The Potters Cast

Heidi Fahrenbacher is a ceramic artist from Plainwell, MI that creates slipcast ceramics with vibrant colors and images that observe a simple moment in time. Heidi loves ceramics and, until recently, was throwing everything on the wheel until she had hip surgery.

A native to Minnesota, Mark Skudlarek began his fascination with wood-firing while living in the pottery village of, La Borne, France. In 1983, he began a four year apprenticeship in Connecticut with Todd Piker at the Cornwall Bridge Pottery and in and in 1988, moved to Cambridge, Wisconsin to establish Cambridge Wood-fired Pottery.

Martha Grover is a functional potter, living in Bethel, Maine creating thrown and altered porcelain pieces. She attended Bennington College in Vermont, where she received her undergraduate degree in Architecture. Martha received her MFA in ceramics from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She received the Taunt Fellowship at the Archie Bray Foundation. Her work can be found at galleries throughout the country. Her work has been published in Ceramics Monthly, Clay Times, Pottery Making Illustrated, 500 Pitchers, 500 Platters and Chargers, and 500 Vases.

Tom Budzak is a ceramic artist living in Tempe, AZ with his wife Melissa, his newborn son Ezekiel and dog Boba Fett. He received his BFA from Arizona State University and his MFA from New Mexico State University. He is an Adjunct Professor at South Mountain Community College and a Master Instructor at the Mesa Art Center.

Roberto Lugo was born in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. Roberto was his mother’s third child by the time she was 21. Growing up Roberto was exposed to prevalent drug use and gang activity. The crack epidemic left half of the houses in Roberto's neighborhood abandoned. His childhood neighborhood gave very little hope for a future outside of its boundaries. Roberto didn’t have any experience with art in high school. He did, however, take up writing graffiti with his cousins on the streets of Philadelphia. After moving away from Philadelphia Roberto found himself in a community college taking art classes. After undergraduate studies Roberto realized how important it was to share his experiences through presentation as well. In 2011 Roberto had an opportunity to speak at the National Council of Education for the Ceramic Arts in Seattle, WA. His lecture was entitled “Activism Through Ceramics”. The following year at the NCECA Conference held in Houston, Texas where Roberto delivered another lecture titled “From the Wheel to the Wall”, a presentation on how graffiti relates to ceramics.

Rachel Wood is a nationally and internationally recognized potter who exhibits extensively in the UK and overseas. Her work is recognized for its complex and textured surfaces on vessels which are pinched and coiled, or thrown and manipulated.

Mariko Paterson has been around the ceramic block. Born and raised in Vancouver, she first attended Langara College and then completed her bachelor's degree at the Alberta College of Art. Kent State University was her next destination where she knocked out her MFA degree. While she has also made New York, Michigan, Ohio and Manitoba as just some points of her professional pursuits, Halifax, Nova Scotia now serves as ceramic headquarters. Forage Studios strives to produce a subversive strain of wheel thrown and ceramic work as well as serve the community with an education of the arts. Historical meets handbuilding where her sculptural interests lay and a dalliance with the pottery wheel has resulted in both forms and a forum for exploring her love of creamy cone 6 clay bodies and illustration.

This is a special episode of The Potters Cast. Former guests, Steve Kelly and Brian R Jones, join me in a live interview recorded in Georgies for Georgies special 50th anniversary open house. We had a great conversation about social media and building a business.

Jessica Brandl holds an MFA in Ceramics from The Ohio State University and a BFA from The Kansas City Art Institute. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including “Ceramic Top 40,” and at RISD Rome. Her work addresses the object as artifact, and its recollection of human time and environment.

Joel Cherrico is a potter, entrepreneur and former author for the American Craft Council website. After graduating college with a degree in art, he immediately launched his business, Cherrico Pottery, LLC. For the past five years, he has supported his livelihood full-time by creating and selling handmade pottery.

Portland, Oregon potter Steve Kelly’s work is rooted in rural Asian ceramic traditions but offers an American urban sensibility. He draws inspiration from street art, typography, and the kinetic human form.

