Liberty Teapot Project

Liberty Teapot Project: No Kings

Liberty Teapot Project: No Kings is an ongoing body of work that explores the relationship between functional ceramics, material culture, and political resistance. Through the familiar form of the teapot, I investigate how handmade objects can preserve collective memory, foster dialogue, and inspire civic engagement. My practice is grounded in the belief that functional craft is never neutral; the objects we live with embody cultural values and can become powerful instruments for social and political expression.

The teapot is central to this project. Among functional ceramic forms, it is one of the most technically demanding, requiring the careful construction and assembly of individually made parts into a harmonious whole. It is also an object that invites participation. A teapot must be held, poured, and shared, and the preparation of tea is a ritual that encourages conversation, reflection, and community. This combination of technical complexity and shared domestic experience gives the teapot a unique capacity to communicate ideas about interdependence, democracy, and civic responsibility.

The project was inspired by an English protest teapot produced around 1765 in response to the Stamp Act. Bearing the inscriptions "No Stamp Act" and "American Liberty Restored," the vessel transformed an everyday household object into a declaration of political resistance. My contemporary interpretation replaces those words with the phrase "No Kings," connecting the ideals that shaped the American Revolution to current conversations about democratic institutions and the responsibilities of citizenship.

Historical research is integral to my studio practice. Each teapot is informed by the study of objects that have served as agents of political expression, demonstrating how craft has long participated in movements for social change. By reimagining this history through contemporary ceramics, I seek to create work that is both functional and conceptually engaged.

The Liberty Teapot Project also transforms the act of collecting art into an opportunity for civic participation. Over the course of one year, I will create and sell 250 unique No Kings teapots. Eighty percent of every sale will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union to support its work defending constitutional rights and democratic freedoms, while the remaining twenty percent will sustain the continued production of the project. In this way, each teapot becomes more than a work of art or a functional object—it becomes a tangible expression of shared values and a direct investment in protecting the democratic principles that inspired its creation.