Meet the Artists

Adrian Sandstrom

Adrian Sandstrom grew up in rural Iowa on a pig farm. He first became fascinated with clay while taking a ceramic class in high school. He never dreamed he would end up making it his career and life’s passion however, while continuing his education attending college at Buena Vista University, Storm Lake, Iowa, it was cemented that he would commit his life to ceramics. After graduating with a BA in Art he continued his study of clay by apprenticing with master potter Hank Goodman in Asheville, NC. Moving to southern California in 2004 he began working alongside ceramist Ricky Maldonado, while setting up a studio and teaching ceramic classes.

Presently Adrian resides in Los Angeles, CA, where he works out of his own studio and teaches ceramic classes at the Palos Verdes Art Center. He also throws production wares for numerous other artists, along with showcasing his work in shows and galleries nation-wide.

Website: adriansandstrom.com

Biliana Popova

I was born and raised in Bulgaria, where I received classical training in painting, sculpture and printmaking from the country's prestigious Vocational High School. During my high school years, I majored in Printmaking, where I developed my love for ceramics and graphic surface approach. I later went on to study ceramics at the National Academy of Arts, where I earned an MA in Ceramics. Traditional crafts and contemporary European ceramics were the foundation of my education. After graduating, I moved to the United States, where I started my studio practice and teaching. With over 20 years of teaching experience, I specialize in sculptural, hand-built ceramics, and surface design techniques.

As an artist, I draw inspiration from the organic world around me. I am fascinated by the curves, silhouettes, and cast shadows of forms and how they transition into one another. My love for the female form is also a significant inspiration for my work. I have always found the female form to be beautiful and captivating, and I explore it through my sculptural pieces. I enjoy working with graphic lines and images, and I find that large bowls and plates offer the best three-dimensional canvas for my love of graphic imagery, texture, and color. Overall, my artwork is a reflection of my deep appreciation for the natural world and my desire to explore and experiment with different forms and techniques in ceramics.

Website: bilianapopova.com

Bobby Free

Based in Southern California, Bobby Free is a potter and ceramic lab technician at Saddleback College. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Utah State University in 2010 and has participated in Artist in Residency programs in Montana and California. He also worked as a production thrower at his sister's ceramic business in Helena, Montana, and as a Studio Manager/Technician at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, California.

Website: bobbyfree.com

Instagram: @bobby.free

Brian Peshek

Studio Art Instructor at Pierce College, teaching Ceramics, Sculpture, Drawing, Three-Dimensional Design and Two-Dimensional Design

In my art, which reflects a conceptual approach to ceramic materials and processes, I strive to do the unthinkable -- to abandon the familiar. The long tradition of ceramic art is hard to ignore. I believe it can teach us much by showing us where we once were and where we are now. Looking back will point out how change and progression are the methods by which we arrived at the present, and ultimately guide us boldly into the future. But, to keep with tradition would be to keep with normality and forgo possible innovation. I want to break the boundaries of ceramic art. By breaking these boundaries, I can expand the definition of ceramics that is held stagnant in peoples' minds. I like to go new places and try new things. This will most certainly bring new fascination and affirm fresh experiences and ideas. I am intrigued by the unknown. I have no fear of traveling into unexplored realms in order to find new and stunning phenomena. I find sustenance in the black, for this region has greater potential for maintaining the interest of the observer.

Website: brianpeshek.com

Instagram: @brianpeshek

Echo Park Pottery

Echo Park Pottery is a simulacrum of an art pottery, started sometime after October 2nd 1972. When it came into being, some sort of organic mystery melded in time with the sculptural work of tea pots. There's a good chance it was when there were 10 or 20 mugs that had been done in a slab construction hand rolled style that I learned from Adrian Saxe. I didn't know what to do with glaze and I had a bunch of pots of liquid color and I thought it would be very funny to spatter them like Sam Francis paintings. The high and the low.

Chouinard Art School for many decades had a pottery sale which was part of our ceramic curriculum. That experience of an event, of a chance for people to have beautiful handmade ceramics and to celebrate the human spirit infused into objects, continues to drive this simulacrum in a time when you can buy Glad containers that are disposable, and pasta dishes from Ikea, which perhaps makes Echo Park Pottery, post-pottery. -- Peter Shire

Website: echoparkpottery.com

Fred Olsen

Fred Olsen has been a ceramic artist for over 40 years making both thrown functional pottery forms and sculptural ceramics. He has specialised in wood firing, using the natural build up of fly ash falling and melting on the clay and glaze to give rich and vibrant surfaces - flames and ash leaving their distinctive flashes and colors.

