Exhibition opens October 17th, 2026 and runs through September 2028.

Agency is a site-specific exhibition by ceramic artist Molly Hatch that transforms Fuller Craft Museum’s Atrium Gallery into a metaphorical jewelry box. In this immersive installation, Hatch reappropriates traditional Victorian jewelry motifs as symbols of feminine strength, autonomy, and empowerment. Through large-scale ceramic bows, snakes, swallows, arrows, and celestial forms, she reclaims imagery once associated with prescribed notions of patriarchal authority over women, recasting these symbols as powerful expressions of female agency and liberation.

At a time when questions of identity and gender remain at the forefront of public discourse, Agency suggests that asserting autonomy through the hyper-feminine can itself become an act of defiance. By reinterpreting symbols once used to define and control women, Hatch invites visitors to reconsider the meanings embedded in familiar forms. What once signified possession or prescribed roles is reimagined as a visual language of feminine resistance.

Hatch’s latest installation is a continuation of the artist’s ongoing interest in transforming familiar decorative forms through scale, context, and meaning. Ceramic plates, traditionally rooted in the domestic realm, take on new presence and power as Hatch assembles them into monumental compositions that command the gallery space. By elevating these household objects to such an ambitious scale, Hatch challenges the hierarchy that has historically separated the decorative arts from fine art, while honoring the histories and values embedded in the objects that surround us.

Based in Florence, Massachusetts, Molly Hatch is internationally recognized for her large-scale ceramic installations, which draw inspiration from historical decorative arts while engaging contemporary cultural themes. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections, including the Carnegie Museum of Art (PA), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Canada), High Museum of Art (GA), and Newark Museum (NJ). Created specifically for Fuller Craft Museum, Agency offers an immersive meditation on reclaiming history through craft, beauty, and the enduring power of symbolsm. 

Object Symbolism

Historically, jewelry—particularly during the Victorian era—was often given to women as an assertion of male ownership. Pin a bow over her heart, for example, to signify she’s spoken for, and so on. In each of the works created for Agency, I reclaim the historic symbolism of Victorian jewelry, transforming these once-prescriptive motifs into powerful expressions of feminist strength and resilience within a metaphorical jewelry box.

BOW

Historically a jeweled bow was pinned near the heart, declaring her as being bound to another. The bow functioned as a promise of fidelity and signaled to other men that she is spoken for. The oversized BOW inAgency is inspired by the sartorial trend of wearing a bow as an act of feminist defiance. The larger the bow, the greater the declaration of feminine strength and independence. Wearing a bow as a woman today can be a symbolic act of rejection of the traditional notions of femininity and has, in turn, become an act of dissent.

SNAKES

Snakes have historically symbolized eternal commitment and love, particularly when a man gifted a snake to a woman. In Agency, I put forward the snake as a symbol of feminist rebirth and transformation, asking the viewer to consider growth and resilience in the feminine. Feminism is constantly adapting and pivoting, shedding its old skin, bringing in the new in an eternal cycle of reinventing itself as it continues to be challenged and undermined.

SWALLOW

The swallow returns to its nest year after year making it an ideal symbol of stability and homecoming. Typically given to a woman left behind by a voyaging man, it intended to give hope for the man’s safe return while also laying claim to the woman receiving and wearing the swallow. In Agency, I ask the viewer to see the swallow as a beacon of hope and grounding in a return to the foundations of feminism that so many women have worked hard to establish over generations. As women weather the storms ahead, may we remain steadfast.

ARROW

The arrow historically signified progress, forward movement, and action. In Agency, I use the arrow to point us in the right direction—towards hope and holding steady, towards defiance and action against power structures that work to define and control the feminine.

STAR

The eight-pointed star in Victorian jewelry represented the North Star. A woman wearing the North Star was signaling that she has a man who is on a long journey, worn as a talisman to ensure their love’s way back home. It also symbolized an unwavering moral compass and commitment to family through life’s hardships. Agencyreclaims the star as a symbol of unwavering dedication and a symbol of new beginnings.

