council and was a founder and the
Cambridgeport Artists Open Studios (CAOS).
She studied Asian Studies and Chinese at Cornell University, where she began her work
in ceramics as well. Her travels to the American Southwest, Mexico, and China were a
great influence on the development of her unique style of work in clay, which is a meld
of Native American and Asian sensibilities.