Justin Donofrio grew up in Santa Cruz, California, where he was introduced to pottery at Cabrillo Community College. He then joined the vibrant Colorado community of artists in 2013 in the Roaring Fork Valley where he continued his clay education with the support of Anderson Ranch, The Carbondale Clay Center and The Studio for Arts and Works (SAW). He remained in Colorado to complete a B.F.A. from CSU Fort Collins in 2016. He is both internationally as well as nationally represented in galleries throughout the U.S. and abroad. Donofrio has been a Windgate Summer Scholar at the Archie Bray Foundation and resident at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. He has been an exhibiting artist and tour co-manager with the Artstream Nomadic Gallery, in addition to being selected as one of Ceramics Monthly’s 2018 Emerging Artists. He is currently pursuing his MFA in ceramics at Alfred University.

Justin is one of six artists who were chosen for similar reasons, and also for ones unique to each of them. All of them share a love of the material of clay, and an appreciation for the function of the particular objects that they create. Each of their experiences in clay is individual, but the common thread of education, from the past, present, and future, with their instructors being working artists in their field, ties them to the foundation of the Bauhaus.

For more information on the Walter Gropius Master Artist Ceramic Symposium, go to www.hmoa.org/education/gropius-ceramic-symposium/. For more information on the Walter Gropius Master Artist Program, go to www.waltergropius.org.

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how the National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.

This project is presented with financial assistance from the West Virginia Department of the Arts, Culture and History, and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.

The Walter Gropius Master Artist Series is funded through the generosity of the Estate of Roxanna Y. Booth, who wished to assist in the development of an art education program in accordance with the proposals of Walter Gropius, who designed the Museum’s Gropius Addition, as well as the Gropius Studios. The Museum is indebted to Roxanna Y. Booth’s son, the late Alex Booth, Jr., for his participation in the concept development of the Gropius Master Artists Workshops.