CRESCENT MOON

The Victorian symbolism associated with the crescent moon represented the divine feminine, female empowerment, and the changing phases of life. It was typically given as a honeymoon gift signifying a new life, a new beginning. Keeping with tradition, Agency affirms the crescent moon as a reminder of new beginnings and the feminine connection to the celestial. As women, we are all connected, not only to each other but also to the greater universe. May we harness that connection and move forward together.

Commissioned as part of Sarasota Art Museum’s Inside Out Program, Hatch’s new site-specific installation, Amalgam (2024), spans two floors, visually linking the Jan Schmidt Loggia and Mark & Irene Kauffman Arcade. Consisting of more than 470 earthenware plates hand-painted in white, blue, and 22 karat gold luster, Amalgam is conceived as one ensemble framed by the four arched windows. Hatch also plays with the empty spaces, so that viewers perceive lines and patterns between plates adjacent to each other. The whole composition may also be experienced from multiple points of view, from near and far, inside and outside of the Museum.

The patterns and motifs deployed in Hatch’s plates in Amalgam are drawn from historical ceramics, such as 15th-century Chinese Ming-dynasty Hanap drinking vessels, 19th-century Moroccan Fassi (from Fez) ware, 17th- and 18th-century Dutch Delft vases, 18th-century Mexican Talavera tile panels, and 19th- and 20th-century Japanese-inspired English ceramics designed by Christopher Dresser. By creating a cross-cultural bricolage of blue-and-white motifs ubiquitous in these ceramic wares, Hatch brings to the fore material and visual evidence of centuries-old global trade networks and the resultant shared aesthetics that connect us. As seen in Amalgam, Hatch’s research-based, critical practice contributes to a genre of fine art ceramics with as rigorous a practice as painting or sculpture.

Please note, pictured here is 20% of the overall installation—documenting in studio for scale and appreciation of the upcoming full installation.

RISE is an installation of over 1200 plates to be installed in the Marie Selby Botanic Gardens Lily Pond in June of 2027. RISE works to highlight the Selby Botanical Gardens’ institutional research and preservation efforts while simultaneously encouraging visitors to see a connection to art and art history in the plantings and live collections.

The ceramic installation is an artistic reflection of the historic symbolism and significance of water lilies and lotus in ceramic art history across cultures that is installed alongside actual lotus and water lily specimens. The juxtaposition of art that represents the plantings in the Lily Pond creates a visual bridge for the visitor, giving context for patterns and motifs from history that also act as signifiers of the importance and value of the water lily and lotus throughout time.

RISE reinterprets and recontextualizes global patterns and surfaces that represent lotus and water lilies on historic ceramic plates. The source imagery represents global patterns referencing the lotus, also known as a flowering aquatic lily. The lotus motif is broadly representative of abundance, fertility, and nature. The lotus also symbolizes powerful concepts such as creation, rebirth, eternity, and more. Each source image was chosen because of its use of stylized foliage and plants that resemble the water lily or lotus.

On view at the Tiffany & Co. Landmark store on the 9th and tenth floors from March 4th through May 20th, 2024. Artworks by everyone from Louis Comfort Tiffany and Damien Hirst to Rashid Johnson, Sarah Sue, Molly Hatch and Peter Marino himself, in addition to an array of 19th-century creations from Marino’s collection of Tiffany silver from the 1880s. The exhibition highlights various masterpieces by the same artists whose artworks adorn the walls of The Landmark, offering a glimpse into the inspiration behind the pieces that Marino personally selected for the jewel of Manhattan.

DUCERE, 2022 Commissioned by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts for “Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design” running February 18–May 28, 2023. From Artnet News article titled “8 Essential Shows to See Around the World in 2023, From a Fresh Look at Alexander McQueen’s Genius to the Louvre’s Treasures of Love.” Artnet News says: “Designs by American and Canadian women are the subject of this sprawling exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Stewart Program for Modern Design. Objects from the mid-19th century through today highlight the breadth of styles and media that female designers made while marginalized in social, political, and personal settings. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) has also commissioned ceramicist Molly Hatch to create a giant mosaic of 198 hand-painted plates that will take over the exhibition pavilion.”

