Patti Warashina is a ceramicist born in Spokane, WA in 1940. Warashina was honored with two 50-year retrospective exhibitions at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) and the Bellevue Art Museum in 2012 and 2013. AMOCA published Patti Warashina: Wit and Wisdom, an exhibition catalogue and biography about her career that accompanied her retrospective. Warashina earned degrees from the University of Washington (1962 and 1964) and, after 30 years of teaching, she retired as Professor Emerita from UW in 1995.


Her work is included in public collections around the world such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Arts and Design, New York City; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; and Icheon World Ceramic Center, South Korea. Warashina is the recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts grants (1975, 1986, and 2013) as well as the recipient of the 2014 James Renwick Alliance Distinguished Craft Educators Awards. Additionally, she has participated in cultural exchange programs in China (2001), Korea (2001), and Japan (1978).


Portrait photo by Jill Harris.