The Potters Cast

Ceramic artist Patrick Johnston knew at the age of six that ceramics would be his life. After a kindergarten project, Johnston asked his teacher if he could hold the scraps of clay. "I stood next to the tree on playground, squished the clay in my fingers, and I knew that I had found it!" Since his epiphany, Patrick Johnston has never stopped working with clay. Johnston has been written about in numerous publications, including the, " LA Times Magazine", and has earned a degree in ceramic design from The Rhode Island School of Design. Patrick's current studio, The Temple of Mediclaytion, is in Venice, CA.

‘Made to be used’ is perhaps the best way to describe Thomas Aitken’s work. From as early as he can remember Thomas has loved to make things that work. And throughout his training and professional life he has continued to develop functional ceramic objects for use. Starting his ceramic studies at Red Deer College, Alberta and completing a BFA:Ceramics at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design in 1995. An interest in European ceramic traditions led him to study at the University of Wales Institute Cardiff, U.K. where in 1997 he graduated with a Masters in Ceramics. Then back to Canada to set up a studio in Toronto. Five years later he moved his home and studio to the village of Warsaw, near Peterborough, Ontario. Here he works full time developing his own work and collaborating on joint projects with his wife Kate Hyde. His work is widely sought after and is in a number of collections around the world.

Emily Schroeder Willis received her MFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2006. She was awarded the Jerome Fellowship from the Northern Clay Center and the Sage Scholarship from the Archie Bray Foundation. She has been an artist-in-residence/visiting artist at the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana, the Zentrum für Keramik in Berlin, Germany and at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Canada. In 2012, she was a presenter at Arrowmont’s Utilitarian Clay Conference. Currently, she lives in Chicago where she is an Instructor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Teneke van Gils' ceramic career started in the eighties in Amsterdam and continued on her husband's diary farm near to Delft. Teneka's dancepartner is porcelain on the potters wheel. Teapots are her favorite, they brought invitations from China. Tineke's work is exhibited in The Netherlands and abroad.

Anderson Bailey is a studio potter living and working in Chattanooga, TN. Using different building techniques, Anderson creates simple forms with quiet surfaces that are meant for daily use. He recently started a collaborative line of slip-cast functional ceramics with Anderson's wife, Jessie Bean Bailey.

Born the daughter of a painter and an organic dairy farmer, Molly was raised to be creatively industrious. Using her imagination and love of drawing to make everything from her well known idiosyncratic ceramics to quirky pen-and-ink drawings. Molly’s craft is finely honed, her designs whimsically literal and pop-culturally on-point. Working from her home studio, Molly began making her living as a full-time studio potter in 2008. Her formal education in ceramics and drawing resulted in the development of her signature style. Making contemporary ceramics inspired by history, Molly’s career as a studio potter quickly garnered a loyal following. Molly’s designs have expanded beyond tableware to a wide range of lifestyle products and Molly is actively growing collections of home goods to bring her modern yet traditional designs to the contemporary home.

Ariel fell in love with clay in 3rd grade and has continued to work with the material ever since, incorporating techniques of hand building, slip casting and throwing on the pottery wheel into her creations. Her interests range from utilitarian design to life under the sea. Ariel graduated with a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston & Tufts University in 2009.

Andrew Stephenson was born in Birmingham, England in 1972 and moved to the states with his family in 1979. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from East Carolina University in 1996. Shortly after graduation he moved to Asheville, NC to take a position as a resident potter at the Odyssey Center for the ceramic Arts. Andrew has always loved the folk pottery of England and especially the wood fired salt-glazed pottery of North Carolina, so when he was offered a two year apprenticeship with Matt Jones, a former apprentice of Todd Piker and Mark Hewitt, he jumped at the chance. During the apprenticeship he learned the forms and turning techniques that have been passed down from potter to potter since the days of Bernard Leach and Michael Cardew. Andrew also helped Matt fire his 300 cubic foot wood fired kiln and his smaller 100 cubic foot kiln fueling his love for wood firing. When Andrew was finished with his apprenticeship he bought a house in rural Rutherford county, received a grant, and built his own 300 cubic foot wood kiln and holds several kiln openings a year. Andrew continues the long tradition of wood firing in North Carolina and sells his work in galleries throughout the southeast.

