Sana Musasama: Raised Earth

Sana Musasama RAISED EARTH

Sana Musasama

Raised Earth

September 5 – October 25, 2025

Clay Fire Imagination Desire

On a bright, hot August day I took the LIRR to Jamaica Center and Ubered to St. Albans, a storied African American community in Southwestern Queens. Queens has boulevards wider than the ones in Paris, and St. Albans has some show piece houses next to more modest dwellings. All have that house proud stamp— pretty gardens, trimmed lawns, portals that announce, “you have arrived.” Then I get to the home of Sana Musasama and her red brick front home where the yard announces a di erent way to garden, one not so trim, not so pretty, not so tidy. Not at all. This modest structure is clearly the home of an artist, and with that it has the challenges and charms that a childhood home, now artist’s studio, contains. In this building, there is groundedness and unease, similar to the tilts of some of her stoneware sculptures with their nods to the precarity of shelter. How di cult it can be to achieve it, how so very easily it can go.

Walking through Raised Earth, the innovative and stunningly beautiful installation that features many of Musasama’s House series works, is akin to promenading across an artist’s consciousness over the time she created this body of work. Her stoneware and earthenware were made from the early 1980s to 2025. It seems that early on, her glazing techniques display a range of colors: yellows

to greens and then blues or rust. From afar, these vessels seem serene but close up they are radiating. These works are dynamic in their stillness, letting the viewer remember that not only earth, but fire is involved in their creation.

At the Raised Earth opening, Eric Firestone Gallery presented these works on raised round platforms, and for once the use of white cube space worked in the artist’s favor. Each of the sculptures had enough space to be seen individually and in conversation with the other works—they were often grouped across the gallery space in such a way that on one platform, the gold mesh in the glaze echoed the glaze on a

work on an adjacent platform. Every House series sculpture had its own special space to the delight of gallery visitors.

Many of them were old friends, students, art world persons, many hued. As a Black American woman, I am now used to the gallery opening protocols and the occasional attempts by visitors to engage with me, especially if the artist on display is Black. This can be discomforting, disconcerting, or illuminating—it all depends. So, while I was standing in the back room intently looking at one of the House series sculptures, this White Lady asked me what I saw, what words came to mind. I quietly said I really can’t do that, but

what do you see? She articulated a few things, but the word that stood out was “protection.” Interesting because as I was developing my ideas for this essay I wrote about one hundred or so words such as earth, salt, global knowledge, belonging, despair, faith, spirituality, but I forgot “protection.”

Could it be that “house” and “protection” are not necessarily conjoined when we think of Black Americans and home ownership? Our history in this nation finds us with very complicated perspectives on land and private property. In an era where deed theft, tax policies and lending practices undermine the ability of Black Americans to keep or buy an actual

house, art that stirs up the aspirations and desires of the Black Community is always fraught.

In a way, Musasama’s House series explores the ideal and the problem that a house, any house, may bring. Her stoneware sculptures highlight her considerable artistry of making works that are structurally innovative, visually seductive, and emotionally provocative.

In her conversation with Janet Henry for Bomb Magazine, Sana noted that she “worked in clay everywhere.”1 That included China, Cambodia, West Africa, the Netherlands, wherever there are residencies and villages where she can land, connect, and do what

she loves to do. But this comes at great physical, emotional costs. Traveling is never easy. Traveling as a woman, a Black woman who is creative and sensitive, is exhausting as well as exciting. As a poet on the road, I know just what it means to get up before the sun rises to get to the airport and get through those lines, but her trips have been longer and she has gone places that have welcomed her, but that could also be dangerous. It is no wonder that her ingeniously crafted vessels are often pierced with other crafted pieces that recall details from Nkisi Kongo power objects. Her movement in and out of the U.S., in and out of her home in New York shows up in the composed clay

nails and discs that look like metal along with other objects and markings that clash or complement her sculpture’s glazes. House Series #24 (pl. 19), glazed blue and rust, features a circular band with woven parts, with those metallic looking objects—it’s like a weird 3D trompe-l’œil. These interruptions can be playful or whimsical or terrifying depending on their shapes and sizes. Why pierce the House skin? What do these sometimes large, sometimes small interruptions on the sculpture’s body say about the fragility, vulnerability of structures?

