Ernest R. Satchell (1941 - Present): Artist, Sculptor, and Professor of Art Extraordinaire2/11/2026 Article by Dr. Clara Small, professor emerita, Salisbury University  Ernest Rogers Satchell, also known as “Ernie,” was born in Bird’s Nest Station, a small, rural community in Northampton County, on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. As a child growing up in segregated Virginia, he was an avid fan of baseball and Jackie Robinson, and his desire was to become a professional baseball player, but he had no talent for the sport. He also suffered from asthma which meant that he could not always be outside or playing sports, so he began to read comic books and taught himself to draw. At an early age, he developed a sense of creativity. Since they could not afford toys, he and his seven siblings became creative and made their own toys, such as kites, baseballs, baseball bats, baseball mittens, carts and other toys. His father, his uncles, and his grandparents on his father’s side were carpenters, so he learned some creativity from them as well. He observed his father and learned to carve and construct objects in various mediums, including pottery, leather, clay, sculpture and stoneware. Therefore, he states that “he had a rich childhood and all of those experiences were preparing him for a career in art.” The youngest of eight children, Ernest and his siblings attended one, and two-room schoolhouses with no indoor plumbing. In the 7th grade, he attended school in a temporary building which had been an old White school, which was the first school he attended that had indoor plumbing, central heat and a custodian. In the 10th grade biology class, his talent was discovered as he began to draw in India ink. In the era of segregation, art education was not available to him, but he had already taught himself to draw from reading comic books. Once his talent was discovered, he filled bulletin boards at his school with his art work and was encouraged by his teachers to study art. They were supportive and tried to find scholarship money for college tuition. Ernest had initially wanted to be an architect and wanted to study at Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, but his family could not afford to send him there. In 1959, “he played the hand that was dealt to him,” and enrolled in Maryland State College (now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore), in Princess Anne, Maryland. Since Maryland State College did not offer a degree in architecture, he majored in art education. In 1963, he obtained a B.A. in art education, and under the tutelage of Jimmie Mosely, his mentor, Satchell was introduced to Dr. Kenneth Beittel, the celebrated ceramic artist and educator from Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Beittel taught him glazed techniques and numerous other mediums. Learning from Dr. Beittel was a new experience because everything Ernest had done in the past had been in 3-D. During the six weeks that Dr. Beittel was at the institution, Ernest was his shadow. He listened, watched, and literally absorbed everything Dr. Beittel said and did.  Jimmie Lee Mosely Sr. University of Maryland Eastern Shore While in college, with little or no money to spend on anything other than required course materials, Ernest Satchell used his ingenuity to make money by collecting bottles and turned them into money for deposit at Mr. Ollie Jones store in Princess Anne. He and his classmate, Maurice Foote, worked together and took pictures and made portraits of students on Sunday evenings after the dinner meals. Those were some of their means to purchase items such as clothing, pickled bologna sandwiches and other items they shared with other students, especially the girls, because they could not go off campus. Mr. Wiles, a professor on the Maryland State College campus, allowed Satchell and Foote to use the photography equipment and facility to develop the pictures, and they became young entrepreneurs and gained experience at the same time. After graduating from Maryland State College, Satchell was recruited to teach art at Lockerman High School in Denton, Maryland. He was the first art teacher to be hired there, but the art department had a limited budget for art and art supplies, which proved to be inadequate. Mr. Mosely, Ernest’s mentor at Maryland State College, was supportive of Satchell and his career, and provided aid to Satchell and his students. Whenever there was an art show, Mr. Mosely would ship student art pieces to Atlanta, Kansas City, Missouri, and all over the country and, as a result, the students at Lockerman High School and Maryland State College won many awards. Some of the proceeds from the awards, prizes, and the sale of various art pieces helped Satchell to supplement the purchase of art supplies at his school.
