BALTIMORE, MD — Baltimore Clayworks is pleased to announce two new solo exhibitions celebrating the work of its fellows: ANOMALY by Brady Fanning, 2025-26 Lormina Salter Fellow, and On My Best Behavior by Katherine Pon-Cooper, 2025-26 EMBARC Fellow. Both exhibitions will be on view from July 4 through August 29, 2026, with a public opening reception on Saturday, July 11, from 4:00-6:00 pm. The reception is free and open to the public and offers visitors the opportunity to meet the artists and engage with their work.
Presented annually, Baltimore Clayworks’ fellowship exhibitions provide artists with the opportunity to share the culmination of a year of intensive studio practice, experimentation, and creative development. Together, these exhibitions highlight the breadth of contemporary ceramic practice while exploring themes of identity, transformation, power, and belonging.
ANOMALY
In ANOMALY, Brady Fanning presents a collection of ceramic sculptures that challenge conventional expectations of the medium. Combining wheel-thrown and hand-built techniques, Fanning creates intricate modular forms that feel simultaneously animated, fragmented, and whole. Sharp extensions, layered ornamentation, and complex silhouettes evoke transformation while suggesting systems of growth, assembly, and evolution.
Fanning’s practice explores the tension between power, protection, and desire through hybrid sculptures that blend organic and synthetic forms. Drawing inspiration from ancient Greek vessels, architecture, weaponry, science fiction aesthetics, and queer visual culture, his work imagines worlds where traditional boundaries of gender, species, and material dissolve.
Originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, Fanning is the 2025-26 Lormina Salter Fellow at Baltimore Clayworks. He earned his MFA from the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University Bloomington and his BFA in Ceramics from Purdue University Fort Wayne. He has recently been selected as one of the 2026 Emerging Artists by Ceramics Monthly.
On My Best Behavior
In On My Best Behavior, Katherine Pon-Cooper reflects on the experience of being a biracial Chinese American while confronting and rejecting the enduring “model minority” myth. Through ceramic works that merge Chinese and American aesthetic traditions, Pon-Cooper examines assimilation, patriotism, identity, and belonging.
The exhibition employs familiar symbols—including the American flag, baseballs, and dogs—to address the expectations placed upon nonwhite Americans to perform patriotism, obedience, and loyalty in exchange for acceptance. By combining Chinese visual motifs with American folk pottery traditions and atmospheric firing techniques, Pon-Cooper creates imagined Chinese American artifacts that challenge prescribed narratives and encourage self-expression beyond the limits of cultural stereotypes.
Born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Pon-Cooper received her BFA in Ceramics from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2025. Now based in Baltimore, her work draws inspiration from North Carolina’s rich folk pottery traditions while exploring mixed-race identity, family history, and clay as a vessel for memory and archive. Pon-Cooper is the 2025-26 EMBARC Fellow at Baltimore Clayworks.
Community Arts Summer Showcase: Character Traits
Also on view during this exhibition cycle is the Community Arts Summer Showcase: Character Traits. This is a collaborative project between Baltimore Clayworks and the Maryland School for the Blind, highlighting the intersection of artistic expression and social-emotional learning. Rooted in the Maryland School for the Blind’s Character Trait of the Month program, this initiative emphasizes the development of values such as perseverance, empathy, patience, and cooperation as essential components of student growth.
Through hands-on ceramic processes, high school students translate these abstract traits into tangible, sculptural forms. Each piece reflects an individual interpretation of character, inviting viewers to consider how values can be embodied, practiced, and shared within a community. This exhibition celebrates not only the creative achievements of the Maryland School for the Blind students, but also their commitment to personal development and community connection.