Cherokee Pottery with Tama Roberts

Tama Roberts describes the importance of ceramics in everyday life, usages, and how ceramics can be viewed in a different light. She shows the students the beginning steps of throwing pieces on the pottery wheel and how larger sculptural pieces can be made from a simple cylinder. She demonstrates different carving, firing, and glazing techniques.
Tama Roberts’ journey as an artist has not been one that is in any way easy, or conventional. Tama would need a miniseries to describe who she is as an artist, and how she became the artist that she is today.
Tama is a multimedia artist who focuses working primarily in ceramics and stainless steel. Each piece is an original interpretation and expression of her mental visions. She uses the clay to voice her mitochondrial connection to her native heritage. Using the interconnection and dependence of the four elements, Tama hopes that each piece is emblematic in the relatedness and respect that we carry forth for Mother Nature, and all of her inhabitants. Her design features reflect contemporary characteristics that mirror the “art of today,” married with the connections from the past.
Her journey started roughly ten years ago after a large transition in her life, which also provided a path to healing. In the beginning Tama worked with gourd pyrography and decided that she needed to work within a more substantial medium that would translate her conceptual designs. She was blessed to work with Bill Glass Jr. and Troy Jackson through the Cherokee Nation National Treasure Mentorship Program. This opportunity resulted in an explosion of growth within her ceramics journey. With Bill and Troy’s encouragement she traveled to several Native American art shows in Indiana, Santa Fe, and Arizona. While attending said shows, she began to receive many recognitions, and awards.