January 12, 2026

Standard Clay 2026 High School Exhibition Welcomes Juror Britney Smith, Carlow University

Standard Clay 2026 High School Exhibition

Juror Britney Smith, Carlow University

With 2026 well underway, Standard Clay is looking toward 2026 and the upcoming High School Student Exhibition at ClayPlace@Standard in March. This year’s Juror is Britney Smith, the Program Director for Art and Design at Pittsburgh’s Carlow University. Smith is a ceramic artist and teacher whose body of work explores concepts of lineage and care, themes that draw from and enrich her work as an educator. Smith will review the ceramic pieces of local high school students that will be presented at the show and will designate top honors for both individual students and school programs.

Smith holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art from Carlow University. She says, “I always wanted to be an artist, but because I had a young son, I postponed my education. At the age of 25, I started at community college in an associate degree program and moved on to Carlow from there.” She studied under prominent Pittsburgh potter Dale Huffman, who built the program at Carlow. Taking advantage of an accelerated program, Smith earned both degrees in five years. “For me, I knew the life of a working potter would be challenging,” she says, “with my family responsibilities. I always hoped I would teach at a university one day.” She worked for Huffman as an artist mentor and kiln master after graduation and was fortunate to fill an opening for an Instructor in January of 2020, just a few months before the Covid pandemic closed the university. “We had projects in the making,” she recalls, “and had to abandon everything.” The switch to virtual learning forced a curriculum change that focused on art history, with research projects instead of clay projects.

Carlow University has a student body of 2,400, with about 60 art majors. Of those, nine are focusing on ceramics. The studio has 16 wheels, three electric kilns, and one soda kiln. Students can expand their studies with a wide selection of minors, including Art Education, Art Therapy, Graphic Design, and Digital Fabrication. Smith says, “Carlow offers a well-rounded curriculum with opportunities to explore the interface of technology and art.” In the Ceramics & 3D Sustainable Media major, students make use of a fabrication laboratory and found objects to create sculptural pieces that address and explore current concepts about the condition and future of our planet.

Smith began working primarily in functional pottery but sees her art evolving. “When I was making cups and bowls,” she explains, “I was always thinking about the user’s experience over time.” She points out, “Clay carries its history and story, and so much of the history of clay is women’s history. In indigenous cultures, it was the women who made the vessels to store food and water, to care for their families, and who passed down the skills over time.” She is working on a body of work that has its roots in functional vessels but incorporates a sculptural element. The pieces are vessels that contain seed-pod-like structures., evoking womb imagery. “I am trying to say that these vessels hold meaningful things, things that represent lineage and care, the things that we pass on.”

This “passing on” is, in essence, what Smith does in her role as teacher – and more fundamentally, as mother. Bringing this sense of care in her roles with young people expands her creativity beyond the clay in her hand. As her vessels contain seeds of potential, her work creates specific interactions and relationships that will have life and development beyond her. For the young people who venture to share their own ideas in created form at the High School Exhibition, Smith will be a sensitive and challenging juror. “I am excited to see what the students create,” she exclaims. Smith has served as juror for the Mother-of-All-Pottery Sale and the Manchester Craftsman’s Guild Invitational. At Manchester, Smith juried a small selection of work presented by high school students in competition for a scholarship awarded by Carlow University. She is eager to work with high school students again and Standard Clay is pleased to welcome her as Juror.

Look for more information about the High School Exhibition on Standard’s web site in the coming weeks.

Learn more about the arts at Carlow University at https://www.instagram.com/carlowartdesign/

https://www.instagram.com/carlow_gallery/

and at https://www.carlow.edu/art/

See Britney’s Smith’s work at