Press

Sana Musasama’s Exhibit, “Returning to Ourselves,” features fabric and clay arts created by the artist. Along the walls of the exhibit, dolls spun over and over revealing a second doll with a completely different outfit underneath.

A new exhibition at the New York Historical Society, Crafting Freedom: The Life and Legacy of Free Black Potter Thomas W. Commeraw, takes viewers into the life Commeraw led, and also displays over twenty of his preserved works. Curator Allison Robinson alongside artist Sana Musasama, whose pottery is also on view, join us to discuss the exhibition, which is on view until May 28, 2023.

NEW YORK CITY — As A. Brandt Zipp recalls, it was around New Year’s Day in 2003 when he made a discovery that had eluded researchers for nearly a century. Thomas W. Commeraw (circa 1771-1823), long credited with some of the most artistically striking salt-glazed stoneware made in New York City, was, alone among his competitors, a free man of color.

NEW YORK, NY.- This winter, the New-York Historical Society presents Crafting Freedom: The Life and Legacy of Free Black Potter Thomas W. Commeraw, the first exhibition to bring overdue attention to Thomas W. Commeraw, a successful Black craftsman who was long assumed to be white.

Sana Musasama, a ceramic artist and activist from Queens, also has developed a new piece that reflects on Commeraw’s life as a potter in New York, his transatlantic adventure two centuries ago, and her own artistic path.