Website: olsenkilns.com

Gina Lawson Egan

Gina Lawson Egan is a ceramic artist living in Ontario, California. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan, followed by an MFA from Claremont Graduate University studying with Paul Soldner. She is currently teaching Ceramics at CalPoly Pomona University. Her work is in collections around the United States.

Artist Statement: I find the human face to be a powerful image to work with. There are endless possibilities with the inclusion of other elements that I add intuitively. I gravitate towards animals, architectural dwellings, caves and other natural forms. While these components add up to a narrative, it is not a specific story that I am telling, but one that is left for the viewer to explore.

Website: ginalawsonegan.com

Instagram: @ginalawsonegan

Heather Scheetz

Heather Scheetz is a professional sculptor who lives in Los Angeles, California. She has done work for Disney, Pixar, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Hallmark, and many other studios. Where her true sculpting passion lies though is in her pottery. Her love of nature comes through in her pieces, whether exploring the gnarled, expressive forms of old growth wood or the rolling, crashing forms of ocean waves. Her work juxtaposes the texture of raw sculpted clay against glazed surfaces to create forms that evoke the beauty of the natural world in the hands of the viewer.

Jack Halpern

Attending Kean University in NJ, I graduated Cum Laude with a BA in Visual Communications and Sculpture. I went on to attend the School of Visual Arts in NYC and studied ceramics under renowned potter David Jones. My ability with clay quickly unfolded and before long I was producing pieces that would help pay for my school tuition.

I have now departed from "throwing clay" on the wheel and my current works are part of "The Earthtones Collection". My attraction to the organic qualities, textures and colors found in ancient archeological relics have been the driving force behind my designs. Each piece in this new direction is a one-of-a-kind, hand-built vessel strongly influenced by Japanese, Native American and Contemporary American works.

Many pieces are constructed of multiple hand built pieces without the use of molds. The primitive process of pit/smoke firing completes my approach by creating strong contrasting surface tones which sometimes includes additional tones from added colorants. When joined with the sculptural attributes of my forms, I seek a visual statement that is simple and ageless.

My work is shown in galleries throughout the country and is included in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.

Jotham Hung

Jotham Hung is a ceramic artist born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. His work explores an interplay between clay and story-telling, specifically echoing his childhood as a first generation Taiwanese-American. Jotham’s ceramic work highlights regenerative practices, utilizing remnants of what would traditionally be deemed as “waste” or “mistakes” to create a unique visual language. The surfaces of these hand-thrown forms capture fragments of broken pots, exploded pieces from the kiln, or excess material from the making process. These themes relate to the scarcity mindset that children of immigrant-parent households sometimes hold. This is especially true when perceived value within objects are dictated by certain socio-economical and hierarchical structures. Furthermore, themes of deconstruction & reconstruction, damage & repair are integrated into his work, expressing the connection between humans and art.

Having over a decade of experience within the ceramics field, Jotham has taught and lectured at institutions including ArtCenter College of Design, the American Museum of Ceramic Art, and Xiem Clay Center. His work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, and showrooms throughout the United States.

Website: jothamhungstudio.com

Instagram: @jothamhungstudio

Julia Feld

Why do I make art? My first reaction would be to say that I want to express myself and make something meaningful that will be interesting for people to look at. I am sure it is true on the surface. I don’t have the typical life-long story that I knew I was an artist since I was a kid or I had that burning desire to create a masterpiece.

I became an artist gradually, like a person who went through numerous rooms and finally opened the right door. I make art because I can’t not make it. I have so many ideas that need to be completed and finalized as tangible objects.

All my work is an attempt to deal with psychological issues and explore emotions and feelings in depth. I am interested in examining the entity of the form during the process of transitioning from one realm to the other, from one stage of development to the next one. I use an abstract figurative shape to suggest the ambiguity of the process, signify the importance of the change and difficulty of the transitioning.

