Artist-in-Residence Chris Rodgers, ceramics instructor in the Department of Art and Design, has been named to the Center for Craft’s Teaching Artist Cohort.

The cohort is a six-month program that offers professional and financial support to artists who are both educators and practitioners. The honor includes a grant that provides unrestricted funding of $10,000.

Rodgers was one of only 30 artists selected for the cohort.

As a member of the cohort, Rodgers also participates in mentorship and peer-to-peer learning activities. These activities help sustain studio practices while strengthening community engagement.

Rodgers’ recognition by the Center for Craft highlights the department’s faculty who merge creative research with hands-on teaching, said Interim Department Head Dr. Mitzi Kirkland-Ives. His participation in the Teaching Artist Cohort grant program, she added, reflects the ongoing dialogue between making and mentoring that defines the department’s studio culture.

Grant impact felt immediately

According to Rodgers, the grant’s impact began with space itself. “The first thing I did after receiving the grant was to design and build proper studio furniture,” he explained. “I now have three large tables and a shelving unit that are exactly what I need. This change has completely transformed how I work.”

The redesigned studio has made it possible for Rodgers to focus on a new series of ceramic paintings, a body of work that blurs the boundaries between sculpture and painting. He plans to continue expanding this process by using colored clay and hand-made grog. This process reveals color from within the material rather than applying it to the surface.

“The result is a tactile exchange between form and color that invites viewers to see ceramics and painting in a new way,” he said.

Busy upcoming exhibition schedule

Rodgers will present his evolving ceramic paintings in a solo exhibition in Fayetteville, Arkansas in the spring of 2026. Two larger solo shows will follow in 2027 at the Lux Center for the Arts in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Missouri State’s Brick City Gallery. “These projects would not be possible without the generosity of the Center for Craft’s Teaching Artist Cohort ,” he said. “The experience has helped me build not only better tables but a stronger foundation for my future as an artist and educator.”

Cohort reinforces sense of community

While the studio transformation is tangible, Rodgers views the Teaching Artist Cohort as equally important for how it reinforces the role of connection in both artmaking and teaching.

“Community is so important to artists,” he said. “The cohort has reminded me how vital it is to stay connected with others who are balancing teaching and making.”

At Missouri State, that philosophy comes to life in the ceramics studio, where students collaborate on daily tasks such as mixing glazes and firing kilns. In the Spring 2026 semester Rodgers, alongside his colleague Associate Professor Kevin Hughes, will work with students to build a new wood kiln together. Rodgers described the project as “a hands-on lesson in both teamwork and tradition.”

Teaching and creating art are inseparable

Even with a full schedule of teaching, research and exhibitions, Rodgers maintains that teaching and making are inseparable. “Teaching and making overlap so much for me that it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins,” he states. “Those moments when a student’s effort finally clicks, when they make something that feels completely their own, remind me what shared discovery really means.”

Explore Ceramics @ MSU

Photos provided by Chris Rodgers.

News edited by the Reynolds College Communications Team.

Sam Barnette is a writer for the Department of Art and Design. She holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Missouri State’s Department of Communication, Media, Journalism and Film. She is working toward an MS in Data Science and Analytic Storytelling at Truman State University.