GH Wood (b. 1998) is an MFA candidate in Ceramic Art at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He holds a B.A. in Chemistry and Studio Art from St. Olaf College. Wood has served as an Emerging Artist Resident at St. Olaf College and completed a post-baccalaureate in ceramic arts at Indiana University Southeast. His work has been exhibited nationally and is included in the permanent collection of the Evansville Museum.
As a Chinese American transracial adoptee, I navigate the tension between the life lived and the one imagined. I reconcile this cultural dissonance by engaging with a heritage once out of reach, approaching learning as both inquiry and repair. Through the study of historic Chinese ceramic forms and surface traditions, I seek reference as reverence, using the vessel as a site where lineage, imagination, and material practice converge. This work becomes both reconnection and exploration—balancing vessel and self, honoring tradition while allowing transformation. Ultimately, understanding one’s birth culture reveals itself not as a fixed destination, but as an evolving process with many pathways, each offering moments of rediscovery and joy.