Lockerman High School Class Activities The Wildcat - Lockerman Yearbook, 1966 Courtesy of the Chesapeake Heartland Digital Archive, Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College However, Satchell’s teaching career in public school was cut short as he was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. His attempt to obtain a deferment was unsuccessful, so he enlisted in the United States Navy. He was in the Navy from January 1964 to the end of 1967 and was assigned the job of photographer on the air craft carrier Forrestal, the same ship as the late Senator and former presidential candidate, John McCain. Satchell took pictures of dignitaries as they visited the ship, pictures of the Forrestal’s band when it played for Haile Selassie, the late Emperor of Ethiopia, and numerous other noteworthy occasions.
After his service in the Navy came to an end, Ernest worked at the Veterans Hospital in Philadelphia as an Occupational Therapist for six months, and then worked as a Technical Illustrator at Boeing Air Craft Company on repair kits for helicopters. At the time, Boeing was not promoting minorities and after being laid-off three times, Ernest made the decision to go back to school. He enrolled in Towson State University’s graduate program, and in 1971 Ernest received his Masters of Education degree in art education. While completing his degree from Towson State University, Ernest came home to the Eastern Shore of Virginia to see his mother, and she informed him that Mr. Mosely, his mentor at Maryland State College, had been trying to get in touch with him. Mr. Mosely offered Satchell a teaching position at Maryland State College, and in 1971 he began a 39-year teaching career at Maryland State College, and eventually became the Chairman of the Department of Fine Arts upon the untimely death of Mr. Mosely, by one of his students and her husband. From 1974 to 1988, Mr. Satchell served as the Chairman of the Art Education Department. Due to inadequate funding for his programs, Mr. Satchell fostered cooperation between several departments on campus which benefitted all of the departments and the campus. He states that “his greatest achievement was being able to save the Fine Arts Department at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore,” especially in the face of budget cuts.
Working with Dr. William P. Hytche, the President of UMES, in an effort to beautify the campus, Mr. Satchell made the first signs which stood in front of the buildings on campus. He also made floats for homecoming parades, frames for portraits in the President’s Office, and created other enhancements around campus. In 1984, UMES obtained a new Fine Arts building, and Mr. Satchell had input in the planning of the building. With the new building, the need for art students became a critical element in the success of the program. The recruitment of art students was elevated to an unprecedented level; the enrollment increased immensely, and UMES acquired an Applied Design Program and various other related programs. With the astronomical increase in enrollment, but without any additional staff, many faculty members taught overloads and some faculty taught 18-22 credits hours per semester. Despite the heavy teaching load, Mr. Satchell earned his Masters in Fine Arts degree in Ceramics from Towson State University in 1989. From 1988 to 1999, he served as Coordinator of the Art Education Program at UMES, and from 1999 to 2010 he was Chairman of the Department of Fine Arts, while simultaneously serving as Director of the Mosely Gallery from 1975 to 2010. For 39 years, his works were shown in major exhibitions locally, regionally and nationally, and he was featured in the documentary film “Clay, Fire and Hands,” which was produced in March of 2005. He had also been the recipient of many awards. In the fall of 1996, he co-sponsored a clay workshop with Korean ceramist Dun-Hum of Won Kwang University in Iksan, South Korea. He has also served as a mentor for many of his former students and community artists, including the renown, highly prolific painter and artist Patrick Henry. In reference to his works, Professor Satchell states that “He goes to great lengths to point out injustices in life as exemplified in the Earthscope series, and considers himself to be “a clay conductor who orchestrates images and presents them in ways that makes life relevant and meaningful.” He conducts numerous workshops for teachers, has served as an “art specialist” with the Maryland State Department of Education, and chaired the State Art Credit Count Committee for the state agency.
