With roughly 40 years of experience working in ceramics, Watkinsville potter Alice Woodruff’s most recent exhibition marks an emotionally difficult and deeply personal period of her life. Following the suicide of her son, Samuel Thomas Crowe, Woodruff turned to clay as a method of moving through unresolved and unaccepted grief. Many pieces took shape as open “boats” that could be symbolically or physically filled with memories and mementos, while other works explore concepts related to death. Her hope is to open a conversation about mental health, suicide and grief—to destigmatize the experience of living with mental illness, and to provide comfort to affected family and friends.
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