The Substance of Time

Randi O’Brien is a multiracial ceramic artist, historian, author, professor, and administrator from the Rocky Mountains. She earned both an MFA in ceramics and an MA in art history from the University of Montana. O’Brien is currently an associate professor and discipline lead of the ceramics, sculpture, and jewelry program at Irvine Valley College in Orange County, California. She was also the executive director and editor of Studio Potter. 

O’Brien exhibits across the United States and globally; selected locations include Kilkenny, Ireland; Valparaiso, Chile; Alberta, Canada; and New York, among other states in the US. O'Brien has curated numerous exhibitions and has presented her research on ceramics at conferences and for organizations, including NCECA, the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, the Women as Change Makers Summit, the Montana Education Association, Xuchang International University, and Ceramics Ireland's International Ceramic Festival, among others. Her research has been published in Ceramics Monthly, Ceramics Art and Perception: Technical, Ceramics Ireland, and Studio Potter. She has a long-standing commitment to philanthropy in the clay and craft communities, having served on the boards of the Clay Studio of Missoula, the Livingston Center for Art and Culture, the Bozeman Art Museum, and on the board of the Archie Bray Foundation.

A descendant of early Hispano settlers and Indigenous American ancestry on her maternal side, paired with a paternal heritage of eighteenth-century English settlers, O'Brien celebrates the different expressions of what it means to perpetually move between cultures and her multiracial identity.