Patrick Henry (1952 - Present) Professor Satchell also has an international reputation for his expertise. In July of 2003, he demonstrated Advanced Throwing Techniques at Border-Technikan University in East London, South Africa, and in July 2001, he served as a consultant to the same institution. Professionally, he has served as the president of the Clay Guild of the Eastern Shore, treasurer of the Somerset County Arts Council, judge of the Black Expo held at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, and judge of visual and performing arts programs, pottery demonstrations, clay workshops, and children’s clay workshops. He has also served in a host of other capacities nationally, regionally and locally. He has also produced a bust of a local educator and martyr, Stephen H. Long, which is permanently on exhibit and housed at the Sturgis One-Room School House in Pocomoke, Maryland. The Long bust was commisioned by and underwritten by former UMES Professor Hammett Worthington-Smith to commemorate the seventy-fifth year of the martyrdom of Stephen Long. Upon the retirement of the late former United States Senator from Maryland, Senator Paul Sarbanes, Ernie was commissioned by Gaines Hawkins, the Media Director at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore to create a bust of the Senator. The bust was presented to the Senator and his family at his retirement. He has produced two life-sized bronze statues of Drs. John T. Williams and William Percy Hytche, both former presidents of UMES, which graces prominent positions on the campus in front of the buildings that bear their names. A life-size sculpture of a local gentleman, titled “Chester,” is displayed in the Reginald Lewis Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. Some of his recent pieces are five feet to five and a half feet tall. Some of Ernest’s recent works focuses on the downtrodden and not the pillars of the community.
Statue of Dr. John Taylor Williams at UMES 2025 Photos by Andre Nieto Jaime Professor Satchell is also involved in numerous community activities because he enjoys working with people and believes “that you must be a part of the community.” In January 2008, he began a three-year term as a member of the State of Maryland Trial Courts Judicial Nominating Commission for Somerset, Wicomico and Worcester counties. The Committee selects and nominates to the Governor persons qualified to fill vacancies on State courts in the tri-county area. Professor Satchell also serves on the board of the Community Foundation and works with many other groups and agencies, including a mentor for at-risk children. In the fall of 2009, Professor Satchell and his wife, Elsa, who worked as a Special Collections Librarian at the Frederick Douglass Library, also at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, made a $10,000 contribution to a fund for the visual arts. The Ernest R. and Elsa M. Satchell Scholarship Endowment for the Visual Arts is fully funded, provides need-based scholarships for students who have declared visual arts as their major, including art education, photography, graphic illustration, sequential arts and any other visual arts major created in the future. Professor Satchell retired from teaching at UMES in 2010, but he has not retired from active participation in the community or from giving exhibits of his world-famous creations. He may be retired, but he continues to be found in the pottery studios in the Thomas and Briggs Arts and Technology Center making the distinctive pots for which he is widely known. He has participated in recent exhibits at numerous Juneteenth celebrations in Easton, Maryland, as well as in other locations and teaches young people the fine art of ceramics. He has also participated in numerous exhibits, alone as well as with other artists and painters.  Professor Satchell’s most recent exhibit is at the Dorchester Center for the Arts, in Cambridge, Maryland. The exhibit is scheduled to last from January 10, 2026 to February 28, 2026 and is a dual exhibition entitled, “In the Making: A Community Mural on the Art of Giving Back.” The exhibit prominently features “Expressions In Clay: Retrospective of Ernie Satchell,” where some of the pieces in the exhibit are life-sized. One piece titled “Labor of Love,” is a near life-sized young man of clay hunched over a wheel from which (Ernie) Satchell himself might have “thrown a pot” into the shape of a ceramic face.”
Ernest “Ernie” Satchell’s talents will forever be shared with interested students and the community and for that reason Professor Satchell has more than earned the title of “Artist, Sculptor and Professor of Art Extraordinaire.”
1 Comment
John Groutt
2/27/2026 09:34:32 am
Professor Ernie Sarchell is every bit a wondrful human being and outstanding artist as ths piece by Dr. Small describes. I feel honored to have known and worked with him and Elsa for over 50 years. He is an honorable gentleman and outstanding artist. WE are a proud owners of one of his beautiful pieces of potery. Leave a Reply. |
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