Aubrey Maurer ’22 sculpts a future in an Emerging Artist Residency

For Aubrey Maurer, 3D design and sculpture with ceramics have been a natural fit with her artistic leanings. 

“The handmade element, the 3D element of sculpture expands that flat 2D feel, and it just comes to me.” 

The 2022 Fine Art BFA graduate has been selected for Millersville University’s Emerging Artist Residency and will bring those sculptural and ceramics skills to Millersville this fall. 

“Calla Lily,” Aubrey Maurer, handmade clay

“I’m really excited to get back into learning again,” Maurer says. “The rhythm of going to school, and being surrounded by people who have the same interests, that community — the resources and pulling in all that knowledge.”

In addition to expanding her own ceramics knowledge base, the residency offers Maurer the opportunity to instruct and mentor Millersville seniors, sharing her own experience at the same time as she’s expanding it under the guidance of Ceramics professor Deborah S. Sigel.

“Cascade,” Aubrey Maurer, handmade clay

Building on a personal connection to her art

Back in May, Maurer was honored at Commencement with the Fine Art departmental award. An affinity for nature and the handmade deeply resonates in Maurer’s sculptural work. Her senior thesis project, a collection of organic sculptural pieces, showcased the natural surroundings of her Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, home.

That collection began by gathering rich, clay-based mud from a creek flowing through her family’s property. Maurer then removed foreign materials from the mud and spread it out on a stone slab in her apartment, allowing it to dry to the correct consistency before kneading it into a block and then working it on a wheel or by hand. Because her pieces were not kiln-fired, they could eventually be broken back down into their fully original state and returned to nature. 

“Sandy Dollar,” Aubrey Maurer, handmade clay

In high school, her art teacher Kerry Herring, “a favorite teacher of all time, pushed me in the direction of ceramics,” Maurer says, “and really into the world of sculpture” at North Schuylkill Junior/Senior High School. That love of 3D elements and sculpture was reinvigorated in her sophomore year at PCA&D in a class with Prof. Evan Kitson and expanded exponentially from there.

As she gears up for her Emerging Artist Residency, Maurer is eager to tap into that spirit of mentorship that has guided her art career so far — sharing her own knowledge with other artists at the same time as she continues to refine her own practice. 

“I’m really excited to get into the teaching aspect a little bit,” says Maurer. “I really like being part of that kind of community.”

Learn more

Instagram: @aubrey_m._

Website: aubreymaurer.com