Porcelain by Antoinette
Antoinette Badenhorst
Porcelain artist · author · educator
“There is no such thing as perfection, only the striving to be perfect.”
Koos and Antoinette Badenhorst , owners of TeachinArt and Porcelain by Antoinette.
Antoinette Badenhorst is a South African-born porcelain artist, author and educator based in Mississippi, USA.
For more than four decades, porcelain has been central to her studio practice. Her work explores movement, light and translucency, and the circles, cycles and seasons that connect human experience with the natural world.
Alongside her own studio work, Antoinette has spent many years researching porcelain and sharing that knowledge through teaching and writing. Her experience with the material continues to inform her artwork, her workshops, and her current book, Porcelain for the Modern Studio Potter.
Research begins with questions, testing and observation.
My understanding of porcelain has grown through decades of studio testing—clay bodies, glazes, materials, firing cycles and the many variables that can change a result from one studio to another.
This is a grid made from test tiles. Antoinette altered glaze recipes and overlapped the glazes to create new results.
Antoinette was demonstrating a wide rimmed bowl process in South Africa.
Understanding porcelain begins with understanding how it behaves.
My workshops are built around that principle. Rather than teaching a series of techniques alone, I help potters understand the characteristics of porcelain so they can solve problems, make informed choices and develop their own relationship with the clay.
Teaching now centers increasingly around my Mississippi studio, complemented by online education and selected workshops and programs elsewhere.
Grant from the Mississippi Arts Commision
During 2025 Antoinette received another small, but very valuable grant from the Mississippi Arts Commision.
Although this is a small grant the importance thereof should not be underestimated, since it show a willingness of the Arts Commision to partner with artists who are willing to give their best to their community.
This project is supported in part by funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, and in part, from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
Luminous porcelain forms, shaped by light and movement.
Antoinette interviewed at PBS by Malcolm White, former Director of the Mississippi Arts Commission.