In my creative process I explore the relationship between sculptural form and the surface treatment and integrate the idea of interchangeability between a flat image and the three-dimensionality of sculpture. My sculptures convey the inner-world of a person – a world remembered or imagined from the past; a world of a dream, or a nightmare; a world of unfulfilled expectations.

I didn’t start my adventure with clay at a young age, it was a surprising discovery. I took my first clay class in order to avoid spending time in traffic and it changed my life.

I was born and raised in Russia where I studied biochemistry and developmental psychology that later became a foundation for my interest in the technical aspects of ceramics and influenced the conceptual basis of my work.

To get to the professional level, I didn’t hesitate to go back to school and receive my BFA and MFA in ceramics, since I knew that I finally found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

All my work is hand-built and one-of-a-kind, three-dimensional canvases that incorporate form and a painted surface into one work of art. I’m a purist, I work only with ceramic materials and embrace the unpredictability of the firings but working with underglazes gives me control over the colors.

On a conceptual level, I explore psychological and emotional issues of a deep personal nature and in addition, I raise common, universal questions that are understood without explanations.

My work has been shown all over the US and internationally (Italy, China, Romania, Latvia, Turkey, France, Serbia, Finland) at different galleries and museums.

Selected prizes and awards:

2023 National Endowment of the Arts distinguished fellowship at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences

2022 Jurors Choice Award, Clay National XVI: Say It With Clay, Carbondale, CO

2019 Bronz Medal, International Teapot Exhibition, Yixing, China

2018 Grand Prize for Texas International Teapot Tournament, Clay Arts Museum, Huston

2017 NICHE Award in the category “Ceramic Sculpture”

2017 Honorable Mention at 3rd Cluj Ceramic Biennale, Romania

Website: juliafeld.com

Instagram: @juliafeldceramics

Jessey Duran

Jessey Duran's artistic journey began in 2023 at the McGroarty Arts Center, where he first immersed himself in the world of ceramics. Since then, his passion for clay, some might call it an obsession, has ignited a creative fire, propelling him to explore the depths of this ancient medium. Jessey's current collection is a testament to his bold approach to pottery. Infusing each piece with graphic designs and striking glaze application, he transforms functional vessels into works of art that captivate the eye and elevate the everyday. His creations not only serve a practical purpose but also invite contemplation, as viewers are drawn into a dialogue between form and function, tradition and modernity.

Instagram: @handmadebyjessey

Katie Queen

Katie Queen was born and spent her early years in Northern Colorado in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and later years on the plains of northeastern Boulder County. Queen has lived and worked in urban Los Angeles since 2003.

Katie Queen is a mix media artist, preferring to work in clay, wood, fiber and painting. Classically trained as a ceramic artist, Queen praises traditional techniques and methods but is innovative in her alternative approaches to her predominant material, clay. Her work is process orientated through repetition and often remarks on the dichotomy of the natural and forced man-made world. The objects she creates reflect her ideas of what is tangible, what is imaginary, and what is imposed upon us from forces beyond our control. Her work presents formal concerns in composition and structure combined with loose, palpable explorations. Queen explores the symbolism of edifices such as the square, grid, and arch in a tactile fashion. Even though we perceive these elements as strong and solid, they are transposed by the cumbersome and chaotic methods Queen employs.

Katie is co-founder of the curatorial team Q&L Projects, an unassociated art cooperative working with a multitude of exhibition spaces and institutions including the Bauhaus 100 lecture series in Weimer, Germany and Craft in American Center Los Angeles, CA., Neo LA Art Gallery and other local institutions.

Queen earned her undergraduate degree in 2000 at the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri and received her MFA in 2003 from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Queen was an artist-in-residence at the Worcester Center for Crafts in Worcester, Massachusetts 2000 and Art Farm in Marquette, Nebraska in 2017. Katie Queen a tenured Professor and chair of the art department at Los Angeles Valley College.

Website: katiequeen.com

Instagram: @katietqueen

Kazuo Ota

Kazuo, also known as Kaz, was born in Japan in 1948 and moved to Los Angeles in 1956. He studied ceramics with Joe Soldate, Mac McClain and Lee Whitten and has worked with Steve Davis and his Kazegama kiln for the last 20 years.

