Written by Kristen Hampshire
Photography by Jill Jasuta
JEFFREY MATHIAS
Jeffrey Mathias depicts the humble Eastern oyster in luminous works of porcelain sculpture, melding craftsmanship and a life shaped by the Chesapeake Bay.
Artist Jeffrey Mathias finds his rhythm in clay and tide, and the oyster is both a subject and symbol—a pure distillation of his maritime roots. “They’re vessels,” he says of the mollusks, relaying a lifelong connection with the water that has fueled his career and art.
Jeffrey’s work is an interplay of light and shadow, polish and grit. “I’m drawn to natural vessels—shells, bones, rocks,” he says, dialing back to childhood collections of stones and oddities he’d turn up while out and about.
Oysters are of particular interest. “They all tell stories about protection and endurance,” relates Jeffrey, a licensed master captain and commercial diver.
Jeffrey spent decades working on, in, around and under the water, from restoring a 32-foot Swedish double-ender sailboat called Vinga to rehabilitating and running the historic charter, Lady Patty. He ran construction supply rigs and “mucked around in the mud” as a diver, managed boat operations and environmental inspection for Maryland Environmental Service, and later, operated an independent Tilghman Island mooring installation and inspection firm.
“I’ve always been connected with the water,” Jeffrey says. Pointing to his porcelain oyster works—and now, through Tilghman Island Kiln Works, oven-safe Oysterware—he says: “When you go to sea, you eat, sleep, work and get tossed around by the water. It’s very much like being inside a shell.”
Until about a year ago, his artwork had been a constant undercurrent following formal training in figure drawing, painting, printmaking, 3D design and photography.
Today his Wharf Road studio is churning full-time—the wind in his sails with an ever-expanding repertoire.
Shaped by Nature
Inside his studio, kilns hum, porcelain shells shimmer and the story of the Chesapeake Bay emerges through art—some functional pieces and others, fine display pieces.
Jeffrey’s subject matter has always been seaworthy.
While captaining charter boats and making delivery runs along the East Coast, he photographed old workboats and derelict vessels abandoned in marshes from Miami to Maine. “As a boat captain, you develop a deep relationship with your boat—it gets you out and back again,” he explains. “There’s real reverence there.”
This inspired the 8 Bells photography series, a collection of composite images in which Jeffrey digitally layered period portraits of watermen onto the hulls of forgotten boats.
“I started ghosting in those figures—old black-and-white fishermen—as if their spirits were still there,” he says. “They’re not documentary. It’s about evoking what lingers: memory, history, connection.”
The project bridges his dual worlds: physical labor and visual storytelling. “That connection between people and their boats, it’s profound,” he adds.
“People love them. They understand what they represent—the connection between art, food and the bay.”
Later, when Jeffrey sold Lady Patty, he turned his creative energy to the subject that would define his next artistic chapter: the Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica). “I was about three and a half years into nothing but oysters and the occasional barnacle,” he says with a grin.
It began, fittingly, in the kitchen during the early days of the pandemic. “One night, our kitchen smelled like marsh mud from all the shells piled up, and I said, ‘Let’s make a clean, oven-safe porcelain oyster shell,’” he says of a conversation with his artist-wife, Susan, who manages the production side of their small-batch line.
“At first they were just for cooking,” Jeffrey says. “But as they got bigger, they became something else—a representation of the real thing, more detailed, more sculptural.”
Initially working out of Baltimore Clayworks, Jeffrey soon purchased his own kiln and began firing at home, where the husband-and-wife team has been handcrafting pieces since last winter. “Creating the oysters became a literal study in contrast—the smooth, pearl-like interiors against the gnarly, textured exteriors,” he says. “That dichotomy between fragility and strength really fascinates me.”
Going Deeper
Jeffrey recalls a dive that deepened his fascination with oysters. “We were recovering a mooring chain near Oxford, about 30 feet down,” he says. “Total blackout. I hit something substantial and brought up this massive oyster shell, 9¼ inches long. It had been sealed in silt for decades, preserved like a time capsule from when that bed was alive.”
This inspired larger sculptural works, some stretching 18 inches long—up to six times the size of a real oyster. “Porcelain is a challenging medium,” he adds of his choice in ceramics. “It’s soft and delicate, but it lets me mimic the light and reflection you see on a shell. It’s about observation and patience.”
While his fine art explores oysters as metaphor and form, Jeffrey’s Oysterware pieces are hand-built and unique—no two are alike. The oven-safe cookware can withstand up to 500°F. They’re sold individually and in sets.
They’ve tested the line at outdoor markets, where the response has been overwhelmingly positive. “People love them,” Jeffrey says. “They understand what they represent—the connection between art, food and the bay.” CS
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