The House Series emanates from The Great Migration. Musasama’s family came from the

Kongo sculptor and nganga , Power Figure (Nkisi N’kondi), 19th–early 20th century, wood with iron, cloth, mirror, leopard tooth, fiber, and porcelain, 18 × 8 × 3 1/2 in. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. Charles B. Benenson, B.A. 1933, Collection.

Carolinas to New York City and made a better life for themselves and their children. Sana is one of four sisters and the only one who became an artist. Walking through the house she grew up in was fascinating and felt slightly intrusive, even as she welcomed me and fed me delicious melons and cherries. Her hand is on almost every object, her ceramics, her dolls, her collections, the carved swing door to the kitchen, the pots in the backyard with a dream size aloe plant—it was large!

But a childhood home can be a blessing and a burden. It seems that the tilt of her sculptures echoes that problem. You have something your parents or

Faith Ringgold, Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach, 1988, acrylic paint, canvas, printed fabric, ink, and thread, 74 5/8 ✕ 68 1/2 in. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. New York Gift, Mr. and Mrs. Gus and Judith Leiber, 1988. © 2025 Anyone Can Fly Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

grandparents purchased and so it is of some value, but every floorboard, every doorknob, every closet, every room holds memory, some wonderful, others terrible. Houses can serve as a place of ancestral memory, imagination, empowerment, feminine flourishing, but they can be dangerous sites of conflict, violence, neglect, grief, and betrayal. We see her intensely show how interiority meets public display to highlight but one aspect found in a House.

It intrigues me that women artists have long examined this interiority, such as Louise Bourgeois or

Faith Ringgold, but Musasama’s structures showcase both what can be seen, and what is often hidden. They stand in clusters of dialogue or silence with space. With her large, beautiful hands, she creates installations that ask you to see what is often dismissed, the complicated ground upon which the feminine experiences structures, particularly ones often seen as female dominated.

The smaller wall works from 2024 and 2025 “cut away” from the wholeness, especially House Series #45 (pl. 11) and #46 (pl. 13), but others revisit the

Sana Musasama, House Series #46, 2025, glazed stoneware, 14 1/2 ✕ 15 1/2 ✕ 5 3/4 in.

Melvin Edwards, Some Bright Morning, 1963, welded steel, 14 1/4 ✕ 9 1/4 ✕ 5 in. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; Galleria Buchholz, Berlin © 2025 Melvin Edwards / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.

way that she stacks the work. When I saw them, I thought of Melvin Edwards’s angry and elegant Lynch Fragment series as if these are the houses that the victim may have been dragged from or run to. Their beauty cannot negate the violence done to Black people historically or the precarity of Black lives. And it helped me understand her sustained work in Cambodia with survivors of sex trafficking. When she talks about this work, I think of the woven pieces that she places on her perfectly made sculptures, something added to raise our spirits, to make us think.

Raised Earth is a powerful introduction to an artist and her obsession with clay, with fire, with color, form, and desire. That it has taken many decades to bring this group together shows us her perseverance and how long it often takes the art world to truly recognize and see the power and innovative work of women artists, especially women artists of color. Can her works “protect” any of us? Only someone who possesses the work could say that. But we can marvel at the decades of thought, imagination, and skill it takes to create these pieces. Only the

imagination of the viewer makes these House (s) homes and that may be the most important thing Sana Musasama has done, made us question how we shelter, not what is in the House. ◾

1 Sana Musasama, Janet Olivia Henry, and Stephanie E. Goodalle, “An Oral History with Janet Olivia Henry & Sana Musasama,” Bomb Magazine, September 18, 2019, https://bombmagazine. org/articles/2019/09/18/ janet-olivia-henry-and-sanamusasama-ohp/.

PATRICIA SPEARS JONES is an African American poet, anthologist, literary curator, educator, and cultural activist who received the 2017 Jackson Poetry Prize and served as The New York State Poet (23–25) and Poet Laureate Fellow. She is the author of The Beloved Community, ten other poetry collections, and two plays commissioned and produced by Mabou Mines. She edited THINK: Poems for Aretha Franklin Inauguration Day Hat and Ordinary Women: An Anthology of New York City Women Poets. Her essays, interviews, and critiques are published in

Other Influences: An Untold History of Feminist Avant-Garde and journals such as The Poetry Project Newsletter, Bomb Magazine, The Killens Review, and Essence. She received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hartwick College. She serves on the board of directors of The Poetry Project, is the founder/organizer of the American Poets Congress, and is a Senior Fellow Emeritus of the Black Earth Institute.