His work is greatly influenced by Japanese pottery, particularly by the Mengei Movement championed by Dr. Soetsu Yanagi, Bernard Leach, Kanjiro Kawai, and Shoji Hanada. Born Japanese, Kaz cannot escape Japanese culture and aesthetics. The words simplicity and austerity come to mind when reflecting on the aesthetics for Japanese art and culture. These two words greatly reflect and influence his work today in clay.

Kaz works with four different methods of firing (Kazegama, Woodfire, Cone 5 oxidation in electric kiln, and American Raku) and each has its unique quality. The four different methods of firing have their own aesthetics and leave a different finish and feeling to the surface of the work.

Website: otaclayworks.com

Kina Crow

Ms. Crow, born in New Mexico in 1962, grew up in Los Angeles in and around the B-movie film industry and worked as a costume supervisor for 25 years.

In the early 90’s she became intent on learning to create paintings and sculptures, if only to fill the vacant walls of her own home. She took classes at a local community art center and was fortunate enough to find the most amazing teacher who taught her everything she ever wanted to know about ceramics.

When she learned that she could tell stories with her work, she was hooked forever. Her sassy baby boomer girl voice would not only have a platform, it might even have an audience. At the age of 44 she decided to become a working artist.

In 2007 she moved her entire family from LA to Pittsburgh, PA where her husband’s family lived and where she could afford to be an artist. She works every day from a little studio behind her home and travels the country showing her works at the most prestigious art festivals (or at least the ones that will take her).

Website: kinacrow.com

Kris Erickson

Kris Erickson is a ceramic artist and educator based in Pomona, CA. Erickson's creative background includes two years as a carpenter's apprentice, a BFA in Environmental Art from Otis College Of Art+Design, nine years in architecture, and 23 years working in and teaching ceramics at various community studios throughout southern CA.

Driven by curiosity, experimentation, and the visceral act of making itself, Erickson creates functional vessels, wall pieces, sculptural works, and wearable ceramic art that is textured, contrasting, minimal, and colorful. Additionally, Kris has produced interactive projects focusing on public engagement, education, and collaboration for several museums and galleries.

Website: kris10clay.com

Instagram: @kris10erickson

Maree Cheatham

Maree grew up making bowls out of the clay she dug out of the Lampasas River bank in Texas. No matter how busy she is in her career, having her hands in dirt in her garden or clay for a bowl has always been her “sanity saver.” So many people asked her for pots, she decided to offer them to the public. Each pot comes with an autographed picture.

“My connection with the earth is visceral. It keeps me grounded and balanced. When I garden or throw a pot, I am reminded that I don’t control the outcome. My job is to do the work and let nature take its course. When I hold a bowl I’ve made, I feel the joyous expression of my love of the earth. I’m thrilled to share it with you.” - Maree Cheatham

Website: mareecheatham.com

Mariko Kato

Born and raised in Japan until age 26, I was blessed to be immersed in the arts. Out of all of the different mediums, it was the conversations with the earth through ceramics in which I experienced timelessness. My work is a playful dance with the clay. I have ideas but what comes to be is never up to me alone.

Mary Ziats

A third-generation Pasadenan, Mary Ziats grew up surrounded by the beautiful landscape of the San Gabriel foothills. Mary was raised with a love of nature from her green thumb mother and grandmother, and was often taught the names of native plants and flowers at random. From a young age she also expressed interest in the arts, whether it be making doll houses out of shoeboxes or sketching her many pets.

In May of 2022 Mary took her first ceramics course at her local studio, Green & Bisque Clayhouse, and quickly fell in love with the messy and creative art form. Her love for art, nature, and clay has culminated in the botanically inspired ceramic pieces that she makes today. Her business name, Potter & Poppy, is inspired by California poppies, her favorite wildflowers. With a grandmother who taught classes in stained glass at the McGroarty Art Center back in the 70s and 80s. Decades later, Mary is proud to be able to share her art in the same space where her grandmother taught.

Website: etsy.com/shop/PotterAndPoppy

Instagram: @potterandpoppy_ceramics

Facebook: Potter & Poppy Ceramics

TikTok: @potterpoppyceramics

Matt Faughnan

Matthew Faughnan is an Animator/Storyboard Artist/Animation Director who lives in Los Angeles, California. He’s worked on The Simpsons for the past 27 years. 17 years ago he started taking ceramics classes and a new mania was born. Using porcelain slip and underglaze pencils, he merges his love of 2D drawing with the tactile, sculptural forms of pottery. He often creates whimsical narative illustrations on his pieces, playing with the differing fired textures of smooth surfaces, raw clay, and glazed interiors. He has an Instagram he is woefully behind on updating.