April Noble is a ceramic artist living in Denver, Colorado. She is currently working on her MFA through a low residency program at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas. She currently teaches a pottery class at a local recreation center as well as works as a studio tech at a local community college.

Jack Welbourne is a ceramics graduate currently working in a plant pot factory in South Wales. Jack's work has focused on hand thrown functional wares but Jack is starting to explore more sculptural ideas informed by the industrial nature of his job.

Bede Clarke has been a Professor of Art at the University of Missouri since 1992. He received his Master of Fine Arts from The University of Iowa (1990) and a BFA from Eckerd College (1982). Bedes work is found in public and private collections in the U.S. and abroad.

Penni Stoddart has been a potter for more than 20 years and specializes in 1800's period historical pottery. Penni has done research into the history of local potteries as well as pioneer pottery in Ontario, Canada. She attends 1812 living history events and sells her pottery in merchant's row at the events and to historical sites.

A graduate of the Sheridan College and Fleming College ceramics programs, Emma Smith creates humble artwork for everyday use. Her objects encourage the gathering of peoples and the sharing of a meal, by providing delight in the ordinary and unnecessary. Emma's work has exhibited in galleries across North America including The Gardiner Museum (Toronto, ON), The Clay Studio (Philadelphia, PA), and The Carnegie Gallery (Dundas, ON).

Specializing in gas fired glazed ware to cone 10 and one of a kind wood fired vessels, Mark Goertzen has worked as a professional potter since 1989. He started in clay at Bethel College, Kansas in the mid 1980's, and has been happily learning more about it ever since.

Dear Human is the creative studio founded by Jasna Sokolovic and Noel O’Connell in 2009. After meeting at a residency in Denmark, Jasna and Noel immediately began working on ideas together and haven’t stopped since. The studio works in various artistic domains that include public space projects, product design, and applied arts. Their collaboration is rooted in common beliefs and ideas and supported by the strengths that each bring to the table—Noel’s material expertise and attention to detail and Jasna’s improvisational sensibility and explorative nature.Their work draws inspiration from working in new environments, experimenting with materials and collaborating with other designers, architects, and artists Dear Human projects offer an alternative perception to overlooked everyday landscapes by revealing the hidden potential of places and objects, hoping to inspire consciousness and curiosity.

Pepijn van den Nieuwendijk studied Graphic and Typographic design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague, The Netherlands (Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, Den Haag). After graduation Pepijn focused more on illustrating and painting. This was the beginning of Cirque dextraordinaire or what later became his alias and studio name Cirque de Pepin. Pepijns circus, as a metaphor for a place where anything can happen. Around 2002 Pepijn came into contact with ceramics. A world of possibilities revealed itself. Nowadays Pepijn works explicitly in these various disciplines. With an emphasis on craftsmanship and detail. Van den Nieuwendijk has exhibited his intricate ceramic sculptures and paintings in solo exhibitions in The Netherlands and abroad, most recently 'The Greatest Show on Earth' at the Koornmarktspoort, city Museum Kampen (2014) He has participated in many group shows in The Netherlands and abroad. Recently Pepijn co-curated and designed the travelling exhibition The Blue Revolution, 400 years exchange Delft-Jingdezhen with ceramic artists from both The Netherlands and China. Public commissions include a bas-relief for the Feijenoord Soccer Club (2009) in Rotterdam, and a monument in honor of the Dutch comic author Maarten Toonder Rotterdam (2002). Van den Nieuwendijks work is in the collection of Museum Prinsenhof Delft and in many private collections. Van den Nieuwendijk is represented by Gallery Nasty Alice, Eindhoven, Kochxbos gallery, Amsterdam and Mothership (art agency), Rotterdam

Debra Sloan did a self-directed apprenticeship from 1973-79. Later she attended Vancouver Art School 1979-82. Debra has taught, adjudicated, and presented at many symposiums, most recently in Romania. Now she serves on arts Boards, is represented in 6 LARK publications, she exhibits nationally, internationally, attended 3 international residencies, and most recently at the Leach Pottery, UK. Debra works mainly as a figurative artist, but started as a potter.