Description: For DUCERE, Hatch appropriates and deconstructs the surface design of historic British industrial designer Christopher Dresser’s 1872 Minton Moon Flask. Hatch worked to create a repeating pattern offering a visual sense of unity and repetition both for the viewers eye, but also to mimic the historic appropriation and repetition of eastern patterns by western makers/designers throughout history. Christopher Dresser’s significant role in history of industrial design is co-opted by Hatch in her use of Dreser’s surface design in DUCERE as a contemporary woman designer and artist claiming space in the art and design fields.

The original ceramic flask references cloisonné, a straightforward surface quality to achieve on the surface of Hatch’s own plates in DUCERE. Each plate is hand-painted, with most colors requiring 4 layers of glaze material to achieve a solid surface, some requiring 5 layers. With an additional 3 layers of clear glaze and a separate firing to apply the hand-painted, 22K gold luster. Because of the intense layering of glaze material, there is a slightly raised surface where the glazes are, leaving a recessed area for the gold luster, creating a textured surface that helps to emulate cloisonné.

Year: 2022

Materials: 198 hand-painted earthenware plates with glaze and 22k gold luster

A sweeping story of perseverance, creativity and triumph.

Parall(elles) highlights the breadth and complexity of design pieces made by American and Canadian women by situating these works against the backdrop of social, political and personal issues that shaped their experiences across time. The exhibition also considers the intersectionality of gender, identity, race, culture and class to provide a deeper understanding of the varied roles and achievements of women. It traces the development of educational and professional opportunities available to women, the evolution of the status of crafts and the impact that women’s rights movements had on their practices. Finally, beyond revisiting traditional definitions of “design,” Parall(elles) opens a window onto a world of magnificent beauty and skill.

FROM THE MUSEUM:

A SWEEPING STORY OF PERSEVERANCE, CREATIVITY AND TRIUMPH.

Parall(elles) highlights the breadth and complexity of design pieces made by American and Canadian women by situating these works against the backdrop of social, political and personal issues that shaped their experiences across time. The exhibition also considers the intersectionality of gender, identity, race, culture and class to provide a deeper understanding of the varied roles and achievements of women. It traces the development of educational and professional opportunities available to women, the evolution of the status of crafts and the impact that women’s rights movements had on their practices. Finally, beyond revisiting traditional definitions of “design,” Parall(elles) opens a window onto a world of magnificent beauty and skill.

A MONUMENTAL WORK BY MOLLY HACTH

The MMFA commissioned Molly Hatch to create a massive mosaic composed of 198 hand-painted terracotta plates that would dominate the grand staircase of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion. To execute this work, the American potter drew inspiration from the Museum’s recently acquired, exquisite pseudo-cloisonné enamel vase produced by the Minton Manufactory based on a drawing by Christopher Dresser.

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EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY THINGS, 2021-Ongoing

“Humans have made functional objects since prehistoric times: furnishings to sit or lay upon, vessels to store or drink water, devices to illuminate the darkness or mark the passage of time. Featuring more than 300 objects—including some 150 recent acquisitions—from the museum’s expansive decorative arts and design collection, Extraordinary Ordinary Things marks the first significant update to the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Galleries since 2009.

Spanning some of the most significant design developments of the past three centuries, the works on view offer boundless inspiration and endless possibilities for functional design for visitors to learn about, consider, and enjoy. This exhibition presents a selection of functional objects ranging from the evocative and extraordinary to the practical and everyday and highlights signature works by designers including Molly Hatch.” —Carnegie Museum of Art website

TOKEN, 2018

A ceramic wall installation comprised of 70 hand-painted earthenware plates. The central image of the work, a large vase of vibrantly painted flowers is derived from 15th century Dutch painting, more specifically “pronkstilleven” (Dutch for ‘ostentatious still life’). Each individual plate serves as a canvas; together, the plates reveal the intricate abstract floral motif of their source material. Bridging the gap decorative and fine art the glazed surfaces of earthenware plates collectively become a fragmented canvas for painterly re-rendering.

