Biography

Judith Duff received her degrees in Biology and Painting from Wesleyan College in Macon, GA.  Since 1991 Judith has been a full-time studio potter in North Carolina.  She has studied throughout the United States and Japan and fires primarily with wood using her Train Kiln built in 1998.   In the fall of 2005, she built a traditional anagama kiln with Japanese potter Shozo Michikawa and student participants. She has attended the International Workshop for Ceramic Art (IWCAT) in Tokoname, Japan.  In 2004, Judith made her fourth trip to Japan where she spent two months making and firing pottery and participating in exhibitions.  That same year she received a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council to research Japanese Shino clays and glazes and attempt to duplicate them using local materials.  In 2008 she continued her research with the help of two well-known Japanese Shino potters from the Seto-Mino area, Tateki Kawaguchi and  Shotaro Hayashi.

She has served as juror for the “Feats of Clay” in Lincoln, California.  She curated the “Architectural Echoes” Exhibition at the Center for Craft, Creativity, Design, "Soft Beauty of Traditional Shinos: Momoyama Era" for Concord University, and "Quiet Inspiration: Japanese Influence on North Carolina Potters" for the North Carolina Pottery Center.  Also, Judith has served as a panelist at three International Wood Fire Conferences.

Collections include The Mint Museum, Icheon World Ceramic Center Museum, Tokoname Museum, Crocker Art Museum, Kasper-Hansen Ceramic Collection, Arkansas Art Center
Museum, The Mary and Bruno Moser Collection, Kamm Teapot Foundation, and the Dwight Holland Collection.

Her articles have appeared in Ceramics Monthly, Studio Potter, and The Log Book, and her pottery was featured on the cover of Clay Times, a national ceramics magazine.  Judith has taught workshops throughout the United States and in Japan, Germany and Italy, including Penland, Arrowmont, Odyssey Center for Craft, Mudfire, University of Arkansas and La Meridiana. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally at juried and invitational shows including the 2001 American Shino Exhibition, Babcock Galleries, New York, the Smithsonian Craft Show, and the Mint Museum Potter's Invitational.