Ceramic Artist James Watkins was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1951 and graduated from Kansas City Art Institute with a Fine Arts degree and Indiana University with his Master of Fine Arts. Early in his career, James moved to Lubbock where he spent 35 years teaching in the College of Architecture, focusing on ceramics and architectural delineation. From his base in Lubbock, James went on to garner both national and international recognition for his work, when in 1993 his work was included in the White House Collection of American Crafts at the Clinton Library. His work is held in 27 permanent collections throughout the US, including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York and internationally at the Shigaraki Institute of Ceramic Studies in Shigaraki, Japan. James is a Texas Tech University, Horn Distinguished Professor Emeritus. The Horn Professorship is the highest honor Texas Tech may bestow on faculty members and is awarded only to those professors who have achieved a national and international recognition for their creative achievements. In 2023 the State of Texas recognized James’ importance and standing by making him the 2023 Texas State Visual Artist in 3D. James continues to work from his home studio in Lubbock, where he experiments with new techniques and materials, and is reminded daily of the most important lesson he says that he has learned in his career, that “fire has the potential to do the unexpected.”
James Watkins was inducted into the West Texas Walk of Fame in 2024.