Yoko Sekino-Bové was born in Osaka, Japan. She graduated from Musashino Art University in Tokyo, Japan with a Bachelor of Fine Art degree in graphic design before moving to the United States. She worked as a commercial designer in Los Angeles before her passion for ceramic art took her onto a new path. She received a Master of Fine Art degree in Ceramics from the University of Oklahoma in 2004. After working as an apprentice at Rowantrees Pottery in Blue Hill, Maine, to study tableware production, Yoko served as an artist-in-residence in the ceramic department of the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, Florida from 2004 to 2005. Her ceramic works are featured in “500 cups”, “500 platters and chargers”, “500 teapot volume 2”, “Humor in Craft” and “Surface decoration techniques for potters” as well as other craft books and a wide variety of periodicals including “American Craft” and “Ceramics Monthly” magazines. Her technical articles are featured on “Ceramics Monthly” and “The Pottery Making Illustrated” magazines occasionally. Yoko was selected as one of the “emerging artists 2011” by the Ceramic Arts Daily Council.

Beyond being the chief curator and proprietor of YONDER, artist Linda Fahey spends much of her time in the shop's studio, making her own line of ceramics, all inspired by a life lived by the coast. At YONDER, her open studio is a space for exploration, innovation, and collaboration, where she welcomes customers, artists, and friends to pull up a seat at her worktable for conversations and creating. Her work is shown at respected shows in the Bay Area throughout the year, and is available nationwide through design-focused stores such as Anthropologie, Voyager, and Rare Device.

As the artist and designer behind Paper & Clay, I make modern functional ceramics that are designed to be both beautiful and very usable. I draw inspiration from my love of Scandinavian design in the design of my forms and development of glazes, but also in a broader sense. I love having simple but well made elements as a part of my own home, and I strive to create work that fits that form.

John Britt is a studio potter in Bakersville, North Carolina who has been a potter and teacher for over 30 years. He lives in mountains of western North Carolina although he grew up in Dayton, Ohio. John is primarily a self-taught potter who has worked and taught extensively, both nationally and internationally, at universities, colleges and craft centers, including the Penland School of Crafts where he served as the Clay Coordinator and then, as the Studio’s Manager. He is the author of the “The Complete Guide to High-Fire Glaze; Glazing & Firing at Cone 10” which was published by Lark Books in 2004, and his most recent book “The Complete Guide to Midrange Glazes: Glazing and Firing at Cone 6” which will be published October 2014. He also has and two e-books (PDF’s): “The Quest for the Illusive Leaf Bowl and Other Assorted Articles” and “Aventurine Glazes”. He also has a DVD produced by Ceramics Daily entitled: "Understanding Glazes: How to Test, Tweak and Perfect Your Glazes”. He was the juror for the book; "500 Bowls”, Technical Editor for “The Art and Craft of Ceramics”, and the “Ceramic Glaze: The Complete Handbook” by Brian Taylor and Kate Doody. He has written numerous articles for ceramics publications including: Ceramic Review, Studio Potter, Clay Times, Ceramic Technical, New Ceramics, The Log Book and is a frequent contributor to Ceramics Monthly.

Brice Dyer received his BFA in ceramics and sculpture from the University of North Texas. After graduating in the spring 2012 he moved to St. Petersburg Fl where he was a Artist-in-Residence at the St. Pete Clay Company. After spending two years in Florida he moved to Kansas City to be a Foundation Resident at Redstar Studios. His work is influenced by geology and landscape and is primarily hand-built.

A professional potter for more than 45 years, Bill van Gilder began his clay work at age 15, as a studio apprentice to the late Byron Temple. During the following years, he apprenticed in Ireland and England, and received a degree from Harrow School of Art, London, England. He then established and managed two large teaching/training centers in Southern Africa (Lesotho & Swaziland) under the auspices of The World Bank. Bill returned to the U.S. in 1979 and established a studio and craft gallery atop South Mountain in Central Maryland, which he continues to operate today.

Molly Allen is an emerging sculptural ceramic artist. Originally from Colorado, She completed her BFA at Sierra Nevada College as the 2014 Valedictorian. Since then she has completed artist in residency programs at Watershed Center for the Ceramics Arts and Mendocino Art Center. Molly’s work uses animal forms to explore the human subconscious.

