The work of lifelong Germantown resident Robin Williams-Turnage is on exhibit at Allens Lane Art Center through Dec. 6 and will leave an indelible impression on anyone who is attracted to clay pottery, particularly those who have an affinity for art with an African aesthetic.

“When I touch clay, I let the intuitive spirit and my hands do all the work,” Williams-Turnage said last week.

The artist’s vessels, bowls, plates, and platters serve as an exploration of family history and identity that is deeply influenced by African culture and a practice of ancestor veneration. Williams-Turnage purposefully uses dark clay bodies (darker colored ceramic clay) and utilizes the pottery wheel, as well as traditional Nigerian and Ghanaian hand-building methods — ancient techniques that involve shaping clay using only your hands and simple tools, without a pottery wheel.

The dark clay bodies in her work “reference the skin tones of my ancestors and reflect a deep love of self,” Williams-Turnage told the Local. “The idea of loving and embracing the brown is not something often promoted in mainstream media as a good or positive thing. I want to change that.” She also adorns her pieces with symbolic offerings such as fruit, feathers and necklaces. The resulting body of work straddles the ancient and the contemporary, melding the past and present into ceramics that embody a sense of hopefulness for the future.

Artistic influences

Williams-Turnage graduated from Martin Luther King High School in 1979 and majored in ceramics and printmaking at Moore College of Art. She has spent much of her time creating in community art centers including Fleisher Art Memorial in South Philadelphia and the Clay Studio in South Kensington.

“I first became interested in pottery while watching someone throw on the potter’s wheel on Sesame Street,” she said. “I always enjoyed Play-Doh but got my first taste of clay watching my brother. I was really mesmerized once my mother took me to the ILE IFE Art Center in North Philadelphia, which was later known as Village of the Arts and is now known as Spaces.

“There I saw the Black hands of an artist in clay on the potter’s wheel for the first time,” Williams-Turnage continued. “There I watched Charles Searles and LeRoy Johnson throw pots! I had my first eager experience with clay at Pennsylvania Advancement School at 5th and Luzerne Streets under a very thorough teacher named Curtis Brown. He taught me hand-building.”

Currently focusing her personal work on ceramics, the Germantown artist creates porcelain tableware and other vessels that reflect that influence. She calls working with ceramics especially satisfying, particularly when her artistic vision is achieved in the work.

According to Vita Litvak, executive director at Allens Lane Art Center, Williams-Turnage’s “dedication to her craft is evident in her roles as an associate at the Clay Studio and as a beloved teacher, instructing courses on traditional Nigerian and Ghanaian pottery at various institutions in Philadelphia. In recent years, Williams-Turnage has actively exhibited her work at the Clay Studio and Fleisher Art Memorial, the Colored Girls Museum and with the Drummond Art Legacy.”

The effect of legacy

Williams-Turnage describes her artistic approach as one infused with her own experience as a “middle-aged African Indigenous American woman. In my genetic DNA, I hold both the joys and pains of being Black in America. In my art, I have been drawn to reach beyond my own lifetime or American history into the time of my great-grandmother’s day into pre-Colonial Ghana or Nigeria.”

The artist explained that learning the culturally specific traditions of Nigerian and Ghanaian pottery techniques has helped build a more panoramic view of her artistic ancestry, find a special way to contribute to the clay community, and ground her in an art world dominated by people of European descent.

“The distinct beauty of these utilitarian pots continues to captivate people for size and surface variations,” Williams-Turnage said. “Having been taught Western techniques in my ceramic experiences, I needed to make tableware with images of Black royalty, Black peace and Black unity in the MAGA world.”

The artists Williams-Turnage admires include LeRoy Johnson, Barbara Bullock, Charles Searles, Richard Watson, Simone Leigh, Magdalene Odundo, Adebunmi Gbadebo and Nashormeh Lindo.

“My most influential teacher,” she said, “is Winnie Owens-Hart. Winnie’s teacher was Ladi Kwali and the women potters in a small village in Ghana.”

For more information, visit allenslane.org or theclaystudio.org. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.