Shaped by the Potter: Faith, Art, and Formation in the Studio

The prophet Jeremiah witnessed the ceramics process up close when God told him to go down to the potter's house in Jeremiah 18. The potter sat at his wheel and reworked a vessel when it became spoiled in his hands. Representative of God and His people, the Lord shapes His people in the same way a potter is free to shape a piece of clay as he wishes.

Mark Masuoka, Assistant Professor of Art and Director of the Boren Art Gallery, explained how the ceramics process is distinct from other art forms. "It seems to be a material that records your interaction with it," he noted. "So whether you're changing its shape, or building something three-dimensional, or throwing on the potter's wheel, the material is directly impacted by how you interact with it."

Impressions in the Clay

In ceramics, a finished product captures all the ways the artist has touched, pressed, or held the clay. While painting is mediated by a brush and drawing is mediated by a pencil, nothing separates the hands from the artwork in the pottery-making process. This is something recent 3D Studio Art graduate Evie Kerr '26 loves about ceramics. She takes joy in the fact that pottery involves getting your hands dirty, and that in the end, your fingerprints are on the final product. Having first-hand experience with how interactive ceramics are, she is comforted by the metaphor of the potter and the clay in the Bible.

“I think it's so cool that that's how God makes us," Kerr said. "He forms us with his hands. He takes time to get all the details right, and his fingerprints are on us when he’s doing that. Our lives are a product of God’s handiwork. The things we’ve experienced —all the successes, the heartbreaks, the surprises—it all tells the story of how he’s been shaping and molding us.”

The metaphor of the potter and the clay also teaches us that God sculpts our lives with a distinct purpose in mind. In ceramics, you use what you end up creating. “This is different from a painting that simply gets hung up on a wall,” Kerr said. “Whether it is a bowl or a cup, the end product has a function.”

Sculpted with a Purpose

Masuoka reflected on the purpose for which God sculpts us: “God sculpts us into increasingly sanctified people that He can interact with. Because pottery is shaped directly by hand, each vessel turns out different.”

Masuoka used an example of a potter making 10 cups. Even though the potter might attempt to make the cup identical, there will still be variation among them because they were sculpted by hand. "Our lives are each a unique artwork made by God. Yet these differences are not mistakes. God shapes us exactly as we need to be,” Masuoka added. "I think that's a beautiful way to think about it. He created us specifically and uniquely to be who we are, and now it's up to us to be able to acknowledge that and fulfill what he has planned for our life."

God is in the process of shaping us into something beautiful, like an artist with a lump of clay. We only need to be responsive to his touch.