Lauren Griffin

One of Lauren’s earliest memories was at a museum where she watched a potter throw a goblet on a wheel as if guided by some internal magic and immediately deciding she was going to grow up to do the same.

A first-gen student, she left her small New England town for the first time to attend college. While earning her BFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore she learned that pottery is a tiny bit of magic but mostly a lot of practice. A summer internship throwing reproduction ceramics at a living history museum ignited an interest in museum work, eventually leading her to earn an MA in Museum Studies at the George Washington University.

As a craftsperson, Lauren understands how artificial hierarchies in the display of material culture in museum settings reinforces dominant-culture assumptions about race, class, and gender. Today, as Manager of Inclusion Initiatives at ASTC, Lauren contributes to programs that seek to address inequities in museum practice, including Cambio. If she’s not working on a project, she’s at her potter’s wheel.