Stefani Threet

Stefani Threet has been awarded an Artist of Color Residency at Mudflat Studios in Somerville, MA beginning June 1, 2026. After years centered on curatorial and community labor, Stefani is re-engaging her own artistic practice through ceramics, building on recent momentum from a residency at Red Lodge Clay Center and subsequent exhibition work with the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. During the Mudflat residency, she will develop a cohesive body of sculptural ceramic work centered on Black and Brown women as carriers of memory, strength, and transformation, using handbuilt vessels and atmospheric firing processes such as wood and soda firing as both material practice and political reclamation of historically exclusionary techniques. The WOO grant will support Stefani with airfare and ceramic materials.

Stefani will create a series reflecting the lives of 25 African American women and their relationships with African American men, focusing on relationships with their fathers. Through taped interviews with these women, Stefani will create imagery for a series of ceramic platters that will graphically depict their stories as well as her own. Embellishing the platters with imagery and text from the interviews, the 25 platters she creates will depict each of the 25 women. Stefani wants the act of sharing these stories to serve as tool for healing for both African American women and men. This work will be shared in an exhibition in West Philadelphia, creating a space for women to discuss their relationships with men.