About

Claire Thibodeau is a ceramic artist and designer based in Detroit, MI, and currently serves as the Visiting Assistant Professor and Section Lead of Ceramics at the College for Creative Studies (CCS). Her work spans both sculptural and functional ceramics, merging form and function through techniques like slip-casting, handbuilding, and wheelthrowing. Thibodeau’s practice includes large-scale vessels, intricate cast wall installations, and functional wares. She holds an MFA in Ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2022), where she specialized in sculptural ceramics, and a BFA in Ceramics from Alfred University (2015).

Process

Claire Thibodeau’s ceramic process reflects a deep engagement with touch, memory, design, and performative elements. She masterfully integrates slip-casting, handbuilding, and wheelthrowing techniques, creating work that speaks to the tactile history of ceramics while exploring personal and shared narratives.

In her slip-casting work, Thibodeau meticulously designs molds that capture intricate details and textures, emphasizing the interplay between repetition and uniqueness. Each cast carries the memory of its origin, and through layering and alteration, she imbues each piece with a sense of individuality, highlighting how repetition can evolve in unexpected ways.

Her handbuilding practice brings a tactile intimacy, with each pinch and coil reflecting the presence of the maker’s hand. This technique allows her to explore the textures of touch and memory—every mark, every surface becoming a record of movement and gesture. Handbuilt forms often carry a performative aspect, as the clay responds directly to her movements, preserving the physicality of the process itself.

Wheelthrowing adds a dynamic layer to Thibodeau’s work, where rhythm, precision, and fluidity come together in a kind of dance. Each piece she throws captures a fleeting moment of balance and control, yet retains a liveliness in its form. Her wheelthrown pieces are informed by design principles that anchor their functionality while allowing for expressive form. The repetitive motions required by throwing also evoke memory and ritual, reinforcing how the act of creation itself can become a performative, almost meditative practice.

Across all three techniques, Thibodeau’s process integrates an intuitive sense of design, linking visual appeal with tactile experience, while each work becomes an archive of touch and memory, inviting viewers to connect with the history embedded in every form.

Thibodeau’s ceramic work explores the intersection of history, labor, and ritual through thoughtful, hand-crafted vessels. Rooted in traditional techniques and inspired by fiber arts, her pieces celebrate the beauty of everyday domestic forms, carrying both a symbolic and functional significance. Each vessel embodies a moment of touch and gesture, capturing the transience and permanence of clay as a material. Through her work, Thibodeau invites viewers to connect with familiar forms in a new way, reflecting on the embedded history and craftsmanship within each piece.