Materials: 70 hand-painted earthenware plates with glaze and underglaze

Dimensions: 80h x 56w x 1.5d inches

REPERTOIRE, 2017

Commissioned by the Newark Museum, Repertoire is a site-specific, three-part installation that calls attention to the iconic architecture in the Charles W. Engelhard Court at the heart of the museum. The installation is designed to reinterpret and reinvigorate interest in the global textiles in the museum’s American, African and Asian collections.

Repertoire honors the Museum’s 107-year-tradition of collecting contemporary ceramic art. Bridging contemporary design, ceramics and painting, each of the three niches present an image pixilated in underglaze decoration across approximately 186 hand-painted white earthenware plates, totaling over 500 plates in all. The design of each of the textiles is broken up and transformed as the plates’ surfaces reflect light back into the court.

Hatch is known for her murals using hundreds of underglaze-painted ceramic plates, including two major installations at the High Museum in Atlanta. Repertoire is her largest commission to date, commemorating the retirement of Curator of Decorative Arts Ulysses Dietz after 37 years.

“Two years ago I approached Molly Hatch about doing a project for the Newark Museum,” Dietz said. “Molly, the daughter of a painter and a dairy farmer, bridges contemporary design, ceramics and painting in a way that resonates perfectly with the Newark Museum.”

The Museum has been displaying ceramics as art since 1910, and Dietz thought it was fitting to cap his career with a major installation by a rising young American artist. Repertoire also celebrates another major cornerstone of the Museum’s collection: textiles.

Africa is represented by Dyula Woven, inspired by a rare Dyula wrapper from the Ivory Coast. Made in the early 20th century, it was collected by the Museum’s founding director John Cotton Dana in 1928. For the American niche, a blue-and-white coverlet of wool and cotton from the 1840s. Titled Bergen Jacquard, it honors the important New Jersey component of the Museum’s decorative arts collection. The third niche, Qianlong Silk, is based on an 18th-century Chinese velvet throne carpet, with stylized peonies and a dancing crane.

Each of the three niches present an image pixilated in slip decoration across approximately 186 factory-made white earthenware plates, totaling over 500 plates in all. The design of each of the textiles is broken up and transformed as the plates’ concave, shiny surfaces reflect light back into the court.

“Repertoire evokes the pervasive presence of art in everyday life through ceramics and textiles across human history and civilization,” Dietz said.

The installation of Repertoire was made possible in part by Barbara and William Weldon, Raymond and Mary Courtien and the Newark Museum Volunteer Organization.

Materials: 558 hand-painted earthenware plates with glaze and underglaze

Dimensions: Each niche measures 14’ h x 7'w x 1.5”d

PHYSIC GARDEN, 2014

Physic Garden was commissioned by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA as a site specific installation in the lobby of the museum to engage a contemporary audience through historic collections.

Physic Garden creates a painterly take on a set of botanically themed 18th century Chelsea Porcelain Factory plates from the museum's Frances and Emory Cocke English Porcelain Collection. The historic plates depict realistic flora and fauna from London's Chelsea Physic Garden.

The monumental scale of Physic Garden showcases the notion that even the simplest materials can be transformed, challenging the collective idea of what plates on the wall can signify today.

“The use of a common form—the plate—as a canvas to explore and explode a pattern is the dynamic hallmark of contemporary American artist Molly Hatch. This novel artistic approach is well evidenced in Physic Garden (2014), Hatch’s largest commission to date (and first for a museum). In theory, Physic Garden is functional—after all, the plates are dishwasher safe. However, by massing hundreds of plates on a wall, the result far surpasses the practical. Everyday objects together become a surface decoration that overpowers the space, while transforming a modest form, ordinary in material and theme, into the dominator. The work has quickly become one of the iconic pieces at the High Museum of Art, visible to all visitors as they enter the museum. In all, 456 plates—convex, gleaming discs of color—spanning 20 x 17 feet, create a pixilated pattern; at a distance, it comes into focus as a whole work, while up close, it reveals the intricacies of the painterly surfaces full of flora and fauna.” —Curator Sarah Schleuning, 2014

Materials: 456 hand-painted earthenware plates with underglaze and glaze

Dimensions: 240h x 190w x 1.5d inches (20h x 16w feet)

