Whitney Gill
- Kate Anker
- Oct 2
- 5 min read
Interview with Katie Bonadies, October 2025
Whitney has curated a playlist to enjoy with her ceramics.
Whitney Gill is a clay artist and the Executive Director of Maine Crafts Association. Whitney became a member of Running With Scissors when MCA opened an office here in 2017. Whitney has held many roles at MCA since she first started working for the organization over a decade ago. She moved into the Executive Director role in 2023. In this role Whitney oversees all aspects of the organization and Shop Maine Craft, MCA’s retail affiliate, including membership, programming, fundraising, finance, communications, board development and more.
Whitney went to college for studio art and switched to ceramics after she took a figurative sculpture class at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in 2011. “I realized figure sculpture was like illustration in 3D, and it changed everything.” She was studying at University of Maine Augusta where she met MCA members Denae, Mary Kay and Jeff of the Spencer family; they invited Whitney to make pottery in their studio.
Whitney made the decision to transition away from college when she realized she was on a trajectory to be a self-employed single mother with substantial college debt. The Spencers connected her with MCA as a summer retail job, “I realized it was a powerful learning experience within MCA, as an artist, that I had opportunities and access to as an employee.” It became an important learning tool and community to be a part of in order to strengthen her practice. “Understanding the network of people who live in Maine is another reason MCA works in RWS; we really like being in these communities.”
Whitney learned about production pottery from the Spencers, which she felt was a good strategy to make a living as an artist. Through her work with them and her management role at the Center for Maine Craft, she gained experience working with wholesale accounts, applying to shows and galleries, pricing her work, and marketing. “I was learning on a micro and macro level by working with the MCA while developing my own practice.” Whitney creates stoneware that she throws on the wheel and hand alters. She makes functional pots and dinnerware, mostly mugs and whiskey glasses as well as vases and serving bowls.
She now works from her home studio, still alongside the Spencer family, who moved their production pottery business to her Bowdoin property in 2021. Their shared studio fires gas and electric mid-range kilns. “We fire at cone five with a fifteen-minute hold in a neutral environment. It’s a simple way to fire with great results.” She paints her pots with underglazes in a very gestural and painterly way, a loose take on repeating patterns. Whitney says she’s not super experimental with glazing, but her pots combine vibrant color and bold marks with an equal amount of negative space to give it balance. She mixes a clear liner glaze but has not explored glaze-making beyond that. She loves surface decoration. “The patterning is intuitive and organic. It’s a way for me to make unique decisions for each pot while keeping it in the same series and story.” She is inspired by abstract artists and influence from Asian artists is visible in her work. She likes to use hake brushes or bamboo calligraphy brushes. The thoughtful repetition of a mark is a reference to calligraphy artists in some of her work.
Whitney paints each pattern by hand with brushstrokes of watered-down underglaze that she treats like ink. She works with resist and makes her patterns using a soy-based wax. She makes a band of color at the bottom of the pot and works with four colors as a set series. After she paints with wax, she does a wash of black to create windows that reveal the underlying clay and color. “The band of color acts like a horizon line and the wax marks become windows, giving the pots a kind of depth.” The wax holds the form of the brushstroke in a way that Whitney finds attractive. She uses ‘crappy’ bristled brushes because she likes the spindly lines that they leave behind. She likes to picture her work in other artists’ studios, and that’s who it’s for primarily.
The series is influenced by her spouse, Amory Raymond, who is a jazz musician and instructor. “We collaborate a lot. We designed my mug shape together and I find a lot of similarities in the emotion and abstract expression of our work.” There are a lot of similarities between Amory’s approach to jazz and Whitney’s work that they find, sharing a home studio.
Making pots is a way for Whitney to express herself that doesn’t require words. It’s an interaction between her and other artists, and she finds clay therapeutic. “I feel fortunate that I’ve had that parallel of clay in my life that’s led me to all the places I am now and introduced me to so many amazing people.” Whitney loves working with all craft artists, but she especially loves working with clay artists. She finds they are really generous people. “Nothing is precious. I grew up riding horses, and it’s like getting back on the horse after experiencing loss or taking a fall.” She understands what went wrong and how she will do it differently next time.
The Center for Maine Craft is a hub of information and knowledge and experience. MCA has 500+ members, and they work with countless others as well as the general public, connecting artists with the public. MCA knows the market’s needs, it knows what artists are making that work and helps them find an audience; connecting artists and creating an ecosystem where they meet each other is the point. Whitney believes mentorship is extremely necessary to becoming a craft artist, especially one with specialized equipment. “Having more people to rely on for that knowledge is so important.”
The Maine Crafts Association has a lot of programs this fall. The Craft Apprentice Program Exhibition is happening at Watershed for the month of October before it moves to the New Hampshire League of Craftsman in their Concord gallery in November. Applications for next year’s cycle of the apprentice program opens in October as well. Maine Craft Weekend, a statewide celebration of craft coordinated by MCA takes place the first weekend of October. Whitney will be selling her work at Tandem Glass in Dresden, and the studios at RWS will be open from noon - 4 PM. The Guild Fine Craft Show in Brunswick will be held at the end of October, which will have 40 exhibitors in the Fort at Andross Mill. Then, look for the MCA Artist Awards in early November.