Instagram: @mattfaughnan

Mike Flower

Mike has had his hands in clay for over 30 years. He caught the clay bug at Pasadena City College and has studied at CSUN and CSULB. He is a teacher and artist - mostly making utilitarian oriented pottery at his home studio in Altadena. Exposed clay surfaces have played an important part in his ongoing study of form and function. Mike has taught high school students at Crescenta Valley HS for almost 20 years and is an adjunct faculty member at Glendale Community College.

Nikki Lewis

Nikki Lewis is a Los Angeles based ceramic artist and educator who has worked in the ceramics field for over 25 years. She explores pattern, design, color theory, and narrative in her hand-built and thrown works. Lewis has exhibited widely and lectures frequently on mid-century female ceramic artists, most notably at the Bauhaus Centennial. In addition to teaching and making, Lewis co-founded with artist Katie Queen Q&L Projects, an unassociated art cooperative working with a multitude of exhibition spaces and institutions, including the Craft in America Center, Neo LA Gallery, and other local institutions. Lewis holds her MFA from UCLA and is Professor of Art at Mt. San Antonio College.

Website: nikkilewisceramics.com

Instagram: @nikkilewisceramics

Randy Au

Born and raised in the beautiful Hawaiian Island of Oahu, artist Randy Au came to Southern California to pursue a career in Fine Arts. Studies include Biola University with Grant Logan; UC Irvine with Gifford Myers; and California State University at Fullerton, with Jerry Rothman and John Stokesbury, culminating in a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art. Au then established the Flying Cup Clay studio in 1987 and became a full-time professional artist selling his works through exhibits and galleries. He presently splits his time between the Studio (Muddy's Studio) and as the instructor of ceramics and Assistant Director of the Visual Arts Conservatory at the Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana, California since 2002; as well as other teaching, exhibiting and workshop opportunities.

As an activist for the arts, Au was a contribution member of the Santa Ana Artists’ Village Taskforce in 1993 as well as a member of the “Mayor’s Art Strategic Planning Committee” and the Santa Ana Council of Arts and Culture. Au was a guest curator for the Santa Ana John Wayne Airport where he organized “Orange County Contemporary Clay” (2007-2008) an exhibit of 28 prominent ceramic artists.

Au is known for his “Vegetable Series” which combines a love of nature with intricate decoration, a whimsical sense of form and an enjoyment of function. The pieces are sophisticated and radiate a liveliness of their own in layers of patterns influenced by historical and cultural decoration. Oriental, Egyptian, Southwestern and contemporary American references provide the overlapping inspiration. At the same time the forms are filled with a whimsical sensibility that delights in their natural references of use and enjoyment. The tension between organic for and painterly surface acts to engage the viewer in a dialogue of form and surface. The work has gained tremendous appeal in its unique opulent design, unusual organic forms, and playful function.

The series was awarded a Gold Medal in the “Discovery Award 1993” for Craft in California. It has also been a part of the invitational exhibition at the prestigious “DinnerWorks” exhibit in Louisville Kentucky, “Teapot Show”, Ferin Gallery in Northampton, Massachusetts; “Pacific Craft Show’, Orange County Museum of Art and featured on the “Modern Masters” series of the Carol Duvall Show for HGTV. Au also participated as a "Visiting Artist in Resident" in 2016 at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, California which culminated in a studio show.

Other exhibits include a traveling show of Southern California ceramics to the Taipei Cultural Center, Taiwan; “Tea and Fantasy”, Alianza Gallery, Boston; featured artist, Angels Gate Cultural Center, San Pedro; invited exhibiting artist at the Orange County Fair 2005; “Ceramic Biennale” in 2013 at the American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona; and “Pedagogic Clay 2015” at the Frank M. Doyle Art Pavilion, Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa. Works can be seen at the Orange County- John Wayne Airport through March 2023.

The work is in private and public collections like: ASU Nelson Art Museum-Ceramics Research Center, “Contemporary Crafts Collection”, Tempe, AZ; Newark Museum “Modern Ceramics Collection”, Newark, NJ; and the American Museum of Ceramic Art permanent collection, Pomona, California.