The Exhibition

Sana Musasama

b. Queens, NY, 1957

Lives and works Queens, NY

EDUCATION

1987 New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, New York, Master of Fine Arts

1974 The City College of New York, City University of New York, Bachelor of Arts

SELECT SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2025 Sana Musasama: Raised Earth, Eric Firestone Gallery, New York, NY

2024 Sana Musasama: Returning to Ourselves, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY

2022 I Never Played With Dolls, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Brooklyn, NY

2020 Sana Musasama: Sculpture, Bluffton University, OH

2019 Unspeakable, Grace Albrecht Gallery, Sauder Art Center, Bluffton, OH

2014 Unspeakable Series, Studio 550 Art Center, Manchester, NH

Whispers and Echoes, Thomas Hunter Projects, New York, NY

Two Views, Galerie 43, Paris, France

2013 Conversations, Nancy Dryfoos Gallery, Kean University, Union, NJ

Unspeakable Series, Weiss Center for the Arts, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA

My Journey, Clay Art Center, Port Chester, NY

2010 Unknown/Unnamed, June Kelly Gallery, New York, NY

The Hand, Meta House, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2009 Women, Chatham University, Pittsburgh, PA

Ceramic Sculpture, Robert Hughes Gallery, San Antonio, TX

2008 Outer Beauty/Inner Anguish, Sagtikos Art Gallery, Suffolk County Community College, Brentwood, NY

2007 A Season of Abundance: The Maple Tree Series of Sana Musasama, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

Unspeakable, Frankie G. Weems Gallery, Meredith College, Raleigh, NC

2006 ETHOS: Social Consciousness and Craft, Penland Gallery, Penland School of Craft, Bakersville, NC

The Maple Tree Series, Coppin State University, Baltimore, MD

2005 Shhh…Secrets, Status, Society, June Kelly Gallery, New York, NY

Unspeakable Series, Vergette Gallery, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL

The Maple Tree Series, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, Coppin State University, Baltimore, MD

The Maple Tree Series, Courtney Gallery, Jersey City, NJ

2004 Works In Clay, Barrows Rotunda, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

2002

Unspeakable, List Gallery, Swarthmore College, PA

Unspeakable, Noel Gallery, Charlotte, NC

2001 Outer Beauty/Inner Anguish, June Kelly Gallery, New York, NY

Unspeakable, Rush Arts Gallery, New York, NY

The Maple Tree Series, New Jersey City University Visual Arts Gallery, NJ

1998 Maple Tree Series, Fine Arts Gallery, Southampton College of Long Island University, NY

1995 Maple Tree Series II, June Kelly Gallery, New York, NY

Maple Tree Series I, June Kelly Gallery, New York, NY

1994 Legacy, Sewickley Academy, Pittsburgh, PA

1992 Ceramic Sculpture, Manchester Craftsman Guild, Pittsburgh, PA

1991

1989

Introductions, June Kelly Gallery, New York, NY

Uncoverings/Ceramic Sculptures, SOHO20 Gallery, New York, NY

Echoes & Excavations, Manchester Craftsman Guild, Pittsburgh, PA

1987 The Garden Series, Cinque Gallery, New York, NY

1986 Artist-in-Residence Exhibition, Jamaica Center for the Arts and Learning, Queens, NY

1985 Montana Series, Cinque Gallery, New York, NY

The House Series, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

1984 From the Studio, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

A Review of 10 Years, Sewickley Academy, Pittsburgh, PA

SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2026 Clay Has Memory: Generational Knowledge from Africa, Princeton University Art Museum, NJ

Re-Union: Syd Carpenter, Martha Jackson Jarvis, Judy Moonelis, Sana Musasama, and Winnie

Owens Hart, Frances M. Maguire Art Museum, Saint Joseph’s University, Merion Station, PA

2024 Immersive Worlds: Real and Imagined, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

Summer Games, Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, NY

2023 Clay Holds Water, Clay Holds Memory, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH

Crafting Freedom, New York Historical Society, New York, NY

2022 Collage/Assemblage, Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, NY

Conversations, William H. & Sonja Carlson Davidow ‘56 Fine Art Gallery, Colby-Sawyer College, New London, NH