Shannon Garson is an Australian ceramic artist specialising in thrown, decorated porcelain. Her work is available at galleries and stores and in her online store. Shannon's studio is based in a small rural town of Maleny in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast. Each piece of porcelain is unique, the result of many hours work. In addition to her artistic practice Shannon runs innovative workshops incorporating nature in porcelain and surface design for schools and small groups. Shannon's drawings about the strange beauty and wonder to be found in the marginalized eco-systems of the littoral zone. Details of shorelines, rock pools and coastal wallum scrub are revealed in the sgraffito and oxide drawings that crawl over the surface of these delicately thrown porcelain vessels. Exhibition work is available from these galleries. "I want the surface of the pot to be part of the drawing, not just a surface for the drawing to sit on. I want the whole pot to be experienced, from the weight of it as you pick it up, the texture, the drawing, colour, smoothness of the glaze, all the elements draw the viewer into experiencing the vessel."

Michael Kline is a potter working in the mountains of North Carolina. The Penland School of Crafts brought Michael to the area to be a resident artist in 1998 and he has called it home ever since. Michael also keeps an online journal called "Sawdust & Dirt" where he chronicle his life as an artist.

Danielle Clare Pomorski is Ceramics and Theatre artist from Erie, PA. She has been working with clay since 2003. She has studied at Ohio Wesleyan University under Kristina Bogdanov. In 2009 she moved to Athens, Greece where she was taught by a couple that were both third generation Greek potters. In 2010 she moved to Brooklyn and took a few classes at Choplet taught by Damien Garcia. She is now working at Clayspace1205 at the tippy top of Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Alex Matisse grew up in a converted white clapboard church in the center of a small New England town in a family of artists. For three years, Alex apprenticed in the workshops of North Carolina potters Matt Jones and Mark Hewitt. Their work combines traditions, from the Anglo-Oriental school of Leach, Hamada, and Cardew to the folk pottery of the south-eastern United States and many places between. In their workshops Alex learned to love simple pots; adorned or bare, quiet and strong, they make their place comfortably in the home and speak to the thousands of years of pots before them, and all that is to come. Alex's work is made in a fusion of pre-industrial country traditions in both process and material. It is fired in a large wood burning kiln and made of as many local materials as the chemistry will allow. Ales believes in the beautiful object; that there are inescapable aesthetic truths, physical attributes, that remove time and place from the defining characteristics of the made object. These objects can be viewed today or many years from now and be understood as beautiful. Though their quotidian value may become antiquated, their aesthetics will save them. Alex believes in making pots that carry this truth while, as Henry Glassie told Alex in passing one day, holding one hand to the past with the other outstretched to the future.

Jessica Kanaley is a ceramic artist who celebrates her American roots with pottery inspired by the garden. She was raised in Rochester NY where she graduated with a bachelors of science from Nazareth College. After working in special education she completed an apprenticeship at the Rochester Folk Art Guild and founded the business Old Soul Clay. Jessica is currently participating in residencies and seeking adventure through her travels.

Julie Wiggins is a full time studio potter living and working in Charlotte, North Carolina. She graduated from East Carolina University in 2001 with a BFA in Ceramics. In 2005, she received an honorary degree from the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in China, where she focused her studies on traditional Eastern techniques. Her work has been shown in galleries across the country, including AKAR Gallery, Charlie Cummings Gallery, CrimsonLaurel Gallery, and Lark & Key. Julie’s work has been featured at the American Craft Council and the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, as well as several national conferences and exhibitions, including NCECA. Julie has over a decade of experience as an educator and will be one of the presenters at the Functional Ceramics Workshop in 2016.

Guillermo Cuellar has been making wheel thrown stoneware pots since 1980. Originally from Venezuela, he moved to the St. Croix River Valley in Minnesota in 2005. He treasures the breathtaking beauty that can be found in pots made for daily use in the home for preparing and sharing food.

Nancy Gallagher received her BFA from Kutztown University, originally in graphic design, then further studied functional pottery for four years with Bill van Gilder. Her recent work in earthenware both harkens back to historical pots, while maintaining a current graphic brush work and textural ethic.

Julie Covington is a potter working in Asheville, NCs River Arts District. Julie feels lucky to be surrounded by an amazing community of craftspeople, farmers, musicians, healers, and teachers who regularly inspire her to be a better potter! Julie makes sturdy, comfortable tableware decorated in a variety of playful designs.

