How pop culture and climate anxiety have galvanized a new generation of clay artists

There’s no shortage of clay art shows to see right now around the country. At the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, “Funk You Too! Humor and Irreverence in Ceramic Sculpture” highlights 50 bold pieces created from the 1960s to present day. LGBTQ+ artists are the focus of “Making in Between: Queer Clay” on view at Pomona’s American Museum of Ceramic Art. And the Metropolitan Museum of Art just debuted “Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery,” curated by the Pueblo Pottery Collective and billed as “the first community-curated Native American exhibition in the history of the Met.”