Who Writes History, ArtsWestchester, White Plains, NY

The Universe Within, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, FL

Cultivated Space, Rowan University Art Gallery & Museum, Glassboro, NJ

2020 Behold, Welancora Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Survival Tools for the Age of Ultra Anxiety, Plaxall Gallery, Queens, NY

Polycentric, Dialogical and Relational, Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, John Jay College, New York, NY

Claytopian New York, The Plaxall Gallery, Queens, NY

2019 Domestic Matters: The Uncommon Apron, Sally D. Francisco Exhibition Gallery, Peters Valley School of Craft, Layton, NJ

More Than That: Diversity Within Diversity, Flaten Art Museum, Northfield, MN

Art and Social Activism, 32 Orchard Street, New York, NY

2018 Visual Voices: Truth Narratives, Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, PA

Southeast Queens Biennial: A Locus of Moving Points, York College Arts Gallery, Jamaica, NY

Invisible Borders, The Gallery at CCBC Essex, Community College of Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD

2016 InForm: Sculptural Ceramics, Rockland Center for the Arts, West Nyack, NY

Rivers and Tides: Ceramics along the Hudson, Peekskill Clay Studios, NY

Art Prize 8, Fountain Street Church, Grand Rapids, MI

50 Women-A Celebration of Women’s Contribution to Ceramics, American Jazz Museum, Kansas City, MO

2015 Art Prize 7, Fountain Street Church, Grand Rapids, MI

Human Moments, Cade Tompkins Projects, Providence, RI

After Afropolitan, Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn, NY

Embodying Deference, Empowering Difference, Roberta A. Fiskum Art Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, WI

Curator’s Choice-Black Life Matters, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, NY

2014 6 × 6 Ceramic Tile Exhibition, 5th Ceramic Tile International Triennial, JVS Project Space, New York, NY

elit-tile, La Quinta Trienal Mundial del Tile Cerámico, International Artist Mention, Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

40 and Counting, 40th Anniversary Celebration, Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts+Culture, Charlotte, NC

In Residence-Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

2013 Reawakening: A Celebration in Clay of Nature and Renewal, Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn, NY

Body & Soul, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY

Convergency, Pelham Art Center, NY

Art of Five: Queens, The Interchurch Center, New York, NY

History, Haunting and Palimpsests, Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, John Jay College, New York, NY

Small Work, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

2010 Fertile Ground, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, Philadelphia, PA

Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

2009 Confrontational Clay, Westchester Art Council, White Plains, NY

Faculty Show, Penland School of Crafts, Bakersville, NC

2008 Conversations in Clay, Katonah Museum of Art, NY

New Works, John Malloy Gallery, New York, NY

Bi-Lingual, Spaces, Cleveland, OH

2006 Edges of Grace, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA

2005 Social Concerns, Pewabic Pottery, Detroit, MI

NCECA 2005 Tour de Clay, James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD

2004 Unity in Diversity, Baltimore Clayworks, MD

Honoring Our Roots, Eubie Blake Cultural Center, Baltimore, MD

2003 Traditions: The Blessing & The Curse, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL

2002 Small Works, Hunter College, New York, NY

Expressions in Clay: Paul Chaleff, John Fink, Margo Hughto, Barbara Karyo, Sana Musasama, Bill Shillalies, Sagtikos Art Gallery, Suffolk County Community College, Brentwood, NY

2001 Five Ceramics, Suffolk County Community College, Brentwood, NY

Florence Biennale, Fortezza da Basso, Florence, Italy

Unspeakable, Rush Arts Gallery, New York, NY

Five African American Artists, Pewabic Pottery, Detroit, MI

Twenty Years, Jamaica Center for the Arts and Learning, Queens, NY

Clay On The Wall, gallery onetwentyeight, New York, NY

Selected Works from the Permanent Gallery, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

2000 Ceramic National 2000, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY

New Works, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA

Wo-men, Chicago Cultural Center, IL

New Works, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

1999 Stop Asking We Exist, The Society of Contemporary Crafts, Pittsburgh, PA; American Craft Museum, New York, NY; New Bedford Art Museum, MA; Mobile Museum of Art, AL

Annual Show, Elsa Mott Ives Gallery, New York, NY

Faculty Show City College, Eisner Hall, New York, NY

Passages, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

Contemporary Ceramics 1999: The Work of Africa

African American Artists, North Carolina Central University Art Museum, Durham, NC

On Fire, Schoolhouse Gallery, Croton Falls, NY

Cultural Influences in Craft, North Carolina Central University Art Museum, Durham, NC

