Artists
Richard Akers
Whether I execute my ideas in stone, bronze, wood or paint the artistic inspiration has always come from clay. When clay is worked with the hands or on the wheel, it is a solid made fluid by motion. As I work the medium is fluid, when I stop it becomes static. That is why, regardless of my medium of the moment, I am always drawn back to clay. Richard Art. Akers
Steven Allen
Steven Allen serves as the Ceramic Director for the Richmond Art Center and teaches classes there, as well as Ruby's Clay Studio and the Walnut Creek Civic Arts.
Lauren Ari
Lauren Ari is a Northern California artist who focuses on drawing and mixed media works. She holds a Masters in Fine Arts from U.C. Davis. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of San Francisco. She was awarded scholarships to Vermont Studio Center, Pilchuck and Penland. Lauren has also published illustrations in The Washington Post, Tikkun and other periodicals. You can see her work at The San Francisco Modern Art Museum Rental Gallery.
Wesley Anderegg
Anderegg received his BS in Geography from Arizona State University, Tempe, and has been a Resident Artist at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT, and at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, CO.
Donna Billick
Donna Billick is the owner of Billick Rock Art, and Co-founder of Art/Science Fusion program, at University of California Davis.
Jennifer Brazelton
Jennifer lives in San Francisco and works out of the Dome Studios in Oakland, CA. She received her MFA from San Francisco State University. Jennifer currently teaches at California State University East Bay, Merritt College, and the Richmond Art Center. She exhibits her work nationally and internationally.
Lisa Clague
Clague, who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, studied at the Clevland Art Institute where her father, a metal sculptor, was a professor of art. Her mother was a potter. Her early ceramic efforts were traditional pottery, but she soon moved on to create more abstract forms that were inspired by plants animals and other natural wonders. She began sculpting the human figure, while working on her master of fine arts degree at California College of Arts & Crafts, and was given the opportunity to further expand her technical knowledge during this period, being asked by Viola Frey to serve as studio technician for the ceramic department.
Annette Corcoran
Annette Corcoran graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a BA in Decorative Arts/Art History. Initially, she worked as a graphic artist for 15 years. Because of her enjoyment of working in her garden, she gradually became interested in ceramics. Interest turned to passion as she created a home studio, and learned from various instructors at four different California Community College ceramics programs. Her work is now in many museums as well and private and corporate collections, and is represented in thirteen books on ceramic art, as well as magazines.
Nuala Creed
Nuala Creed, born 1954 in Ireland, moved to the US as a young adult and now lives in Petaluma, California. She earned her BFA in Ceramics with High Distinction from California College of the Arts in 1999. She has exhibited widely in the US in over 80 juried and over 70 invitational group shows. She is the recipient of many awards from exhibiting her work. Nuala has also received grants from the California Arts Council, and the Cultural Arts Council of Sonoma County. This summer she was awarded an Artist in Residency,by Howard Kottler Testamentary Trust, at Watershed, in Maine. In 2009 she was a resident artist at AIR Vallauris, France.
Michele Collier
Michele Collier graduated with a BFA in illustration from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. A career in illustration honed her observations about how the human body expresses itself non-verbally. Years of drawing from live models has given her the innate knowledge of human anatomy in movement. Action and counter-action creating a balance within the pose. Michele creates her figures from this place of deep understanding about how the figure moves through space. Layered on this technical knowledge is the need to express those feelings which connect us all as human beings. Since taking up the way of the sculptor Michele has worked tirelessly to find her own methods...her own voice. Throughout this learning process, she has been guided by her teacher, Susannah Israel. The influence of Michelangelo and Bernini, those titans of the Renaissance, give her a solid base from which to explore.
Jeffrey Downing
Ceramist Jeffrey Downing discovered clay while studying music composition at the State University of New York at Purchase. His first ceramics class there changed the course of his career. Drawn by its reputation for experimentation in the arts, he moved to California in 1983 where he began to explore hand-built clay sculpture under the tutelage of the artists Bill Abright and Stephen DeStaebler. he went on to receive his MFA in 1992 and is currently Assistant Professor of Art at San Francisco State University.
Amy Evans McClure
Amy Evans McClure creates “spirit guides” through her sculpture: figures, horses, goddesses, buddhas, abstract shapes. She began life in New York, was illuminated by the Southwest’s mountains and mesas, and graduated from California College of the Arts (formerly CCAC). Evans McClure’s most recent sculptural commission is installed in The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley. Art in America editor Michael Duncan contrasts her artwork with Kiki Smith and Louise Bourgeois in his essay that introduces the newly released book Amy Evans McClure: In Space In Situ. She lives in the hills of Oakland, with horses nearby and freeway roars below.
Jon Gariepy
Jon Gariepy holds a Bachelor of Arts from Sonoma State University and an Associate of Arts from Saddleback Community College in Mission Viejo, California. Gariepy came to sculpture after years of considering himself a painter. He works in a gestural manner with clay because of his love of paint.
