Jeff Schmuki, MFA, New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, is a Professor of Ceramics in the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art and an affiliate faculty member of the University’s Institute for Interdisciplinary STEM Education. Schmuki believes art has the potential to alter perceptions, foster dialogue, and inspire social change. Inspired by the ubiquitous novelty of the ceramic Chia Pet figurine, he combines ceramic materials, living plants, repurposed commercial products, and sustainable power systems. His off-grid garden machines, botanic enhancements, and portable fields often broadcast live sounds and make use of public space in the hope to reconnect nature to everyday life.

As co-founder of PlantBot Genetics, a biotech parody, Schmuki has been invited to several residencies and exhibitions nationally and abroad including the McColl Center for Visual Art EAIR Program in Charlotte, N.C.; the American Academy in Rome, Italy; and the Hafnarborg Centre in Hafnarfjorour, Iceland.

His work can be found in collections of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.; Incheon World Ceramic Center in Incheon, South Korea; and the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, Italy. He has also exhibited in group exhibitions including Terra-Cotta, Primitive Future at the Clayarch Museum in Gimhae, South Korea, and Lift Off: Earthlings and the Great Beyond in the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. Schmuki is the recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner and Joan Mitchell Foundations and recently installed a GSA Art in Architecture Commission at the Federal Courthouse in Jackson, Miss.