Watershed Benefit, Turtle Gallery, Deer Isle, ME

Haystack Faculty Show, Blue Heron Gallery, Deer Isle, ME

Secret Objects, Concealed Spaces, Paramount Art Center, New York, NY

Viewpoint Ceramic 1999, Hyde Art Gallery, Grossmont College, El Cajon, CA

Multiple Hues and Multiple Voices, Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia, PA

Black New York Artists of the 20th Century, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, NY

Introductions, Gomez Gallery, Baltimore, MD

On Fire, Baltimore Clayworks, MD

1997 Faculty Auction, Leubsdorf Gallery, New York, NY

1996 A Labor of Love, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY

1995 In Three Dimensions: Women Sculptors of the 90’s, Staten Island University, NY

Exploring a Movement: Feminist Visions in Clay, The Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga, CA

New York Clay, International Traveling Exhibition

1994 Uncommon Beauty, American Craft Museum, New York, NY

1993

Former Resident, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT

Clay Today, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY

2 African American Craft Artist, The Art Gallery at Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn, NY

1992 Maternal Evidence, Alcazar Ballroom, Baltimore, MD

6 African American Clay Artists, African American Museum in Philadelphia, PA

The Garden Series, The French Consulate, New York, NY

1991

Residence Show, Greenwich House Pottery, New York, NY

SELECT PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT

Atlanta Life Insurance Company, GA

Bluffton University, OH

Museo De Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

European Ceramic Work Center, Oisterwijk, The Netherlands

Givat Haviva, Israel

Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Jiangxi Province, China

The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC

Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY

The African American Design Archive, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY

The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, NY

Tuscarora Museum, NV

Women Made Gallery, Chicago, IL

TEACHING

2015– Visiting Artist, Facing History High School, New York, NY

2011–2024 Adjunct Professor of Ceramics, John Jay College, New York, NY

2008–2024 Instructor, Jamaica Center for the Arts and Learning Queens, NY

2021 Visiting Artist, Hunter College, New York, NY

2021 Visiting Artist, Alabama Clay Conference, AL

2021 Visiting Artist, University of Colorado Boulder, CO

1995–2021 Associate Adjunct Professor of Ceramics, Hunter College, New York, NY

1995–2009 Instructor/Resident Artist, Mixed Media

Art, Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES), New York, NY

2007 92nd Street Y, New York, NY

1990–2002 Assistant Adjunct Professor of Ceramics, City College of New York

1999 Craft Students League, YWCA, New York, NY

1995 Ceramics, Maryland Institute College of Art, Ceramics, Baltimore, MD

1994 Greenwich House Pottery, New York, NY

1992 Ceramics Department, Community College of Pennsylvania, Ceramics Department, Philadelphia, PA

RESIDENCIES

2026 Starworks, Star, NC

2025 Shangyu Celadon Modern International Ceramic Center, Zhejiang Province, China

Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN

Penland School of Crafts, Bakersville, NC

2024 Township10, Marshall, NC

The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, NY

Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT

The artist at the European Ceramics Work Center, Oisterwijk, the Netherlands, 1992.

