Lawrence Bush was born in Seattle, Washington in 1951. He received his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics in Alfred, New York in 1984. Before that, he studied in Japan and with Ken Ferguson. He began working as an instructor at RISD in 1984, and from 1991-2019 he was the Department Head of Ceramics at RISD.

“Nature is my model, sometimes literally, always conceptually. With clay and glaze I imitate nature. With function and form; color and texture; history and need, I attempt a layering of forces and structures similar to that found in natural things like flowers.” Bush fuses histories of art making and craft tradition to serve contemporary need. Freedom to move among handwork, mechanized production, and digital technologies is important. His professional activities and special projects at RISD are numerous. He has exhibited nationally, has work in the RISD Museum, the Museum of Ceramic Art at Alfred, and in Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.