From Roanoke, VA, David Eichelberger has pursued a career in ceramics in school, through residencies, and now as a professor. He worked at Santa Fe Clay for a few years, then was a resident at the ExergyXchange in Burnsville, NC, then on to an MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, then one year at the Appalachian Center for Craft in Smithville, TN, then 3 years as a Resident Artist at the Penland School of Craft. David is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Ferrum College, in Ferrum, VA. He lives in beautiful Floyd, VA, with his wife, artist Elisa DiFeo, and their two daughters, and are expecting another daughter this summer.

Doug Peltzman is a full time studio potter currently residing in Dover Plains, New York, a rural town on the eastern edge of the Hudson Valley. After several formative years studying painting, Doug came to earn his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics at SUNY New Paltz in 2005. In 2010, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree in Ceramics from Penn State. He has had the honor of being both a juror and curator of national exhibtions. He has taught workshops at many art centers and universities across the U.S, including Arrowmont, Peters Valley, Goggleworks, Davis and Elkins College, UNT, SUNY New Paltz, The Clay Studio and The Art School at Old Church. Doug is also a founding member of Objective Clay. His pottery has been featured in many publications and can be found in homes and kitchens across the country.

Marian was born in Pittsburg, KS in 1951 and grew up in very small towns in a rural setting. She received a B.F.A. from Arkansas State University in 1973 and has worked since then in her studio, hand building ceramic vessels. Marian lives with her husband in Austin, TX. They divide their time between the city and a cabin in the Texas Hill Country.

Diana Fayt’s primary medium is clay and refers to her one of a kind ceramic pieces as “etchings in clay.” Drawing on her background as a painter, sculptor, printmaker and clayer, her surfaces are alive with strange and exotic stories. When Diana is not working in clay, you can find her drawing in her sketchbook, carving rubber blocks or scheming about the next online ecourse she is going to teach. Diana also divides her time designing ceramics, teaching technique and inspiring creativity in workshops around the world. Her roster of clients include, Anthropologie, Heath Ceramics and Terrain. She’s taught workshops at destinations such as, Clay Push, Austraila, Arrowmont School of Crafts, Santa Fe Clay and Metchosin School of the Arts, online, at creativebug.com and via her self-created online e-course, The Clayer. Diana is a graduate of the California College of the Arts. After thirty years of calling San Francisco home, Diana recently left the big city for the Sierra Nevada foothills with her sweet pooch, Louie

Sarah Heimann is a studio potter in Lebanon, NH. She is a part-time instructor at Dartmouth's Davidson Ceramic Studio, and a 2014 recipient of Northern Clay's McKnight Artist Residency Grant.

Lucy Fagella is a full time potter and ceramic instructor living in Greenfield, MA. She makes functional pottery for the home and heart. Her work graces the tables and mantles of homes around the world. Lucy earned her B.F.A. degree from Alfred University 1985. She has been in numerous ceramic exhibits throughout the US. Her work can also be found in publications on ceramics and home décor.

Richard Hensley has been a potter for 45 years and has lived and worked in Floyd, Virginia all of his working life. Richard makes porcelain ceramics and fire it all in a reduction gas car kiln. Richard and Donna Polseno, Richard's wife, teach ceramics part time at a local college and for the past few years Richard and Donna have spent their summers in Italy making terra cotta clay pieces and enjoying their friends and the life in their small village.

Brett Freund grew up in Pittsburgh, PA and received his MFA from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. Brett was a resident at St. Petersburg Clay and a fellowship artist at Baltimore Clayworks. In 2012 Brett was a Ceramics Monthly emerging artist and just recently was awarded the 2015 Jerome Ceramic Artists Project Grant from Northern Clay Center.

Son of an inventor/motorcycle racer & a warrior princess/homemaker, Michael Sherrill has lived in the western North Carolina mountains since 1974. He considers himself a materials-based artist, experimenting in metal, clay, and glass. At the heart of his interest is the intersection of where humans and materials meet in both handmade objects and the natural world.

Old-time Radio used to be the movies of the day. Today's show is focused on an old-time radio show called The Potters of Firsk. Enjoy a bit of nostalgia and discover the power of the potter!

Mea Rhee is a working potter based in Maryland. Her work is modern and rustic, with Asian sensibilities. She launched Good Elephant Pottery as a part-time business in 2002, and grew it into a full-time business by 2010.

