Roberto Lugo Lecture and Workshop

Roberto Lugo arrived in Kingston last Friday evening. After being introduced by Mayor Steve Noble and Anne Bailey, he gave a dynamic presentation to a standing room only audience at Kingston’s beautiful City Hall.

The event was presented by the Kingston Arts Commission, The Midtown Arts District, and Bailey Pottery Equipment and was live-streamed by Radio Kingston. It was a collaborative effort which Kingston is becoming well known for. A reception to meet Roberto was set up in the large marble center hall. There, hundreds of people gathered to meet the artist and enjoy delicious lite bites from Midtown Kingston’s Stone Soup. 



It was both chilling and deeply inspiring to hear Roberto recount his rise from a life of poverty on the streets of Philadelphia to becoming the world-renowned ceramic artist that he is today. Growing up, Roberto lived in a tiny cement space known as the cave, with his family, without windows or running water in the poverty-stricken Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia.  He talked about his brother's imprisonment and the feeling that there was little opportunity for any kind of bright future for himself. Then Roberto led us to his discovery of clay in community college and how for the first time in his life he felt that he was good at something. He found a voice through creativity and started to believe in himself and work towards life as an artist instead of that of a drug dealer. 

Photo Credit: Amercian Craft Council

Because of his rapidly developing creative abilities, he was able to get into Kansas City Art Institute for his BFA and Penn State for his MFA. He credited his teachers for making him dig deep, work hard, and become the artist he is today.

Roberto also shared some rap-poetry which recounted both his struggles and his deep passions.


Roberto Lugo is presently a Professor of Art at Tyler School of Art and sells his work at galleries around the world for thousands of dollars. He is married to his college sweetheart Ashley and has two beautiful young children. In his young life, Roberto has already won numerous prestigious awards and was Ceramics Monthly’s choice for Ceramic Artist of the Year in 2018. 


Roberto spent his second day in Kingston teaching a workshop to thirty-five participants at Bailey Pottery Equipment. He covered the use of china paints and decals and demonstrated how he incorporates narrative into his work. He also showed how images of graffiti and street art spoke of his neighborhood and the times we live in.


Roberto uses China painting in a fresh way. Unlike the China painting that can be seen on classic urns in museums which are painted with quiet pastoral scenes or the elegant kings and queens of Europe, Roberto's urns are fully decorated with his own Black and Puerto Rican heroes, colorful graffiti and dynamic patterns using colors and imagery from the world he grew up in. 




In the last part of the workshop, Roberto prompted the participants with a collaborative writing assignment to help them create a personal narrative. They then took those narratives and decorated a tile using decals and china paints. 

When you meet Roberto you find a warm and passionate person who has worked hard to become the man that he is today. His ability to share in a most meaningful way his hardships and successes is inspiring and left workshop participants ready to start their own stories in clay.