Website: flyingcupclay.com

Robert Kibler

I’ve been a ceramic artist since I first took a throwing class in 1972. It was love at first touch. I left a career path in molecular genetics, switched majors, moved into a ceramic studio as the resident manager and finished my Master’s in Ceramics from SDSU in 1975. I was hired to start a Ceramics program at Glendale Community college in 1976. I wrote the curriculum, outfitted the lab, hired the other instructors and staff, and headed the program until 2008 when I retired from full time work. I’ve been an adjunct instructor at GCC ever since. Over the years I’ve had an extensive exhibition record, including one man shows at Form and Function Gallery in Atlanta, Gallery 8 in La Jolla, and the Garth Clark galleries in New York and Los Angeles. My work is in the permanent collections of the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Long Beach Museum of Art.

Website: robertkiblerceramics.com

Robert Miller

My parents believed I should be a lawyer and that my art should remain a hobby and not a career. However, that changed in my senior year of high school when my father invited his friend, Serge Sarkis, the amazing Russian sculptor who crafted the Mayor Tom Bradley bust at LAX, over for dinner one night. I showed him some of my artwork and he told my father that I should pursue my passion and journey deeper into the art world. I was fortunate to be accepted into Otis Parsons Artist Institute for my BFA and UCLA for my MFA. Then, I had the incredible opportunity to do an apprenticeship, 30 miles outside of Kyoto, in Shigaraki, Japan. Doors opened for me to work with incredible mentors like Adrian Saxe, Ralph Bacerra, and John Mason. They deepened my love for ceramics and inspired my giving back to the arts. I co-founded the Miller-Durazo Gallery in the ‘90s and then created the SUR Biennial with a dear friend Ronald Lopez to showcase Latino artists.

I learned that success comes from talent, hard work, and loving support from the art community and family. I never could have continued my artistic path without the patience and understanding of my wife and children.

I have had the pleasure of being an artist for over 30 years. I did not care very much for ceramics at first, until I was forced to take a class at Otis. I new something magical was happening in the ceramic department and wanted to be a part of it.

I fell in love with creating objects. I explore the intersection of ceramics, utilitarian forms, I alter proportions, create unique glaze surfaces against vibrant and unique backgrounds, engaging with the discourse surrounding altering form and function. Transitioning from the realm of production line ceramics to conceptual installation art, my aim is to challenge viewers by presenting everyday forms within novel contexts. Shadows cast by my pieces induce a sense of vertigo, Embedding the space with an illusion of movement. I envision the future of ceramics as a fusion of technological advancements and societal concerns. By blending cutting-edge technologies with critical reflections on our cultural values, we can push the boundaries of the medium and provoke meaningful conversations about the role of clay in contemporary society.

I come from a world of d-i-y glazes. Formulating my own glazes, immediately sets my work apart from most ceramic artists. The art must flow through you, only then can you create something unique. As a artist we mus put in the time to discover your voice. My style of ceramics is a hybrid of Asian influence and traditional European master technical- strong fundamentals. We as artists must respect the material, clay has taken thousands of years to develop. The life span of high-fire clay is close to forever. Ceramics has been used as a historical record. A house can burn down but a bowl will survive.

I love what I do. I love to create, and I love sharing.

--- excerpted from ShoutOutLA.com

Instagram: @robertmiller_ceramics

Stanton Hunter

Stanton Hunter exhibits his work nationally and internationally. Writings and images about his work as well as articles authored by him appear in numerous books and publications, including Ceramics Art & Perception, American Craft, Ceramics Monthly, and Studio Potter. He has been an instructor and guest lecturer at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, ran the ceramics program at Scripps College in Claremont for five years, and was a Visiting assistant Professor of Art at Pitzer College also in Claremont. Since 2005 he has been a Professor of Art at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, California.

Prior to receiving his MFA from the University of Southern California (studied with and was a T.A. for Ken Price), and a study of glaze technology with Ralph Bacerra at Otis College of Art and Design, he did his undergraduate work in perceptual psychology/alternative education at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. He previously pursued a career in music before the visual arts, having studied classical trumpet and music theory at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.