Jennica Kruse is a ceramic artist living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She received her BFA from the University of Minnesota and graduated Summa cum Laude in 2011. She also studied ceramics in Cortona, Italy in 2010. She is a Resident Artist at the Northern Clay Center where she teaches and works as the Materials Technician.

Born and raised in Illinois, Ryan Archibald received his BFA from Southern Illinois University in 2013 and continued his ceramic education in Minnesota as the Northern Clay Center Anonymous Potter Studio Fellow. Ryan now resides in Minneapolis where he maintains a studio, teaches beginner wheel-throwing classes, and works for a production pottery.

As a commercial artist, Kathy Pallie worked with many different materials creating 3-dimensional objects. When Kathy retired, she put her hands into clay and has been exploring this exciting, tactile medium ever since. Kathy's artwork is inspired by Nature, by the unlimited variety of textures, patterns and energy she finds in her natural surroundings.

Ginny Sims is interested in objects and the surrounding sensations in a home that trigger memory and emotion. Exploring homes and observing family patterns has been a fascination of Ginny since childhood. She finds a lot of inspiration for the work that she makes in the relationships between objects and their owners, and the somewhat overlooked power of the presence of certain objects and how they made their way into our lives. Ginny creates objects that echo a sense of history and thoughtfulness, but also that of loss and abandonment.

John Shirley works in bone-china. Most of John's work is decorated with soluble salts which have a tendency to permeate the surface of the work adding subtle watercolor effects and creating an ethereal quality. John is a fellow of Ceramics Southern Africa and a member of the International Academy of Ceramics.

Tony Clennell- 2nd generation potter, educator and author of "Stuck in the Mud". Workshop presenter in Japan, Italy, USA, Canada, Wales, Korea and China.

Brett Binford and Chris Lyon met while working in a studio in Colorado. They stayed friends over the years and eventually started a major production studio called MudShark Studio. Their company makes ceramics for large companies and individual artists. MudShark Studio is located in Portland Oregon.

David Schlapobersky and Felicity Potter, - studio potters in high temperature, reduction fired stoneware and porcelain - a working partnership since 1973. They live and work in Swellendam, a small rural town in the Western Cape Province of South Africa where they have the heritage house "Bukkenburg". Their work is mostly wheel thrown with some slab work and is hand made using their own blends and mixes of clay, glazes, slips and oxides. Their output is diverse and prolific, producing a range of work from tableware and decorative pieces to pots of monumental size, garden and indoor containers, decorative urns, washbasins, water features and wine jars etc..

A Thai born, Melbourne-based artist, curator and arts activist, Vipoo Srivilasa works predominantly in ceramics, exploring culture shifts and migration experiences. His work is a playful blend of historical Figurative and Decorative art practices with a healthy dose of Contemporary Culture. Using blue and white colour, he creates complex narratives through highly decorated images applied to the surfaces of ceramic forms. His work requires an intimacy in which the key elements of the drama are often found in unusual places within the forms themselves. Vipoo has exhibited internationally and loves creating opportunities for artists to collaborate through community based art projects. His work is held in various public art collections including The National Gallery of Australia.

Gerry Wedd was born at McLaren Vale, South Australia, in 1957. He pots and surfs in Port Eliott, South Australia. He completed an MVA (ceramics) in 2009. In 1998 he won the Sidney Myer Fund International Ceramics Award and in 2009 his work was in the Havana Bienal.

Hadrian Mendoza is a Filipino potter based in Virginia, USA. Hadrian has exhibited his works internationally and are in collections throughout the world. Since 2009, Hadrian has started a network of contemporary Southeast Asian ceramic artists.

Nia Gautama is a ceramic artist who resides in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, and currently pursuing her MFA degree in Visual Art at Bandung Institute of Technology. Since early 2000, she has actively exhibited both at home and abroad.

