“The urns of this series depict these habitats, the funerary forms reckoning with the possibility of their loss. Each urn is home to some of the many creatures on Indiana’s endangered species list. Some, like the Karner Blue butterfly and the Orangefoot Pimpleback mussel, are already extirpated—extinct in Indiana and endangered elsewhere. Yet the sgraffito carving of each urn imagines a habitat in its wholeness: prairie and farmland, forested caves, dunes and wetlands, and waterways, every place brimful of life. The dreamlike haziness asks if these are the ghosts of a lost world or the visions of what’s yet to be. 

We love all we stand to lose. We stand up for all we can still save.” — Leah McMichael, 2023

Learn more about this series.

A Collaboration with Katheryn Pourcho

Red Stoneware, Porcelain Slip

8.5” dia, 7.5” tall, 80 oz/144 cubic inch