Detroit artist, educator and 2020 Kresge Eminent Artist Marie Woo has died at the age of 97. Kresge Foundation President and CEO Rip Rapson issued the following statement:  

The first Kresge Eminent Artist to be honored in ceramics, Marie was known as a “potter’s potter,” an artist who struck the balance between preservationist and pioneer. She was a technical master, yes, but she also trusted her intuition and the raw forces of nature to create what she could not have imagined. 

She developed two signature glazes, “Woo Yellow” and “Woo Blue,” which others tried — and failed — to replicate. But in contrast to those precise formulations, she sometimes left her pieces outside, exposing them to the elements, to sun, snow and rain, to magnificent effect. She celebrated traditional forms by paradoxically obliterating the distinctions between form and function making her creations, as one admirer put it, “come alive.”  

Originally from Seattle, Marie studied at Cranbrook under Maija Grotell, who is regarded as the “Mother of American Ceramics.’’ She subsequently taught and further developed her craft at the University of Michigan before embarking on extensive travels and studies in Japan and Southeast Asia. We are extremely thankful that she and her husband returned to the Detroit area to raise their family, since this exposed our community to Marie’s brilliance.

Marie pursued her art here, collaborating with fellow ceramicists in the Clay Ten group to elevate the status of their art form, teaching at the College for Creative Studies and at the esteemed Pewabic Pottery. As a board member of the century-old ceramic tile studio, she played a key role in pushing back against efforts to eliminate classes as a cost-cutting measure. Those classes continue today.

She was also a cutting-edge scholar of Chinese folk pottery traditions, making a number of trips to document fading rural practices and mounting a major touring exhibition on the subject.

Marie was a woman of few words, preferring her artform to do the talking for her. She refused to give in to labels. “I don’t believe in the labeling. I just do what I do and trust the viewer,” she said. And many viewers were blown away by what they saw. Her work found homes in several permanent collections around the globe, including at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

An inspiration in spite of herself, Marie had a gift for turning the ordinary into the extraordinary. She saw what other people didn’t and honed that vision into her legacy. Marie possessed the ability to transcend boundaries with her art. Our world is a little less colorful to no longer have Marie in it. Our sincerest condolences to her family.

Learn more: Marie Woo, an innovator in ceramics, is named our 2020 Kresge Eminent Artist

Download her monograph: Wonder and Flow