Independent Arts News Reporting Lisa Naples: Grounded in Gold examines the inner experience of being human with new work at Michener Art Museum from the nationally recognized ceramic artist
Reported Monday, June 2, 2025.
Pictured Above: Custom red clay,
slip palette and satin glaze formulated by
artist, commercial underglaze, and 23
carat gold luster 14 x 6 ½ x 6 ½ inches.
Courtesy of the artist.. Photo Credit: Contributed.
NEWSROOM POST: DOYLESTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA
Related Exhibition Programming for Lisa Naples: Grounded in Gold is set now through October, 2025
Doylestown, PA – The culmination of an ongoing 40-year studio career for nationally recognized ceramic artist Lisa Naples is on view from May 24 through November 25, 2025 at Michener Art Museum with the new exhibition, Lisa Naples: Grounded in Gold.
The exhibition demonstrates the Frenchtown, New Jersey-based artist and educator’s evolution from creating functional pottery to her celebrated reputation for abstract and narrative sculpture, which often features animals like rabbits and crows. In her first solo exhibition at the Michener, Naples examines the inner experience of being human through abstract and animal sculptures that draw on the symbolism of gold.
Lisa Naples’ most recent group of sculptures, on public view for the first time, communicates the wide range of human experience with either two chimney-like openings or two rabbits facing towards or away from one another. While depicting the extremes of tenderness and estrangement, Naples grounds each piece in gold, representing what is most precious and sacred.
“What makes Lisa’s works so special is the way she’s able to take complex ideas and communicate them in her ceramics,” said Michener Art Museum Assistant Curator Abi Lua. “The beauty of this body of work comes from the creative storytelling that Lisa Naples is known for, and also from the way she invites us to a greater self-awareness of our own dignity—the ways we are grounded in gold.”
Pictured Above: Lisa Naples, Seeing Red and Choosing Not
to Involve, 2024. Custom red clay, slip
palette and satin glaze formulated by
artist, commercial underglaze, and 23
carat gold luster. 14 x 6 ½ x 6 ½ inches.
Courtesy of the artist.
Naples’ work represents the larger community of ceramicists in the Delaware Valley region. Michener Art Museum, known for studio craft, acquired a Lisa Naples ceramic vessel in 2020 as part of its permanent collection. Titled Gestation II, its mirrored figural shape and two chimney-like openings explore the conception of an individual’s dualistic experience, where humans perceive themselves as separate from the world around them despite being intricately connected to it. Gestation II is temporarily relocated from the main galleries to be part of the exhibition.
The artist spent over two years producing the works on view at Lisa Naples: Grounded in Gold. “This is the strongest, bravest work I’ve ever managed to create,” Naples said. “Exploring these deep questions could only happen by challenging my limits in ceramics. Even in a long studio career, this is
the rarest of rare exhibitions. Manifesting the space and time to bring it into being feels like a small miracle.”
Naples has lectured and given workshops across the U.S. and has exhibited her art extensively, including at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, the National Building Museum of The Smithsonian Institution in DC, and the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. The National Council on the Education of Ceramic Artists (NCECA) honored her with an international residency at the Australian National University in Canberra, Aus. in 2005. Her work was featured in a four-person exhibition of narrative sculpture entitled Contemporary Folklore at Michener Art Museum in 2010. She was awarded the 2012 Ceramics Prize at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show. Naples was awarded a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship in conjunction with Mid-Atlantic Arts in 2025.
Naples’ work is published in many books, including the 2024 release of “The Complete Guide to Low Fire Glazes for Potters and Sculptors.” In this volume, her custom satin-clear glaze is recognized as a staple for the low-mid fire temperature range. Later this year, Weywot Films is set to release a full- length documentary on Naples and her studio process for making the work included in Lisa Naples: Grounded in Gold.
The exhibition program in the Bette and Nelson Pfundt Gallery is presented by Vivian Banta and Robert Field.
Concurrent with Lisa Naples: Grounded in Gold, the gift shop at Michener Art Museum is stocked with ceramic works for sale from Lisa Naples Clay Studio in Frenchtown, New Jersey. Contributing artists are Alison Goodman, Amy Horton, Judy Waitz, Karen Macainsh, Laurie Scupp, Mickie Marshall-Jacoby and Tyree Dworak.
Related Exhibition Programming for Lisa Naples: Grounded in Gold, on view May 24—November 23, 2025:
Meet the Artist
Saturday, May 24 / 12–3 p.m.
Free with general admission / No registration required
Artist Talk with Lisa Naples
Wednesday, July 16 / 1–2 p.m. $10 Member / $20 Non-Member
Unplugged Family Day: Animal Printmaking, inspired by Lisa Naples: Grounded in Gold
Sunday, August 10 / 1–3 p.m.
Free / Pre-registration required
Artistic Excursion: Studio Tour with Lisa Naples
Tuesday, September 30 / 2–3 p.m. $20 Member / $30 Non-Member
Educator Workshop
Thursday, October 16 / 5–8 p.m.
Free for Educators / Pre-registration required
About the Artist:
Lisa Naples studied ceramics at Rochester Institute of Technology and University of the Arts, and later received her MFA in ceramics from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. For several decades, she has exhibited her work nationally and traveled throughout the country teaching workshops at conferences, art centers, and universities, most notably including Penland School of Craft, Kent State University, Arrowmont School of Craft, and The Clay Studio in Philadelphia. In 2025, Naples was awarded a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship in conjunction with Mid- Atlantic Arts.
Naples created a classroom space in a Bucks County barn in 2015, where she invited the regional community to learn ceramics. She relocated Lisa Naples Clay Studio to nearby Frenchtown, New Jersey four years ago, in the heart of a destination river town.
About Michener Art Museum:
Website: michenerartmuseum.org
Address: 138 S. Pine Street, Doylestown PA 18901
Hours: Wednesdays–Sundays, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Admission is free on the second Sunday of the month with support from Art Bridges Foundation.
Michener Art Museum in Doylestown is dedicated to preserving, interpreting, and exhibiting the art and cultural heritage of the Bucks County region. Home to the largest public collection of Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings and known for studio craft, the Michener is named for Doylestown’s most famous son James A. Michener, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who first dreamed of a regional art museum in the early 1960s. The Museum was originally home to the 19th-century Bucks County Prison and is surrounded by the historic stone prison walls which are part of the Patricia D. Pfundt Sculpture Garden, terraces, and a landscaped courtyard. Michener Art Museum features nationally touring special exhibitions, work from regional artists in distinctive galleries, and the quiet and serene Nakashima Reading Room.
