Frances Senska’s distinct double spouted wine sets are a cherished and familiar presence in Bozeman homes. They were often given as personal gifts and were made to be used, not only exhibited. Her signature partridges demonstrate her creative frugality. She would use them to test glazes and to efficiently fill spaces between pots when firing her kiln. Her vessels speak to a practice deeply connected to the land in Montana, where she dug her own clay, built her own kilns, and taught generations of artists to value the handmade. Senska’s work is suffused with the qualities of character used to describe her by those who knew her well—humble, generous, resourceful, direct, joyful, and of the earth.

For its 2025 exhibition season, Tinworks Art presents A Kin to Clay, an exhibition that honors the rich legacy of ceramics in Montana while tracing its connections to broader histories and cultural lineages. Through the work of artists who engage clay and earthen materials as vessels of memory, resistance, and community, the exhibition explores how a shared relationship to the earth can shape meaning across generations and geographies.

Frances Senska has often been called the “grandmother of ceramics in Montana” for the essential role she played in the development of the medium, and for the impact her teaching and her generosity has had on generations of artists. She founded the ceramics department at Montana State University in 1946, after taking only a handful of classes (notably taught by Edith Heath and then Maija Grotell), and famously learned the craft alongside her own students. With them she sourced and dug wild clay, hand constructed kilns, and hand mixed glazes, processes that reflected Senska’s life-long commitment to resourcefulness and the handmade. In addition to the important role Senska played in the creative community of Bozeman, she was instrumental in the establishment of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts. Her first class at MSU included Montanans Rudy Autio and Peter Voulkos, now canonical figures in contemporary ceramics. Their groundbreaking styles can be attributed to Senska’s encouragement of her students to find their own path through the medium.