Mary Feds

Mary Clara Feds (nee McCarthy) (1938-1991) was an American ceramic artist active in the 1980s.

Her grandson is writer and photographer Montgomery Maxton.

Mary was active in ceramics in the 1980s and producing few, if any, pieces in 1990 when she was battling lung cancer, of which she died from on March 16, 1991, aged 52.

Her studio was in the full-size unfinished basement at her home on 1675 Susan Drive in Loveland, Ohio, about nineteen miles northeast of Cincinnati. She had shelving built along the walls, two painting tables, and a kiln.

Upon her death her studio was mostly closed-off to anyone by her widower, Andrew Feds II, whom she married as a runaway teenager in 1955. When he died unexpectedly in the house 17 years later, in 2008, the untouched studio was ransacked by many of her surviving family members, including some whom didn’t know her during her lifetime. The pieces are believed to be scattered primarily in the Goshen, Loveland, Milford, and Amelia, Ohio, a few on the west side of Cincinnati where he sister’s family lives, and in New York City where her grandson lives.

She is believed to have produced over 100 pieces.