Delores Fortuna

Delores Fortuna is a nationally recognized ceramic artist, educator, mentor, and advocate for the ceramic arts whose career spans decades of making, teaching, and community leadership. A graduate of the University of Chicago, where she earned both her BFA and MFA in Ceramics, and studied under Ruth Duckworth. Delores went on to serve as a professor in the Ceramics Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, helping shape generations of artists through her teaching and mentorship.

Throughout her career, Delores has been a builder of artistic communities. She helped establish initiatives including Oak Park Kiln, Holiday Lights Art Tour, and the Twenty Dirty Hands Pottery Tour in Galena, Illinois, creating opportunities for artists to connect with one another and engage directly with the public. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and she has been invited to participate in ceramic symposia in Finland, Italy, Taiwan, and Japan. Her accomplishments have earned recognition through numerous exhibitions, invitational shows, and awards throughout the United States.

Yet despite these achievements, Delores remains deeply rooted in a simple idea: pottery is meant to be lived with. As she explains, “My passion is to make pots for people to use and enjoy.” Her work seeks to synthesize the casual and spontaneous traditions of pottery with a modernist and contemporary design sensibility, creating objects that are both visually sophisticated and deeply functional.

Working primarily in porcelain, Delores creates elegant wheel-thrown vessels that reflect a lifetime of study, observation, and refinement. Influenced by both historical traditions and contemporary design, her work balances utility and beauty, inviting people to slow down and appreciate the experience of everyday rituals.

More than thirty years after first touching clay, Delores continues to be inspired by what she calls “the magic and joy” of the material. That sense of curiosity, generosity, and delight has defined her career—not only as an artist, but as a teacher, mentor, and community builder whose influence extends far beyond her own studio.

At the heart of Delores’s work is a belief that handmade objects have the power to enrich daily life. Through her pottery, teaching, and leadership, she has spent decades helping people connect more deeply with craft, creativity, and one another.