Cynthia Bringle

1939Born Memphis, Tennessee

EDUCATION

—BFA Memphis Academy of Art, Memphis, Tennessee

—MFA New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University, Alfred, New York

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

1960sStudio Assistant, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Liberty, Maine

1970Faculty, Penland School of Crafts, Penland, North Carolina

BIOGRAPHY

Cynthia Bringle has spent her life as a studio potter producing domestic wares. The surface is a focus of her work, frequently decorated with quick Japanese referenced motifs or with faceted and incised surfaces sometimes with turtle or other nature referenced finials and handles. Her pieces are primarily stoneware; however she occasionally works with porcelain. 

Bringle began her academic career as a painter but after an introductory pottery class changed her major to ceramics. She continued to use a painterly approach to surface throughout her career as a studio potter. While in school she visited the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, working there over the summers and returning frequently. In 1963 she went to the Penland School of Craft for the first time. In 1965, Bringle set up her first studio in Memphis, returning to Penland and Haystack to teach seasonally. She permanently moved to Penland in 1970 where she established her pottery and taught at the Penland School of Craft. 

Bringle believes that through use, a fundamental connection is made between the potter and the user.

A transcript of an interview with Cynthia Bringle conducted January 22, 1992  by Liza Kirwin, for the Archives of American Art’s American Art Oral History Project, funded by the Smithsonian Institution's Women's Committee, is available at:
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-cynthia-bringle-12710.