Robbie Lobell lives and works on Whidbey Island in Northwest Washington. Lobell is the co-founder, designer, and maker of Cook on Clays high-fire flameproof cooking pots. Cook on Clay, committed to sustainable local economies and food systems, collaborates with farmers, chefs, home cooks, and restaurants across the country. Lobell's pots reside in kitchens and on tables across North America and beyond. Her work is featured in magazines and books about utilitarian pottery, cooking vessels, and making pots.

James finds it essential to tell stories through his art. As an art director, he uses ceramics as a canvas by incorporating illustrations into his work. He has a flair for theatrics and adopts a whimsical style that is sometimes satirical, which he hopes will tickle emotions and generate conversations.

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John George Larson is a painter and wood fire ceramic artist from southwest Minnesota. He discovered clay at age fourteen as a means of expression and as an alternative way of exploring fundamental physics. He has studied at Utah State University and under contemporary ceramist Oh Hyang Jong in South Korea. John fires an Anagama kiln and maintains his studio in Milan Minnesota. He uses Porcelain and Native clays with other indigenous materials to create his works which can be found in national and international collections.

Re Jin (RJ) Lee's company, Bailey Doesn't Bark is a Brooklyn based design studio offering functional ceramics made by hand by RJ since 2008. RJ was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil to South Korean parents. This combination of cultures has had a great influence in RJ's design aesthetics. After receiving a BA in Fashion Design and design certificates from Central Saint Martins, London College of Design and Istituto Europeu di Design, RJ moved to Los Angeles, CA to pursue her career in fashion design and styling. Through fashion and a move to New York city RJ discovered her passion for home and product design. Like RJ's Brazilian and Korean heritage, fashion has had a major influence in her design aesthetics and also the way she creates and presents her collections.

To Nicholas Bernard, form is everything. Nick stretches clay to make canvases for decoration. Texture, pattern and color are successful additions when the shapes are impeccable. My inspirations are many, from the classic forms of antiquity to the simple, graceful pots made by indigenous peoples and the work of modern studio potters. Nick's current body of work deals mostly with simple clean form. Handles and other flourishes are being added again after a four year hiatus. Dramatic color and subtle texture accentuate what Nick hopes is a mastery of the traditional vessel form. Nick makes earthenware, with layers of textured slip, colored slips and oxides. Multiple gas or electric firings in oxidation to cone 03 or approximately 2000F.

Isaac Patmore has his arts practice split across many facets of creative production. A full time arts worker, working At Monte Lupo as a manager in the creative arts. Aiding people with disabilities to design, decorate and create ceramics for sales and exhibitions.Isaac's personal arts practice is split across the work he makes to fire in wood kilns and work for the electric kiln. These two different finishes of the work still show the hand of the maker and comfortably sit together as a complete body of work.

Paul Blais brings us through the process to building an overall plan to market pottery.

Alice Ballard maintains a studio in Greenville, SC where she teaches part-time at Christ Church Episcopal Middle School. She also taught at the SC Gov. School for the arts for 10 years, along with workshops at Penland, Arrowmont, Odyssey and for the American Crafts Council Southeast. Collections include the Renwick Gallery (DC), Mint Museum (NC), Resen Cermic Collection (Macedonia), state art collection in TN and SC. She received a Fulbright to study in India and an SCArtsCom Individual Fellowship Grant. Represented by Blue Spiral 1 (NC), Hodges Taylor (NC) The Tao Evolution (Hong Kong)

Kip O’Krongly earned a BA from Carleton College in 2001 and continued her ceramics education in studios across the country before returning to Minnesota as the Northern Clay Center Fogelberg Fellow, Materials Technician, and then Anonymous Potter Studio Fellow. Kip has been featured as a Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist, on the cover of Pottery Making Illustrated, and was the Best in Show winner of Strictly Functional Exhibition in 2011. She exhibits work and teaches workshops across the country, is included in a number of ceramic publications and was awarded a $25,000 McKnight Artist Grant in 2014. O’Krongly currently maintains a studio in Northfield, Minnesota.

