ARTIST STATEMENT
My writing, political activism and ceramic art all come from the same hands. The pitted and painterly surfaces of my clay pieces, which often include writing, remind us that shaping clay into vessels by hand is an ancient practice.
When Victorian archeologists found small bottles in Roman-era graves, they concluded they must have been “tear bottles,” filled with tears by mourners and tossed into the grave. We now know the small bottles held perfumed oils.
My eighteen handmade ceramic Tear Bottles refer to the eighteen people who have died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody January to May 2026. Their names have not been in the headlines and are not familiar to most of us. Their deaths are the tragic result of inhumane conditions and medical neglect.
Although they don’t hold tears, these bottles do contain my grief about this cruel policy of civil detention carried out by our own government. As of September 2026 I have learned of nine more people we need to remember. I am making a bottle for each of them.
Witnessing, recording and memorializing are valuable parts of the work elder women do for our communities. I hope these handmade ceramic vessels contribute to that work. I intend to continue this project until the end of 2026.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Originally from Memphis, Carol Spindel lives in Urbana, Illinois. She is the author of three books of nonfiction and many essays, works as an activist with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois and makes ceramic art in her home studio. She spends summers in coastal New Hampshire and woodfires each summer with the New Hampshire Potters Guild in a large cooperative kiln she helped build.
She has a BFA in ceramics from the University of Iowa and an MA in Art History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her MA thesis was on women potters in northern Ivory Coast, West Africa. For many years she taught creative nonfiction at the University of Illinois and the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival. In retirement she has returned to her first love, shaping clay herself rather than writing about other women who do.
© Carol Spindel