David Stuempfle
Seagrove Pre-Conference Artist
David Stuempfle built his studio in Seagrove, NC in the late 1980s and since then has built three wood kilns. David’s ceramics have been featured in numerous articles and books, including Ceramics in America (2021). His work can be found in major museum and private collections throughout the United States and abroad—the Mint Museum of Craft and Design, the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park Museum (Japan), the Museum of American Ceramic Art, the Mobile Museum of Art, the Fuller Craft Museum, the Asheville Museum of Art, the Chipstone Foundation, and the Museum of International Folk Art, among others. He has worked across Europe, Estonia, Japan, and South Korea to learn from other working potters, absorbing and adapting the intricacies of his international colleagues’ techniques. He has been a US/Japan Creative Artists Fellowship recipient, and an NEA/Central and Eastern Europe Visual Arts Fellowship recipient. He has taught at Penland School of Crafts, the Bascom Center for Visual Arts, Peters Valley School of Craft, studios in Canada, Portugal, and numerous universities and colleges.
Beyond his mastery of form and material, David is an energetic educator and advocate for the tradition. He lectures widely and provides intimate demonstrations of his monumental jar making throughout America. He has curated several exhibits at the NC Pottery Center as well as the Mint Museum, where he curated an exhibition devoted to world pottery traditions.