Frances Palmer has been making ceramics since 1987. Frances was trained as an art historian, yet has always made work with her hands. First as a printmaker and now as a potter and gardener. Frances loves the process of changing ideas into form. She doesn't make or grow things to hold onto them, but rather to send them out into the world for others to live with and enjoy. Her handmade ceramics are functional art – dishware or vases that can be used on a daily basis. Each piece, no matter how large or small, is considered and individual.

Mary Lou Zeek is a graduate from Western Oregon University and was a studio artist for 28 years as a ceramic artist. Mary knew the skill and passion artists pour into their work. Mary has supported the arts through her work on the Oregon Artists Series Foundation and the Salem Public Art Commission. But mostly Mary has supported the arts through the Mary Lou Zeek Gallery. When Mary first opened the Mary Lou Zeek Gallery in 2001, her vision was to honor artists and their creations, and to push the limits of what a small gallery could do. Even though Mary's gallery only had 700 square feet of space, she specialized in shows and events that went way beyond the gallery doors. She partnered with small non-profits, other retailers and large organizations to stage some amazing collaborative art shows and events. Mary's gallery received a number of local, state and national awards.

Kajsa Leijström lives in the most southern part of Sweden, which is a popular tourist destination. Kajsa has been running her own pottery studio since 1999 and most of her production is wheel-thrown functional ceramics. About three years ago, Kajsa made a major change in her work and started to make high fired stoneware.

Ann Rea abandoned art for over a decade. When she returned to art Ann wowed the artist world in 2004 with vivid landscapes of the vineyards of California. In less than a year of starting her art business Ann was profitable. Since then Ann has added to her business of amazing canvas works prints, postcards, public speaking, and artist coaching. Ann is voice worthy of our ears.

Robert Chamberlin is a conceptual artist living and working in Boston, Massachusetts where he recently received his MFA from Tufts University and The School of the Museum of Fine Art. Working across media (photography, performance, ceramics etc.) to express ideas and promote conversation. Robert is often at the focus of his work. Tackling projects that channel a contemporary socio-political issues like surveillance, sexuality, and domesticity through a personal lens.

Chris Taylor works as a ceramicist in Devon, the South West of England. His current work, the ornamental vase series, consists of thrown vases decorated using a variety of techniques that are reminiscent of historical vessels. He currently lectures at Plymouth College of Art.

Sue Tirrell is a ceramic artist living and working in Paradise Valley, Montana. She holds a BFA from Alfred University and spent many years teaching ceramics in school, museum and community settings before becoming a full-time studio artist in 2008.

Bruce Gholson and Samantha Henneke, are studio potters who live and work in central North Carolina, in a celebrated and unique community known as the Seagrove Potters. This husband and wife team own and operate Bulldog Pottery, one of the more than 60 ‘open to the public’ potteries, nestled in the scenic countryside surrounding the town of Seagrove. Bruce and Samantha work primarily with porcelains and white stonewares, with an intense interest in glaze experimentation and surface developments. Their studio is a collaborative environment providing each other support to express their independent voices. They make their functional and decorative pottery into an art to be used for everyday living.

Sharon Alpren is a British girl now living in Melbourne, Australia. Sharon's background is in textiles and used to be a fashion buyer. She took up ceramics when she moved from London to outback Australia and (not suprisingly!) found no work in fashion in her new hometown. Instead Sharon discovered clay and quickly became addicted to the process of ceramics. Sharon has never looked back!

The work of Bianka Groves is thoughtfully functional and has the ability to complete the elegance of any interior space. Groves received her BFA in 2012 from Corcoran College of Art in DC. She taught at Baltimore Clayworks and recently moved to Minneapolis where she now teaches at Northern Clay Center and makes work out of her home studio.

Godeleine de Rosamel is a french ceramicist and illustrator. After working for 10 years in Paris, Godeleine moved to Los Angeles 14 years ago. She studied art at l'Ecole de Recherche Graphique ( ERG ) in Brussels Belgium. Godeleine has illustrated a number of books before deciding to make ceramics - which she had always practiced on the side since childhood - a major part of her work. Since then, Godeleine feels that she has really found an inspiration that is really hers.