When the Obama Presidential Center opens to the public today, it will include a very special piece of art made by McMaster’s Chancellor Emeritus and alumna, Santee Smith.
Smith, who served as McMaster’s Chancellor from 2019 to 2025, is an internationally renowned multidisciplinary artist, choreographer and pottery designer. She created a pottery vessel that will sit in the Oval Office exhibit of the newly built Obama Presidential Center and Library.
The vessel is a replica of a piece made by Smith’s father, Steve Smith, which was displayed in the real Oval Office throughout Barack Obama’s presidency.
When a president comes into the office, they’re able to decorate it as they choose, and that includes borrowing from institutions like the Smithsonian — where this piece was housed.
Until recently, Smith and her family had no idea that her father’s piece had been on display in the Obama White House.
“Pieces from [my father], my mother and I are around the world…. they were often gifted to dignitaries and they’re in different museums,” Smith said.
“We didn’t realize that my dad’s piece was in the Oval Office during the Obama presidency. So it was a nice surprise.”
Santee Smith’s father, Steve Smith, the artist of the original piece that was displayed in the Oval Office during the Obama presidency.
Recreating the piece
The Obama Presidential Center and Library includes a full-scale replica of Obama’s Oval Office. But the piece made by Smith’s father had been returned to the Smithsonian collection after Obama’s second term.
In May 2025, Smith was contacted about creating a replica of her father’s original work to go in the Oval Office exhibit.
“At first I thought it was a very detailed spam, because it kind of came out of nowhere,” Smith recalled. “I followed up, and for sure it was real.”
After that, she went about the months-long process of planning and re-creating the work.
“It’s a smaller vessel, made in the 1970s with design clay slips from that period,” Smith said. “I had to do research into my family, look at old recipes and experiment with what the colours would be.”
In pottery, every piece is one of a kind, Smith says. “You can’t mass produce. There’s no mould. It’s all by eye. I had a picture of what the piece looked like. I had height and width.”
But pottery designs can’t just be re-created through height and width. She had to eyeball the shape and the exact etch designs. Her father threw this pot on the wheel, but Smith was hand building the piece, so had to take extra care to make sure it was symmetrical. “It was a bit of a process…. and crossing of fingers.”
The work in progress at McMaster’s sculpture studio.
She worked in the Faculty of Humanities’ art studio spaces, supported by potter Jordi Alfaro, School of the Arts professor Carmela Alfaro-Laganse and technician James Kendal. “We were all part of that research process and testing, because with pottery it’s always an experiment.”
They did the firing at McMaster’s sculpture studio. “When you open the kiln door after it’s been in there for two days, it is a little stressful, but exciting at the same time.”
But everything turned out well. In December, the piece was shipped out to the Obama Center.
Meeting the Obamas
Earlier this week, Smith and her daughter travelled to Chicago for a special pre-opening of the centre, joining all the collaborators and people who contributed to the building.
It was exciting to be a part of that, and to meet other people who were involved in the centre, from the architecture to the interior design.
“It’s really beautiful. One of the most intentional contemporary museums that I’ve ever been to,” Smith said.
The Obamas address the audience at a pre-opening celebration.
The artists also got a surprise welcome from Michelle and Barack Obama. “They came out and talked to all of the people about the context of the building, how excited they were to be able to have this in South Chicago and what it meant to their community and to them. It was really uplifting [and] inspirational.”
“My cheeks were sore from smiling so much.”
Visitors can find Smith’s piece on a bookcase in the Oval Office exhibit, along with several pieces of Indigenous pottery from the Southwest U.S.
“They punctuate these little spots within the bookcases. It’s quite beautiful.”
Smith’s piece in the Oval Office exhibit.
Knowledge encoded in the design
The whole experience, Smith said, was a bit surreal, but very rewarding.
“I’m recreating a piece that my father did, which he learned from his mother. I’m a third-generation contemporary Haudenosaunee pottery maker,” she said.
“Honouring my father’s work, and that it was represented in the Oval Office, alongside all of the other amazing artists … the history of that, and the connection to land, the connection to clay, the connection to Haundenosaunee roots and the founding of the U.S. democracy, and all those intricate layers that are represented through this piece of pottery is really significant.”
A lot of Indigenous knowledge is encoded in her family’s pottery designs, Smith said. She hopes that when people go through the Obama Center and see the Oval Office exhibit, “they do realize that connection to Indigenous peoples, original peoples of Turtle Island, and the importance and the contributions that Indigenous people have made that aren’t recognized.”
“I think that’s what is important about the Obama Presidential Center overall… it’s giving a lot of context to historical realities,” she said, including First Nations history and Black history. “There’s currently more of an erasure of that and not wanting to recognize historical truths.”
“This museum is educational, and it will be seen by millions of people.”