Jeff Deitrich
Over the course of the last 30 years my exploration with clay has led me to investigate a wide variety of ceramic techniques from high-fired stoneware to primitive pit firing. Twelve years ago, my personal environment changed significantly and I now live and work in an 18th century log house – a farmstead where the everyday ware of the earliest inhabitants would have most certainly been made of red clay dug from the nearby meadows.
While technicalities like an art education degree prevent me from being considered a “true” folk artist, I am fully satisfied creating my current work drawing on inspiration provided by the themes and motifs of the largely anonymous artisan potters of eighteenth and nineteenth century rural Pennsylvania.
As an art teacher in the Oley Valley School district, I rely on the wealth of experiences I encountered during my education at Kutztown University to help inform and guide students in finding their own personal inspiration for their work.
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