Website: stantonhunter.com

Instagram: @shunter2367

Art Axis site: artaxis.org/artist/Stanton-Hunter/

Stephen Horn

In 1974, one of my professors at Cal State Fullerton required those of us in his graduate seminar to write a personal statement about their artistic philosophy. I did not keep a copy of mine, and all that I can remember is my last line, a quotation from Dante: “Do as the Divine: create.” At the time I was not conscious of what I (or Dante) meant by that, but it was an urge that I deeply felt. Almost sixty years later, the meaning is clearer.

It’s about doing what comes naturally, about playing, about potential—following thoughts and impulses, seeing what happens if I try this or that, and taking a ride to somewhere unknown. It’s about learning how to stand out of the way and let the process take over. It’s a journey with no destination that brings the soul near.

I would never have imagined that I would be making the things that I make. George Ohr, the Biloxi potter, wrote at the turn of the century: “Clay follows the fingers and the fingers follow the mind.” I’m happy that I have worked and lived long enough to develop the skills needed to be a clay maker. And the neurons are still firing too.

I received an M.A. in art from California State University, Fullerton, in 1975, and my M.F.A. from that same institution in 1996. Since taking my first ceramics class in the late 1960s, I have worked steadily in my own studio and taught ceramics at several colleges in Southern California, including Riverside Community College, where I was a professor of art for thirty years. I also served as an arts commissioner for the City of Pasadena.

Selected exhibitions include: “California Ceramics and Glass” (The Oakland Museum of Art, 1974). “Earth and Fire: The Marer Collection of Contemporary Ceramics” (Scripps College, 1984). “Art in Clay” (Olympic Arts Festival, Barnsdall Park, 1984). “Vessels” (Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, 1996–97). "Steve Horn: Explorations" (Xiem Gallery, Pasadena, 2005). “Other Mad Potters,” corollary exhibition to “George Ohr Rising: The Emergence of an American Master.” (American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona. December 8, 2007 – February 25, 2008). (Scripps College 75th Ceramic Annual, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Claremont, CA, Jan. 26 – April 7).

Selected collections include: Scripps College The Marer Collection, Cal Poly Pomona, The American Museum of Ceramic Art, and the Kaam Teapot Foundation.

Steve Davis

BFA Ceramics from Long Beach State.

Production Manager at Aardvark Clay and Supplies for 30 years.

Inventor of the Kazegama (Wind Kiln).

Website: kazegama.com

Facebook: @kazegamas

Instagram: @kazegama

Tim Davis

Tim Davis has been getting messy with clay for over 30 years. He has taught ceramics, learned ceramics and ruined ceramics for most of those years. In addition to clay, Tim works with wood, foam, leather, metal, composites and anything else he can get his hands on. All of the arts created by Tim can be found under the umbrella of timmakesstuff.

Tim lives in Tujunga with his amazing wife Jaime, daughter Elliot, and dog Grover Cleveland, who put up with and support his shenanigans.

Website: timmakesstuff.etsy.com

Instagram: @tim_makes_stuff

Victor Suez

Victor served as Professor of Art at California State University, Fullerton for thirty-eight years and received the title of Professor Emeritus in 2003.

My work has its basis in traditional pottery. I draw and paint, using traditional ceramic processes to achieve particular effects on my work to exploit and develop form. My concern with nature is revealed through use of animal and bird imagery. Marks of stamps, inscribed lines, and the touch of brush emulate fantasy in nature. Colorful landscapes include dragonflies, a dash of gold, a glimpse of purple and brilliant blues. I am not particularly interested in a specific genus but rather in the fleeting moment, the leap of faith when they are suspended in air briefly, the quick yet magic moment when they seem oblivious to gravity, suspended, or “braking” as they gracefully land on delicate branches. The dragonflies rush and dip across puddles leaving only a trace. Exploring the intimacies of these anthropomorphic lovers exposes my wit and curiosity in the human condition.

Each morning while I’m having my coffee I watch with delight the birds and dragonflies dancing and conversing around the feeders. The birds carry on the same prattle each day, yet it is different and continues to amaze me. I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this venture. The drawn landscape dwells somewhere inside and it is with great anticipation and patience that I wait to open the kiln and expose the joy (and sometimes grief) of life. My pots are made to experience and use, to give and to share – and to enhance one’s life.