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Andy Shaw Biography

A little more about the artist...

A Change of Direction.

Approximately fourteen years ago, attending a workshop in British Columbia, Andy was still focused on getting prepared for graduate school, to major in history. With the opportunity to work two straight weeks with pottery, and in particular, teapots, he learned to control his abilities in working with pottery, to listen to himself more closely. His instructor was floored by the results of his new delicate, well-considered approach. “. . .there was no way to deny that the events of those two weeks gave me a new insight into myself which I never had; it was thrilling, frightening, empowering, and too obvious to ignore.” Four years later, Andy received his invitation to enter the best MFA ceramics program in the country at Alfred University.

“There are moments in life when you see . . . cues, openings, suggestions that are so powerful that to ignore them would seem to disregard completely this brief time we have to enjoy life . . . I felt that I owed it to myself to follow what I could barely see but which I knew was clearly there and, generally, that was the best decision of my life.”

Andy was the recipient of the Fine Arts Award, the second highest honor awarded at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts in 2007, and is currently a resident artist at The Clay Studio, where he has just completed a year as the Evelyn Shapiro Foundation Fellow.