2023 Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Edgecomb, ME

2021 Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Edgecomb, ME

2014 Cité Internacionale des Arts, Paris, France

2013 Soaring Gardens Artists Retreat, Laceyville, PA

The Center for a Shared Society, Givat Haviva, Israel

Clay Art Center, Port Chester, NY

2012 Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME

2007 Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

2003 Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Edgecomb, ME

2001 Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Edgecomb, ME

1999 Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT

1998 Baltimore Clayworks, Baltimore, MD

1994 Cité Internacionale des Arts, Paris, France

1992 European Ceramic Work Center, Oisterwijk, The Netherlands

1991 Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Edgecomb, ME

Greenwich House Pottery, New York, NY

1985 Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

1985 Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT

1982–84 The City College of New York, NY

1981 Tokyo Designer Gakuin College, Japan

1978–79 Tuscarora International School of Ceramics, NV

1975–76 Mende Pottery, Mendeland, Sierra Leone

AWARDS

2024 Innovator Award, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts

2022 Honorary Membership Award, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts

2018 Outstanding Achievement Award, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts

2016 Art Prize 8, American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan

2015 Art Prize 7, American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan

2014 City University of New York Faculty Research Award

2013 Joan Mitchell Fellowship

Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grant Nominee

2008 City University of New York Faculty Incentive Award

2007 Dartmouth Exhibition Studio Award, Hanover, NH

2002 Heiman Fellow, Swarthmore College, PA Anonymous Was a Woman Award

2000 Empire State Craft Alliance Grant, Saratoga, NY

1998 Artist As Catalyst, Mid Atlantic Grant

1995-96 Perspectives in African American Art, Seagram’s Gin Award

1995 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship

1993 The Dalton School Summer Research Grant

1992 Empire State Craft Alliance Grant Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant

1990 Mid Atlantic Arts Grant, Manchester Craftsman Guild, Pittsburgh, PA

Mid Atlantic Arts Grant, Baltimore, MD

Excellence Award, The Dalton School, New York, NY

1989 Empire State Craft Alliance Grant

1987–88 Atlantic Life Insurance Company, Atlanta, GA

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Shaye Weaver, “Everson Museum of Art,” Time Out Magazine April 12, 2024.

Ava Lombardi, “Sana Musasama’s Dream Comes True through a Collection of Topsy Turvy Dolls,” The Daily Orange February 26, 2024.

Eliza Jordan, “1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair Brings Meaning to Malt House,” Whitewall. May 20, 2023.

Josie Thaddeus-Johns, “1-54’s Smart, Sharp Collection of Contemporary African Art Shines in New York,” Artsy. May 19, 2023.

Alison Stewart, “The Story of Free Black Potter Thomas W. Commeraw,” All of It, WNYC Radio. February 22, 2023.

“Black Clay Artists Everyone Should Know,” Design Miami February 10, 2022.

“Polycentric, Dialogical, and Relational: Featuring John Jay’s Artists in a Virtual Space,” John Jay Impact. Fall 2021.

Noor Brara, “Artists on Artists to Watch, and Maybe Even Collect,” The New York Times. June 14, 2021.

Liz Gallandt, “Interview with Visiting Ceramic Artist Sana Musasama,” Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College. March 2021.

Stephanie E. Goodalle, “An Oral History with Janet Olivia Henry & Sana Musasama,” BOMB Magazine. September 18, 2019.

Margaret Carrigan, “Pushing the Limits of NYC’s Periphery at the Southeast Queens Biennial,” Hyperallergic. March 2018.

Cliff Hocker, “If I Can Help Somebody: Sana Musasama’s Art of Healing,” The International Review of African American Art Plus. September 12, 2016.

Working Women: 36 Contemporary Women Artists. New London, NH: Marian Graves Mugar Art Gallery, Colby Sawyer College, November 2015.

“Art and a Sense of Place,” Hood Museum of Art Quarterly, Dartmouth College. Summer 2014, p. 14.

Hood Museum of Art Quarterly, Dartmouth College. Spring 2014, pp. 7–8.

Michael R. Taylor and Gerald Auten, In Residence: Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2014, p. 80.

Frédérique Joseph-Lowery, “Remarqųes Théoriques Sur La Céramique Contemporaine,” Artpress2. November 2014, p. 39.

Cindi De Marzo, “Crisis and Catharsis in Clay: An Interview with Sana Musasama,” Studio International. November 21, 2013.

Body & Soul, New International Ceramics. New York, NY: Museum of Arts and Design, 2013, pp. 86–89.

SANA MUSASAMA: My Journey. Port Chester, NY: Clay Art Center. 2013.

“Sana Musasama Shares Life Experiences at WAA,” The Housatonic Times. October 19, 2012, p. A7.

“Art as Activism in Washington,” The Litchfield County Times. October 2012, p. A15.

Joanna Hamer, “Musasama Makes Art Talk About the Unspeakable,” The Chautauquan Daily. July 12, 2012, p. 5.

“‘One Million Bonesʼ raises public awareness of genocide,” Swarthmore Phoenix. April 26, 2012, p. 5.

“Trade Winds,” Ceramics: Art and Perception, No. 84. March 2011, pp. 85–87.

Brian Kennedy and Emily Shubert Burke, Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art. Hanover, NH: Hood Museum of Art, 2009.

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Benjamin Genocchio, “Ideas Abound in Clay: Ceramics That Go Beyond Bowls,” New York Times. November 28, 2008.

Sana Musasama: Ambivalent Beauty. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College, Hopkins Center, Jaffe-Friede & Strauss Galleries, 2007.

American Ceramics. Fall 2006, p. 71.

