Honoring Tradition, Shaping the Future
The MFA in Ceramics looks to the past and the future as we challenge and imagine the possibilities of working with clay.
Exploration, Experimentation, and Excellence in Contemporary Ceramic Practice
The MFA in Ceramics program empowers students to engage deeply in research and interdisciplinary exploration, encouraging experimentation with diverse media. We center student inquiry through collectively engaging in meaningful discussions that support critical thinking, bold making, and being a contemporary artist working with clay.
Studio equipment supports wheel work, hand-building, mold-making, and slip-casting projects as well as digital fabrication. Large kilns are available to accommodate all types of work. Students are educated to demonstrate both conceptual and technical excellence, and benefit from time spent with visionary visiting artists as well as our partnerships with local arts organizations in Philadelphia, with its established clay tradition and thriving contemporary art scene.
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The Tyler School of Art and Architecture features its own admissions team, who can provide you with the information you need to make the best decision for your educational and career goals.
Explore Degrees
Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics
The Ceramics program at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture is a two-year, 60-credit program leading to the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree that offers personal mentorship from faculty and visionary visiting artists in state-of-the-art facilities and encourages experimentation with media, interdisciplinary projects and public art to ignite social change.
Guiding Principles
The MFA in Ceramics is centered around four key principles that define our approach.
Criticality
Critical thinking is central to our work as artists. At Tyler we challenge canons and imagine contemporary and future practices of clay.
Creativity
As artists we imagine the worlds we want to create. At Tyler you will have the resources and support to envision, speculate, and create the world you want to see!
Community
We are strengthened by our connection to one another. Our program fosters a community-driven environment where students support one another through dialogue and shared resources. Here you will meet your future collaborators!
Expansiveness
At Tyler, we approach ceramics through an expansive lens. Clay is an entry and invitation to an endless exploration of ideas and methodologies.
What can you do with an MFA in Ceramics from Tyler?
Tyler Ceramics MFAs are known for their critical thinking, bold creativity, and ability to shape cultural dialogue. Our graduates leave with the skills, confidence, and experience to lead, teach, and innovate across diverse fields, and have gone on to pursue a variety of careers, including:
- Artist
- Educator
- Designer
- Studio potter
- Fabricator
- Community-based arts worker
- Small business owner
- Art administrator
- Non-profit worker
Facilities and Studio Space
Tyler’s Ceramics studios span 10,000 square feet and house gas and electric kilns, large wheel-throwing and hand building spaces, and a glaze room with spray station. You will create in one of the largest university-based ceramics studios in the United States.
- Four gas kilns and 13 electric kilns
- 18-wheel throwing room
- Spacious hand building room
- Mixing room, glaze room and clay storage room
- Large exhibition and critique room
- 3D clay printer, decal printers, CNC router
- Six private dedicated graduate studios
Alumni Spotlight
Meet graduates of Tyler’s MFA in Ceramics—artists, educators, entrepreneurs, and changemakers shaping the future of clay. Our alumni lead with creativity, purpose, and vision, forging unique paths that expand the field in bold and meaningful ways.
Malene Djenaba Barnett
MFA '22
Malene is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, textile surface designer, and community builder. Malene’s art reflects her African Caribbean heritage, building on her ancestral legacy of mark-making as a visual identity, and has been exhibited at galleries and museums throughout the United States, including the Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling in New York City, the African American Museum of Dallas, and Temple Contemporary in Philadelphia. In 2024, Malene released her first book, “Crafted Kinship: Inside the Creative Practice of Contemporary Black Caribbean Makers” (Hachette), a groundbreaking collection of Caribbean makers. Malene received a Fulbright Award to travel to Jamaica in 2022–23 as the visiting artist at Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston.
Alumni Voices
“My experience at Tyler has helped reteach me the value and importance of community. The art is important but it’s the people within the art that matter the most. It has opened my eyes to social practice as a form of art within itself.”
Bradford Davis
MRA '24
Student Work
Our students’ wide-ranging work expands the contemporary practices of clay through object making, installation, social practice, and cross disciplinary works.
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Alumni
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Faculty
Our amazing, internationally recognized faculty work in all facets of ceramics. They foster a rigorous and community centered environment to support, challenge and mentor you in reaching your professional goals and exceeding your creative aspirations.