Tiffany Hilton is a studio potter and teacher who has been working with clay for over twenty years. After studying at State University of New York, at New Paltz she apprenticed with Kit Cornell in Exeter, NH for three years and established her own pottery in 2005. She enhances her own knowledge and passion for teaching ceramics by attending workshops herself each year and has studied with Cynthia Bringle, Karen Karnes, Makoto Yabe, Phil Rogers, Mark Shapiro, Barbara Knutson, Hayne Bayless, Deborah Schwarzkopf, Kevin Snipes and Catherine White. Tiffany's work can be seen on the dinner table of many people’s homes and at Pinch Gallery in Northampton.

Handmade pots hold meaning to Corey Johnson for the time and dedication it takes to make and design them. It is a combination of these aspects that invite people to use pots and makes them hold value in their daily lives. These pieces may serve as vessels for daily meals or be placed in a home for decoration. Corey is fascinated in the value and purpose his work can serve in this context. These ideas and concepts encourage Corey to enhance the pottery he makes to provide a more meaningful experience to a morning coffee break or family dinner. When using handmade pots there is a connection between the maker and the user. Corey is interested in how his ideas and thoughts for forming and finishing his work can translate into where and how someone else may use them in their own life.

Connee Mayerson has worked as an artist for 43 years, primarily in ceramics. Connee makes high fire, one of a kind, functional porcelain pots. Connee's work is organic and her influence is everything that surrounds her. Connee also works in stone mosaic public art, shell work, and figurative painting in water colors and egg tempura.

Amy Sanders is a mom, wife, and potter whose earthenware vessels create a balance of visual elements of form, texture and pattern with utility. She currently works as a studio artist, teaches adult handbuilding classes at Clayworks Studio, and conducts workshops across the United States.

The majority of Kim-Anh Nguyen's work is based on the process of coiling, a simple technique which has been used from the earliest times. The inspiration came from indigenous cultures’ traditional woven textile and basketry. Underlying Kim-Anh's work is a profound respect for the historical and cultural significance of indigenous people (the Montagnards, or mountain people of Vietnam and the Aborigines of Australia). Most of the works depict aspects of the landscape, which is crucial to all indigenous peoples.

After 3 decades at his potter's wheel, Ted Secombe says that making pots is more challenging now than when he first began, as his motivation is the purely the expression of his ideas and creativity. He has now developed a mastery of the medium that allows him to take his experimentation further than ever before. Ted likes to work with different shapes and now prefers much simpler forms, forms with the sense of an easy curve, 'like a brush stroke'. 'My inspiration comes when the clay is on the wheel and I am looking at the sensuousness of the curve,' he says. Sometimes he is influenced by the structure of plants and leaves. While the grace and size of the pots is impressive, the glazes Ted uses are rich in color, and delicate in texture and patterning.

One of the most important things one can do in today's business climate is build a strong email list. Some say this is waste of time, but that is a voice in the minority. Most experts tell us that this is by far one of the top ingredients for success. So the rule of thumb is: Build the list!

After a short stint at Chico State University, California, Sunshine Cobb went on to graduate with a BA in Studio Art from California State University at Sacramento, in 2004. Ceramics has been the major influence in Sunshine's life for 15 years now. Currently Sunshine focusing on functional ware, embracing the richness of earthenware, and is exploring the challenge of electric firing. Sunshine graduated from Utah State University with her MFA in Ceramics.

Jeremy Ogusky is a studio potter, husband, pizza lover and passionate fermenting evangelist living in Boston, Massachusetts. In Jeremy's former public health life, he engaged in HIV/AIDS prevention with the Peace Corps in Southern Africa, health education in South America, and public policy in Washington, DC. Jeremy's current studio practice draws from his global health experiences and Jeremy is truly excited and proud to craft beautiful & useful functional ceramics.

Larry Elardo is the owner of M Street Potters, a ceramic studio that is dedicated to creating one of a kind works of art with clay. Larry makes functional and sculptural ceramics. When it comes to Larry's functional ceramics he adds a bit of a twist: some is for food while some is furniture.

Guy Mitchell makes handmade stoneware tiles on the North East coast of England. Guy prefers hexagonal, triangle, and rhombus shapes to traditional squares. Guy mixes his own glazes and loves experimenting with surface and color.

Born in Gillingham Kent UK. Graduated 1990 from Royal College of Art, London. She established studios in London, exhibiting widely across the UK and Europe. In 1998 she moved to the USA. Her work is represented in several public collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.