Glenn McNatt, “Exhibit has roots in anti-slavery group,” The Baltimore Sun. March 29, 2005.

Mary Carole McCauley, “Ceramics Central: For the next six weeks, clay exhibitions are being mounted all over the city, as well as in surrounding counties and states; TOUR DE CLAY,” The Baltimore Sun. February 17, 2005.

Margaret Rose Vendryes, “’INVETERATE OUTSIDERS’ African American Women Artists Get Their Due (and Pay Them),” The International Review of African American Artists, no. 2. 2005.

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Howardena Pindell, “Diaspora/Realities/Strategies,” n.paradoxa, Issue 7. July 1998, pp. 18–19.

Phyllis Braff, “Art Review,” The New York Times. March 8, 1998.

“From the Studio,” East Hampton Star. March 1998.

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“At Galleries,” East Hampton Star. February 1998.

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Crystal A. Britton, African American Art: The Long Struggle New York, NY: New Line Books, 1998, p. 112.

“June Kelly Gallery,” ARTnews. January 1998, p. 28.

Grace Glueck, “Art Guide,” The New York Times. January 1998.

American Ceramics, Vol. 3. January 1998, p. 10.

Phoebe Farris-Dufrene, Voices of Color: Art and Society in the Americas. London, England: Humanities Press International, 1997, Chapter 12.

“Work and Lives - Seven Ceramic Artists,” Studio Potter, Vol. 26, No. 1. December 1997.

National Conference on the Education of the Ceramics Arts Journal. Spring 1997, p. 52.

“Picture Perfect: A View of a Pioneer’s Past,” The Baltimore Sun. March 2, 1997.

“The Stars of Today Pick the Stars of Tomorrow,” ARTnews March 1997, p. 99.

Sylvia Moore, ed., Gumbo Ya Ya: Anthology of Contemporary African-American Women Artists. New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1995, pp. 184–185.

“Adventurous Women,” Essence Magazine. July 1995.

Richard Zakin, Ceramics: Mastering the Craft. 1990, p. 56.

opposite detail of House Series #24, see pl. 19

Acknowledgments

Thank you, Sana Musasama, for your incredible work. We are grateful for your decades of diligence and exploration, and for trusting us to care for and celebrate you and your Houses with this exhibition. Thank you to Patricia Spears Jones for your inspired meditation on Sana’s work and for your contribution to this publication. For graciously allowing us to reproduce their portraits of the artist, we thank Dawoud Bey, Greg Miller, and Silvia Otte. We also thank Alexander Gray Associates, Sean Kelly Gallery, Redux Pictures, and The Studio Museum in Harlem for their assistance with image reproductions. Thank you to all of Sana’s friends and colleagues for their energy and support throughout the exhibition, with special appreciation for Nari Ward. Lastly, thank you to the whole team at Eric Firestone Gallery for making all of this happen!

— Eric Firestone

Published on the occasion of the exhibition

Sana Musasama: Raised Earth

September 5 – October 25, 2025 on view at Eric Firestone Gallery

40 Great Jones Street, New York, NY

ISBN: 979-8-9931807-0-0

LCCN: 2025919953

Cover: detail of House Series #28, see pl. 10

Inside front cover: detail of House Series #35, see pl. 5

Inside back cover: detail of House Series #22, see pl. 6

Frontispiece: Sana Musasama, c. 1986–87. Photograph © Dawoud Bey, Courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly, New York/ Los Angeles.

Page 12: The artist at Eric Firestone Gallery, 2025, photograph by Sam Glass

All historical images, unless otherwise noted: Courtesy the artist

Publication copyright © 2025

Eric Firestone Press

Essay copyright © 2025

Patricia Spears Jones

Exhibition photography © 2025 Sam Glass

All artwork © 2025 Sana Musasama

Reproduction of contents prohibited All rights reserved

Published by Eric Firestone Press

4 Newtown Lane East Hampton, NY 11937

Principal: Eric Firestone

Managing Partner: Kara Winters

Senior Director: Jennifer Samet

Associate Director: Maddy Henkin

Research Assistant: Alabel Chapin

Photography: Sam Glass

Design: Isabelle Smeall

Printing: GHP

Eric Firestone Gallery

40 Great Jones Street New York, NY 10012

646-998-3727

4 Newtown Lane East Hampton, NY 11937

631-604-2386

Ericfirestonegallery.com