On My Best Behavior

July 4 @ 10:00 am – August 29 @ 5:00 pm

The EMBARC Fellow Exhibition at Baltimore Clayworks highlights the innovative work of the organization’s current EMBARC Fellow, Katherine Pon-Cooper, celebrating a year of artistic exploration, research, and creative growth.

About the Show

On My Best Behavior documents an individual reflection on the experience of being a biracial Chinese American and a personal rejection of the “model minority” myth. Usonian symbols of the Stars and Stripes and baseballs address the expectation of nonwhite Americans to perform patriotism in exchange for tolerance, to willingly participate in one’s own assimilation for the bare minimum of respect. Dogs represent obedience, loyalty, and submission– prescribed behaviors for the model minority to reassure white America that we are not a threat. Through a mixture of Chinese and American ceramic aesthetic languages and firing techniques, On My Best Behavior manifests Chinese American artifacts, and encourages expression outside the limits of the Model.

About the Artist

Katherine Pon-Cooper is an ceramic artist living and working in Baltimore, MD, who received her BFA in Ceramics at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2025. She was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, and draws inspiration from the state’s tradition of folk pottery. Pon-Cooper works primarily in functional pottery, using wheel-thrown forms and atmospheric firing to explore her mixed racial identity, family history, and clay as archive. Her work combines Chinese visual motifs with American folk pottery processes, translating her personal biracial Chinese American experience into clay.