REVERIE, 2013

“Molly Hatch’s exhibition “Reverie” is the culmination of several years spent exploring the physical and aesthetic limits of the ceramic surface. Her influences come through loud and clear in “Reverie.” Accompanying each plate painting in the exhibition is an object from Hatch’s family: a Chinese lacquer writing box with a charming, ill-fated attempt at home repair; a French Faience vanity set with powder that might pre-date the French Revolution; a Shenago “Blue Willow” pattern dinner plate and a piece of hand-painted Dresden china. Together these begin to tell the story of a prosperous New England family with global interests…Because her inspiration is derived largely from 18th and 19th century decorative arts rather than the more recent Asian-influenced American studio pottery tradition that still dominates in some quarters, Hatch’s work has a legitimate conceptual claim to the traditions she studies for inspiration. In fact, her work may be the closest thing to the kind of “roots ceramics” that Bernard Leach famously claimed was impossible for an American artist to create.” —Sarah Archer, from her essay Roots Ceramics: Personal History and Contemporary Practice in Molly Hatch’s Reverie, 2013

Arguably one of the most significant developments in the arts of the 21st century is the eradication of artificial boundaries and enforced hierarchies among disciplines. This has resulted in a vital synergy that merges art, craft, and design theory and practice, a synergy that has inspired a new generation of creators worldwide. Molly Hatch is a prime representative of that generation. The artistic territory she inhabits ranges from her uniqueceramics and installations to wallpaper, textile, and furniture design.” —So it Goes Beyond Decorating a Cup: A Conversation between Molly Hatch and David McFadden, 2013

NEW BLUE AND WHITE, 2013

Quand On Aime Tout est Plaisir: After Fragonard, USA, 2013

Inspired by the eighteenth-century paintings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Quand On Aime Tout est Plaisir was presented as part of the 2013 “New Blue and White” exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The exhibition’s curator, Emily Zilber, writes: “The widespread dissemination of blue and white was reliant on the ability to print on clay. Hatch takes this one step further, treating ceramic plates as surfaces on which to translate images of swinging lovers from the eighteenth-century paintings of Fragonard— which themselves would have been spread through prints. Hatch uses Mishima, a Japanese slip inlay technique; its blue lines create a cross-hatched image that can only be read in its entirety when viewing the whole installation. Individually, each plate provides a second frame for Hatch’s drawing. This allows for both figural and abstract representation, and speaks to moments of invention inherent in the translation between the printed image and its source.“

Source: Jean-Honoré Fragonard, “Quand On Aime Tout est Plaisir“

Medium: Porcelain Plates

Dimensions:

Male 55” H x 45” W x 2” D, 139.7 H x 114.3 W x 5.08 D cm

Female 75” H x 55” W x 2” D, 190.5 H x 139.7 W x 5.08 D cm

BOSTON GLOBE REVIEW:

‘‘New Blue and White” at the Museum of Fine Arts is not your grandmother’s china cabinet. The contemporary art exhibit riffing on blue and white ceramics flouts the familiar forms and patterns of Ming vases, Dutch delftware, Blue Willow china from Britain, and more. It also honors them…Contemporary artists spinning off from the form have plenty to chew on: themes of power, globalism, commerce, and colonialism. Yet that homey familiarity clings to most of the objects here…” —Cate McQuaid, Boston Globe, 2013

AMERICAN STOR, 2009

“The Blue Willow pattern holds special meaning for Hatch; it is a reminder of the china that her merchant ancestors carried with them to New England and kept within the family through the generations, but it is also a pattern that, Hatch explains, has “a long history of ... being interpreted and reinterpreted from one culture to another,” originating in China and remaining widely copied throughout Europe and the United States.

Although her delicate porcelain forms and their embellished patterns recall etiquette and formality, Hatch’s philospohy of function is much more practical. Hatch views her work as “domestically destined” as she merges the aesthetic and utilitarian in her designs for everyday use in the home. Much like the contrast of farm and aristocratic life that have marked so many of her own experiences, this work commemorates Hatch’s diverse personal histories into one finely crafted collection.” —Amy Chaloupka for American Story Catalog, 2009