About the Artist
Marti Mocahbee was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. Marti’s first experience with ceramic was in high school where she took 2 weeks on the ceramics wheel during an art class. Finding that she loved the craft, Marti spent up to 3 hours a week workshopping at The Pottery Shop on Ludlow. Learning by osmosis from the potters who frequented the shop, Marti began producing functional production stoneware of her own.
After years of production work, Marti developed a repetitive stress injury that almost required her to quit ceramics. During the time she was unable to throw, she pursued decorating pots with a painting process and began experimenting with red earthenware to get a more vibrant color with the use of underglazes. Spending more time on brushwork allowed Marti time away from the wheel and her injury healed. The transitioned from stoneware to red earthenware working in a more decorative, painterly style, she began creating one-of-a-kind decorative pieces.
Marti views herself more as a craftsperson, because her work centers less on social commentary and instead on the pursuit of beauty in its own right. She looks to nature as her primary inspiration for her brushwork design and functionality through classical forms. When asked from where she draws her inspiration, Marti points to a book she read when she was young that focused on gardening as a form of beautification and meditation. When planting, tending, and harvesting, one is bringing beauty into the world, not as the original intent but as a wonderful byproduct of accomplishing something with one’s hands. For Marti, creating beautiful pots has a similar effect; the process of making allows her to do something with her hands that helps her untangle thoughts and feelings which exist somewhere between the conscious and the subconscious. Marti set out to follow her instincts to create and ended up making art as a result.
Marti’s application of sharply contrasting black designs on red earthenware left a lasting impression on the show-scene, as well as her technique of using the motion of the wheel to seamlessly blend colorful underglaze onto her thrown pieces, creating an ombre effect. These revolutionary techniques contributed to the attention she was getting through shows, landed Marti features in Sunshine Artist, Ceramics Monthly, and as the featured artist of the Southern Highland Craft Guild for a year-long campaign, during which her art was used in every promotional material across the southern highlands of the blue ridge mountains.
It was during the years of COVID that Marti really began letting go of the clay body that brought her success and began exploring materials and technique. Marti always admired working with porcelain and found that she was able to achieve similarly vibrant colors with porcelain which achieved her desire for a more durable pot. A small silver lining to COVID was that it insulated Marti to explore work outside of the pursuit of success and instead focus on the process she’d fallen in love with.
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