Dina Gewing
Dina Gewing received her formal training when she entered UC Santa Cruz in 1979, where she studied at Cowell Potter with Al Johnsen. After three years of training, she transferred to the New York School of Ceramics at Alfred University to complete her degree. After returning to the Bay Area, she graduated from the California Culinary Academy in 1996, and her new work integrates these two passions in the format of high tea service.
Michelle Gregor
Michelle Gregor holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz, along with a Master of Fine Arts from the San Francisco State University. She is currently a full time faculty member and the Department Head in Ceramics at San Jose City College.
Arthur Gonzalez
Arthur Gonzalez is an internationally exhibited artist with over thirty-five one-person shows in the last twenty-five years, including seven in New York City. He has received many awards including the Virginia Groot Foundation twice and is an unprecedented four-time recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts grant within a ten-year period. He is a Professor of Art at the California College of the Arts (formerly CCAC) where he was Chair of the Ceramics program from 1995 to 2010.
Wesley Horn
Wesley Horn is Davis area sculptor and mosaic artist. His work often incorporates ceramic, steel, cement, and tile elements and is well-suited for outdoor and garden applications. In addition to moderately sized sculptures exhibited in galleries and art fairs, he is actively involved in numerous public art installations and community builds throughout California.
Carol Holtzman Fregoso
Carol Holtzman Fregoso graduated from the College Of Arts And Crafts, worked with Corkendall, Viola Frey and Art Nelson. She has shown extensively and has taught Ceramics to high school students and adults for over 30 years.
Susannah Israel
Susannah Israel's career distinctions include the prestigious Fletcher Challenge Premier Award, a Virginia Groot Foundation Award, an MFA in Ceramics at SF State University, residencies at the Archie Bray and the Doelger Art Center, and writing on contemporary clay artists. Israel has given many workshops, and also worked in factory sites in California and Kansas, sculpting massive industrial clay pipe. At home in east Oakland, she works in her studio at the Vulcan and teaches college courses in art.
Jeremy Jernegan
Jeremy Jernegan is an Associate Professor in the Newcomb Art Department of Tulane University, where he has been head of ceramics since 1990, and is currently Associate Dean of Finance and Planning of the School of Liberal Arts. He received his MA and MFA degrees from San Jose State University and taught at California State University, Long Beach and Dickinson College before moving to New Orleans.
Francisco "Pancho" Jiménez
Pancho holds an M.F.A. in Ceramic Sculpture from San Francisco State University, and his BA degree from Santa Clara University. He has exhibited extensively in the San Francisco Bay Area and nationally at museums, colleges, universities, private galleries and civic spaces. His work is part of the permanent collection of the University of San Francisco and has been featured in Ceramics Monthly and in three Lark Book publications, "The Ceramic Design Book", "Extruded Ceramics" and “500 Ceramic Sculptures”. He has taught courses at San Francisco State University, West Valley College and has been a lecturer Santa Clara University since 1999.
Coeleen Kiebert
Coeleen Kiebert received a Bachelor of Science, Fine Art from the University of Minnesota. She has attended both the Oomoto School of Traditional Japanese Arts in Kameoka, Japan, as well as the Chinese School of Traditional Painting in Beijing, China.
Margaret Keelan
Margaret Keelan has received both a BA from the University of Saskatchewan and an MFA from the University of Utah. She has taught at the University of Saskatchewan, Richmond Art Center, San Francisco State University, and is currently the Associate Director of the School of Sculpture at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
Eusebio Lozano
Eusebio Lozano earned his BFA from San Jose State University with a primary emphasis in painting. Lozano currently works out of his home studio in Hayward, California in ceramics and painting.
Mattie Leeds
Mattie Leeds has been making pottery full time for 42 years. He studied classical Chinese painting with Y.C. Chaing, a master of Chinese arts, he studied pottery with Michael Frimkiss, a renowned potter and student of Peter Voulkos.
Antonia Lawson
Antonia Lawson is a Ceramic Sculptor who creates unique hand crafted pieces. Her sculpture is both fun and thought provoking, a way of expressing her views both politically and aesthetically. The work spans from whimsical anthropomorphic animals and bikinis to landscape paintings on a sculptural form. She hand builds unique pieces and is passionate about her work. She discovers herself via her art, as her imagination is incredible and boundless. Antonia's family, an upbringing in Asia, science,and the world around her has a profound effect on her choice of subject matter.
Carmen Lang
Carmen Lang works in porcelain and stoneware, hand built with a bit of help from press molds. She prefers a high fired reduction process. Carmen received her BFA from La Esmeralda University in Mexico City where she taught as a tenure professor in Drawing and Ceramics.
Kathryn McBride
Kathryn McBride received both a Bachelors and Masters of Fine Arts at San Francisco State University.
Kevin Nierman
Twenty three years ago, Kevin Nierman founded the Kids 'N' Clay Pottery Studio in Berkeley, California. Kevin and his artist/instructors teach the art of ceramics to over 200 young artists each week. He is represented in numerous private collections as well as the Oakland Museum, the Korean Craft Museum (Cheongju) and the Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for the Arts & Crafts (Alta Loma). His efforts to give back to the community have been documented in the book- The Kids 'N' Clay Ceramics Book: Handbuilding and Wheel-Throwing Projects from the Kids 'N' Clay Pottery Studio.
