Female War I Am Pottery 01 2015 Exclusive 🌟

For two years, nothing. Then, in early 2017, a Reddit user on r/CeramicCollectors claimed to have seen the “Female War 01” at a private exhibition in a loft in Bushwick, Brooklyn. According to the user (handle: u/mud_and_nails), the piece was displayed inside a glass box filled with desiccant packs—unusual for pottery, which generally requires no such protection. When asked why, the anonymous owner reportedly said: “She sweats. When you press the button, moisture comes out of the cracks. I have to keep her dry.”

This detail—the idea that the “scar glaze” was hygroscopic and could excrete water vapor when the ceramic button was pressed—elevated the piece from a curiosity to a legend. No other ceramic artist has successfully replicated this effect.

Subsequent searches for “female war i am pottery 01 2015 exclusive” spiked in 2018, 2020, and again in 2023, each time fueled by a new rumor: that the piece had cracked during a move, that it had been stolen, that I Am Pottery had re-emerged under a new name (one theory points to the contemporary sculptor Leah G. Wulf, though she has denied it).

To understand the “Female War” piece, one must first understand the cultural moment that birthed it. Between 2013 and 2015, the art world saw a resurgence of narrative pottery—a movement away from purely decorative vases toward ceramic pieces that told stories, often uncomfortable or confrontational ones.

Leading this charge was a pseudonymous artist known only as “I Am Pottery.” Active primarily on Tumblr and a now-defunct platform called ArtStack, I Am Pottery was notorious for limited “drops” of hyper-personal, politically charged clay works. Each drop consisted of no more than 10 pieces, released on the first of a month with a cryptic manifesto. female war i am pottery 01 2015 exclusive

The “Female War” series was announced on December 15, 2014, with a single black-and-white photograph of a cracked kiln. The caption read: “01.2015. She fights with clay, not swords. The exclusive war begins.”

The title is a manifesto in five words.

Skeptics argue that the entire thing is an elaborate piece of performance art—that no physical object ever existed, and that the photos, the YouTube video, and the Reddit testimony are all part of an ongoing project about desire and absence. They point to the fact that I Am Pottery never registered a business license, never had a gallery show, and erased their entire digital footprint in March 2016.

Proponents counter that the consistency of the details across unconnected witnesses, plus the unique technical claims (the sweating glaze, the non-functional button), are too specific for a hoax. As one collector wrote on a now-lost blog: “You can’t fake the smell of manganese. You either held it, or you didn’t.” For two years, nothing

1. The Vessel as Witness
Traditional war memorials are vertical (obelisks, rifles). This work is horizontal, open, hollow. It does not point to the sky but cradles the ground. It is a container of testimony—what Claudia Rankine calls “the condition of black life being held in the hold.” The pot holds not glory but groans.

2. Firing as Traumatic Repetition
Ceramics require two firings: bisque (hardening) and glaze (sealing). The artist seems to analogize this to the double violation of war: first the event (bisque, initial trauma), then the retelling, the archive, the media replay (glaze firing, second wound). The exclusive 2015 date may reference a specific forgotten conflict—e.g., the aftermath of the 2014 Gaza War, or the 2015 Rohingya displacement.

3. The Hand as Agency
If a hand emerges from the pot, it is not holding a weapon but making a gesture of refusal. In war photography, female hands are often shown raised in surrender. Here, the hand is raised from inside the vessel—not begging but declaring: “I am pottery. I was earth. I was fired. I am not broken.”

4. Against the “Beautiful Ruin” Trope
By using gold repair (kintsugi) but then distorting it, the artist rejects the popular narrative that trauma makes women “more beautiful” or “more resilient.” The gold here is grotesque, over-applied, almost tumorous. It says: Do not romanticize my survival. “This is the first shot

On January 1, 2015, at 12:00 AM EST, a single listing appeared on a password-protected page of the I Am Pottery website. The price: $2,015.00 (coinciding with the year). The listing title was precisely: “female war i am pottery 01 2015 exclusive.”

According to web archives (via the Wayback Machine, though the checkout page is partially corrupted), the description read:

“This is the first shot. Before the volley, before the retreat. Only one. She is not for sale to the gentle. She will arrive broken if you do not deserve her. Payment in full. No refunds. The war is exclusive because only you will bleed for it.”

The piece sold in 47 seconds.

The buyer’s identity remains unknown. Their username on the platform was “@red_ash_hand.” They left no review. They posted no photos. The piece vanished from the public record.