About a year and a half ago Pittsburgh ceramist Justin Rothshank began making functional pottery sporting the image of President Abraham Lincoln. "I was interested in historic icons and how they impact the art world," Rothshank says.

Fast forward to today and he's in the midst of Lincoln 200th birthday celebrations and a popular newly elected president who has cited Lincoln as one of his models. "It's been really serendipitous for me as an artist," says Rothshank.

More recently, he's begun making ware featuring Presidents Barack Obama and Lyndon Johnson.

"Obama for obvious reasons. He's a contemporary icon, whether you appreciate him or not," Rothshank says. But Johnson? "He has a compelling profile." And, he fits with the other two, sharing the unenviable fate of occupying the Oval Office while the country's at war. "He did a lot of things right but also a lot of things that people hated and was often loved and hated for the same thing. Which I think went the same way for Lincoln and appears to be going the same way with Obama, too."

Rothshank, who is associate director and manager of ceramics at the Union Project on North Negley Avenue, Highland Park, has long explored "how social and political and faith-related topics intersect."

As an artist, he wants to make functional ware but also likes the way it can be a canvas for making a statement. But, "you live and die by how it works -- [sales depend upon] whether people want to look at Lincoln on their morning cup of coffee."

Rothshank will participate in the prestigious American Craft Council exposition in Baltimore later this month, but his work is also for sale locally at the Union Project, the Society for Contemporary Craft, the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Divertido in Lawrenceville, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg.

His presidential lines include bowls, plates, sugar and creamer sets and pitchers, and prices range from $18 soup bowls to $125 platters. Mugs, at $30, are the most popular item.