Jeff Rogers

American-born Jeff Rogers has traveled extensively in pursuit of excellence in ceramic arts, exploration of humanitarian concerns and community empowerment. He is currently probing the intersection of classically beautiful forms as a metaphor for his de-facto inclusion into a privileged group and the responsibility privilege requires with its centuries-long narrative that includes various iterations of violence, genocide, and conquest. Finely crafted clay often skirts the edge of the disturbing—well curated forms torn by surfaces referencing the bias and violence that are still, sometimes insidiously, present in the fabric of our structures, institutions and interactions.

Jeff is a highly trained production potter, and multiple galleries across the US have represented his earlier work. He established studios in Flintstone, Georgia; Windsor, Vermont; Key Largo, Florida; Pandiassou and Jacmel, Haiti; and Arles, France. His exhibitions include Hidden Voices at Men Nou Gallery, Pettionville, Haiti 2014, A Quatre Mains with Cecile Cayrol, Hotel Nord Pinus, Arles, France 2015. From 2014 to 2018, Jeff was commissioned to design and create dinnerware for some of the finest restaurants in Miami and Southern France where it has been used to serve President Macron. From 2018-2022, prior to Jeff’s current role as an instructor and Ceramics Program & Studio Manager at Crealdé School of Art in Winter Park, Florida, he worked in the prestigious studios of Simon Pearce and Stephen Proctor, both in Central Vermont, honing precision production and design skills and developing techniques for the production of large scale pieces.

Jeff’s training has mainly been through traditional rather than academic venues.  He began as an apprentice to Charles Counts at Rising Fawn Pottery, Rising Fawn, Georgia, in 1984. From 1986 through 1988, he apprenticed at Atelier La Chouette with Michele Bailly, Nimes, France, and at Potterie du Don with Suzy Atkins in Montsalvy, France. He has taught in a variety of institutions, including Chattanooga State Technical and Community College, Baylor School, and Lee University in Tennessee; Covenant College in Georgia; Ceramic League of Miami in Florida; and Popular University of Pandiassou in Haiti, in addition to numerous workshops in the US and abroad.

He has organized and curated numerous exhibitions, including Masters and Students and Pottery from Nicaragua and Peru in 1999, funded through Georgia Council for the Arts and Hope from Haiti: An Exhibition of Haitian Craft at Konbit for Haiti Center, Miami, Florida, in 2013.  At that time, Jeff also founded and directed Epple Seed Arts as a nonprofit arm of Beyond Borders to celebrate and support their efforts towards sustainable livelihoods for Haitians. Jeff's ceramic practice has always been tied to his heart and work toward justice, equity and inclusion.