Philadelphia Ceramicist Shines a Light on the Art of Porcelain Paper Clay

In grade school, Jerry Bennett’s affinity for papier-mâché animals got out of hand.

The giraffe he crafted stood 10 feet tall and required wooden scaffolding to hold up. The squid he crafted was life-size.

“I was hooked on this experimentation and the thrill of creating these animals, pushing the materials to their limit,” said Jerry, a ceramicist in the Philadelphia area for the last 50 years and owner of Jerry Bennett Pottery. “To this day, I get nostalgic when I small tempera paint or shellac.”

Everything is made by his hands in Two Rivers Pottery Studio, which showcases his colorful, functional pottery and porcelain paper clay sculptures.

“I’ve always known that I was going to be an artist,” Jerry said.

When Jerry’s mother signed him and his twin brother up for baseball, he refers to “standing out on a hot field waiting for a ball to come your way as close to hell as I can think of.”

When he didn’t want to return, he was told he’d have to find something to occupy his time. The museum down the street from where he lived in Springfield, Missouri, became his second home. Initially he was the kid who shelved books in the library, his eyes open to all the art around him.

Before long, he was there so much he became invisible. “I was there all the time, and nobody bothered me,” he said. “I could go anywhere and do anything.”

Jerry began taking classes in the studios, cleaning them in exchange. He took his first ceramics class there, but as the years passed, the idea of studying art in college wasn’t appealing. He figured to go into his father’s real estate business.

But these were the days of the Vietnam war. Being a college student reduced his chances of being drafted.

Jerry wasn’t a terribly serious student at first at Southwest Missouri State University. “I took competitive bridge and bowling,” he said.

He also enrolled in ceramics where a teacher recognized his talent and urged him to get serious.

When he did, he became a potter at theme park Silver Dollar City working on commission.

“I think they got something like 70% and I got 30%, but I made enough money to buy a new car with cash,” Jerry said.

Over the years, Jerry earned a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Ceramics, worked for the State of Iowa teaching carpentry to low-income people and headed programs at an energy coordinating agency. He taught art classes, too, including two years in South Dakota.

“But every day I would come home and be an artist,” he said.

A move to Philadelphia to marry his partner led to being a resident artist at a clay studio for five years where he also taught classes. That’s where another artist mentioned the idea of combining paper fibers with clay.

“I was experimenting with porcelain at the time, and I liked the idea of being able to add fibers to it,” said Jerry, inspired by fine European porcelain.

He started by folding bits of recycled paper fibers and bamboo – 2½ ounces in 25 pounds of

clay. “Once you do that the nature of the clay changes and it’s much easier to work with.”

He forms dry balls and adds them to the wet clay. That combination allows him to make forms porcelain forms that explore texture and pattern interacting with light.

These labor-intensive creations fired in a kiln that reaches 2,700 degrees reflect light in such a way that they produce shadows, a new idea in ceramics.

The white forms are unlike his functional pottery, which is full of splendid colors.

Both appeal to him, though he’s found the most success with the sculpted pieces.

“If you’re wanting to make comments and commentary in ceramics, if you want to say

something, the white sculptural forms tend to resonate more with people in that area,” Jerry said. “If you want something to decorate your house or enjoy in your life, that’s the functional pottery.”

Visit Jerry’s booth at Rose Squared Arts Shows to get to know him and see his work. He never misses the Rittenhouse Fine Craft Shows May 8-10, 2026 and October 9-11, 2026.