Allie Thurgood / Tempe, Arizona
Bio
Allie Thurgood is a ceramicist living and working in Tempe, Arizona. She received her BFA in ceramics from Arizona State University in 2025, and is currently pursuing her MA in art at Arizona State University. Working with clay and textiles, Thurgood transforms mundane, everyday objects into exaggerated sculptures that encourage viewers to reconsider what is often overlooked.
Thurgood has exhibited throughout the Phoenix and Tempe area, including exhibitions at the Harry Wood Gallery, Herberger Theatre Center, Shermer Art Center, Gallery 100 at Mirabella, and the Tempe Post Office. Her work has been recognized with the Arizona Artists Guild Scholarship, OLLI Intergenerational Scholars, and the Liu Shimming Scholar award. Alongside her studio practice, Thurgood works as a ceramics technician and instructor and has taught ceramics, mixed media, and embroidery in the Phoenix, Chandler, and Tempe communities.
Statement
My work uses bags as a framework to examine human habits, patterns of consumption, and the quiet interactions that shape everyday life. We depend on bags to carry, store, protect, and discard, yet they often move through our lives without much thought or emotional value. I am drawn to their place between necessity and disposability, and how they mark everyday exchanges such as grocery shopping, gift-giving, travel, celebration, and convenience. Whether paper, plastic, or reusable, bags are tied to systems of abundance, excess, and expectation, revealing behaviors such as overconsumption, ritualized generosity, hoarding, and reliance. By recreating these familiar forms in ceramic and textiles, I slow them down and make them larger and brighter than their everyday counterparts. The exaggerated scale and color draw attention to these objects, making the ordinary more obvious and asking viewers to notice what they might normally pass by.
Materially, I combine clay and textile with surface embellishment, texture, and form to echo the folds, weight, and vulnerability of these objects. The labor involved in weaving, sewing, and embellishing contrasts with the disposable nature of the bags I recreate, giving these familiar objects a new sense of time and value. Botanical elements, woven surfaces, and exaggerated fullness reference the human body and the ways we adorn, protect, and burden ourselves. The flowers, textiles, and layered forms become ways of adding value to something that is typically considered temporary or disposable. They depict how something ordinary can be elevated, obscured, or overwhelmed depending on context.
By transforming overlooked, low-value objects into labor-intensive ceramic and textile sculptures, I aim to shift bags from disposable tools into avenues of reflection and communal meaning. I ask viewers to consider why some things become noticed and valued while others remain part of the background. These works invite viewers to consider what we carry, why we carry it, and how much of our identity and behavior is embedded in the objects that we move through the world with every day. My practice ultimately asks us to reconsider the ordinary, not as background noise, but as a mirror of who we are and how we live together.