Mariella Owens

Mariella Owen’s love of clay and nature started in early childhood in rural Alabama. The eighth of twelve children endowed her with abilities to work with everyone regardless of differences. It helped to form her one-on-one teaching style that reaches all of her students regardless of ability and/or intellect. From teaching college educated, certified art teachers, to handicapped and home schooled children, her knack for working with all students shines in the work they produce.

Over the years she has led workshops in Wilberforce University and Central State University both in Wilberforce, Ohio, for Dr. William Bing Davis. She is in demand to go into public schools to demonstrate her ancient art form for children and faculty alike. In 2018, she led a week long workshop at the famed John C. Campbell FolkSchool in Cherokee County, North Carolina. She is slated to lead another in 2023. Her works have traveled as far away as China and Japan touring with the American Black Beauty Traveling Show, a group of twenty-two artists from Ohio and Indiana. That same group of painters, potters, weavers and wood carvers exhibited works in all 48 or the contiguous states. Her many awards for Best in Show and First Place stand as recognition of excellence by various judges in shows in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Georgia. For thirty-five years, her employment at the Riverbed Arts Center in Dayton, Ohio gave her the platform to develop into the artist she is today. While there, her artistic bent was forged into an artist of exceptional vision followed by magnificent productions that match her world view of life at its beautiful best. Her time today is spent teaching at the Mablehouse Arts Center in Mableton, GA. She also exhibits her wares in a dozen arts festivals in and around Atlanta. They can also be purchased in galleries in Ohio, North Carolina and Roswell, GA.

Her pottery reflects her affinity with nature in all of its beauty, energy, diversity and changing playfulness. Clay in her hands begs her to turn it into beautiful, fully useful works of art. Her hand crafted colors magnify the beauty of each creation stamping it with an indelible signature that makes it an heirloom directly from the kiln. As one recent purchaser wrote, “Your artwork is a wonderful gift to the world, and I consider myself so blessed to be in its receiving line.”