Maria Dondero makes pots and teaches in Athens, Georgia where she lives with her husband and twin boys. She received her MFA from the University of Georgia in 2008 and now works as a studio potter and professor. In February 2016, Dondero started Southern Star Studio, a community ceramic center with space for artists to work and present their ceramics in the gallery. In 2022, while teaching Ceramics in Cortona, Italy, she joined 3 other women opening a clay studio called Tuscan Clay Lab. She now teaches multiple workshops a year, bringing groups to her shared studio in Cortona. She exhibits her work and teaches nationally and internationally. 

Dondero’s pottery, marmalade pottery, focuses on kickwheel thrown functional pieces to be used everyday.  Each piece is unique, with its own story to bring to your home.  The pots are intended to be used daily, bringing a moment of lightness and reflection to a fast-paced modern world.

The mid-range earthenware pots have an aesthetic that draws on the history of ceramics. While subtly referencing pottery traditions from around the world, Maria intuitively sketches images on her ceramic surfaces from her surroundings, grounding the pots in the Georgia soil.

I want my work to show a conscious process, an alternative to lifeless mold-made pottery that is so prevalent at a cost hardly reflecting the steps involved. Picking up a handmade cup reveals its weight, its surface, its edge, and the fit of the handle. Then bringing this object to lips is even more intimate, such that sipping from a unique cup becomes a connection to the maker. I myself connect to pottery for the rich, long history of potters who have made beautiful objects to be used in everyday life. I choose terracotta for the rich color and the likeness to Georgia Clay. I use a kaolin slip to add texture and a surface to draw back into. I respond to the form itself with imagery from my life and surroundings. I seek to balance the immediacy of quickly sketched drawings with the permanence of a piece of pottery that could be around long after I am.