Page 74 - South Mississippi Living - October, 2026

2025 Peter Anderson Legacy Award Winner
Rachael DePauw
story by Lynn Lofton photos courtesy of Rachel DePauw
New Orleans potter Rachael DePauw won the 2025 Legacy
Award, the third time she's won this prestigious recognition.
“The Peter Anderson Festival has been a particularly
meaningful festival in my career,” she says “Winning the
Legacy Award my first year in 2011, and then receiving it
again, made it special from the beginning. Over the years,
I’ve also developed relationships with collectors who come
back to my booth again and again, and that’s one of the
things I value most about doing a long-running show like
this. It’s really rewarding to see people return, add to their
collections, and continue using pieces I made years ago.”
DePauw doesn't attend a lot of festivals as traveling can
be difficult with three children. “Also, because my work is so
detail-oriented, I don’t produce a huge inventory,” she adds.
“My major spring show is the Contemporary Crafts section
of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. In the fall, I
usually do Peter Anderson and Covington Three Rivers, and
sometimes New Orleans Clay Fest or the Tulane/Newcomb
holiday sale.”
Additionally, she hosts a couple of open-studio events
at her home each year so people can see where the magic
74 | October 2026 happens. She sells custom-made address signs
using the sgraffito technique all over the country
on her website and Etsy.
This potter uses a couple of different
techniques to add visual interest and texture to
the surfaces of her pots. She has worked with
different types of pottery including sgraffito and
more recently in Spectrum work using an inlay
technique called Mishima. “I scrape away the
high points, leaving the color embedded only
in the carved lines. This technique allows me to
create a variety of colors, textures, and patterns,”
she said.
DePauw makes functional pottery with a strong
emphasis on surface design. She shifted from a limited
palette of black, white, blue and green to a more colorful,
graphic direction.
“I love that my work becomes part of people’s everyday
lives,” she says. “Mugs are probably my favorite thing to
make. I like knowing that something I made can contribute
to someone else’s joy.”
SENSATIONAL
TEXTURES
Rachael
DePauw
Pottery
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