Kathy Pallie
Kathy Pallie enjoyed a career in commercial art, designing products for retail store windows and interior displays, trade show booths and special events. This involved working with many different materials. When she retired and put her hands into clay,sheI knew this was an exciting material which she had to explore further. Kathy Pallie received her BFA from Boston University and has been featured in numerous national, international and juried exhibitions.
Gail Ritchie
Gail Ritchie received her Bachelor of Arts degree in arts education from San Jose State University, later switching to a Master of Arts degree in fine arts and ceramics from San Francisco State University. She is currently a ceramics instructor at Cabrillo College in Aptos, CA and has conducted classes at Sharon Arts Studio, West Valley-Mission Community College District in Santa Clara and Yosemite Art Place in Yosemite National Park.
Andy Ruble
Currently the Director of Ceramics at Foothill College, Los Altos Hills. The heart of his work is the hybridization of organic and architectural structure, and he is currently working on his “Structural Relic” series. As objects in nature and manmade objects reflect the same natural laws, we see in his work how the analogous structures of both are important to the survival of the whole. His work simultaneously conveys the beauty of natural arches and the grace of cathedral naves.
Lisa Reinertson
Lisa Reinertson had been creating monumental sculptures cast in bronze at Artworks Foundry since her first major commission: "Martin Luther King, Jr." in Kalamazoo, MI in 1989.
Cybele Rowe
Rowe has just returned from FuLe International Art Museum in China where she built a eight foot cave for the American Museum in only 5 days. She will return to build for the Australian Museum next year. Rowe is a post graduate of the University of New South Wales, Australia. For the last 30 years she has been awarded Art Scholarships, held numerous exhibitions of her work in galleries in Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. She has Exhibited for the World Bank in Washington DC and Bergdorf Goodman Department stores in NY as well as Lecturing for the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. Two recent articles have been published on her work by Ceramic Art and Perception and in Chinese Potters Magazine. Residing in the forest behind Laguna Beach with her husband and two children, Rowe finds the balance of family life and an art making life possible as well as enjoyable and fulfilling.
Juan Santiago
Juan Miguel Santiago was born in 1973 in Manila, Philippines. He currently lives in Oakland, California. Santiago received his MFA in Ceramic Art from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2004, and BFA in Ceramic Art from the California College of the Arts in 2000. After earning his graduate degree in New York, Santiago continued his studio practice in Bangkok, Thailand where he lived for two years. His studio practice combined teaching techniques in ceramics with design and industry programs within universities in Bangkok. He was also invited to represent the Philippines in the 7th Annual Asian Art Festival in Guangzhou, China 2005.
Tiffany Schmierer
Tiffany Schmierer received her BFA, cum laude with a minor in Art History from the University of Oklahoma.
Patrick Siler
Patrick Siler has worked with large scale ceramics, including ceramic walls and obelisks, since the early 1960s when he trained and worked with Peter Voulkos at the University of California, Berkeley. Since then, he has experimented with introducing imagery to clay, but has also worked in painting on canvas as well, albeit on a large scale.
Barbara Sebastian
Barbara Sebastian holds both a Bachelor of Fine Arts, ceramics and Master of Fine Arts, plastic arts/sculpture from San Jose State University, CA.
Cynthia Siegel
Cynthia Siegel focuses her work on the expressive possibilities of the figure, incorporating a multitude of cultural and natural influences. She received her MFA in from San Jose State University, and currently teaches in the ceramics departments of Cabrillo College in Aptos, and Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. Cynthia Siegel lives and works in Santa Cruz, CA. She exhibits her work nationally and internationally, and her work is included in several private collections.
Nancy Selvin
Nancy Selvin has earned both a B.A. and M.A. in ceramics from the University of California, Berkeley. She has held several teaching positions and is currently an Adjunct Professor at the California College of the Arts. On top of multiple group and solo exhibitions, Nancy has taken on curatorial projects including "Fundamentally Clay: Ceramic Abstraction" at the Williamson Gallery Scripps College and "Ceramic Still Life: The Common Object" at the Oliver Art Gallery.
Peggy Snider
Peggy Snider received a BA in painting and theatrical design from Bennington College in Vermont, apprenticed on Broadway for two years, and in the 60's, she answered San Francisco's call and became designer-in-residence for the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Peggy co-founded the Pickle Family Circus. where she designed the sets, props and costumes for nearly twenty years. Peggy has also designed award winning sets and costumes for Bay Area theatrical companies. She has been a model maker, set decorator, and wardrobe worker for such films and TV shows as Matrix I & II, Bicentenial Man, Popeye, Patch Adams, and Nash Bridges. She has been sculpting since 1980.
Glenn Takai
Glenn Takai was born and raised in Sacramento, he graduated from Sacramento High School and Sacramento City College were he earned an AA degree, he then went on to earn a MA and BA from California State University, Sacramento, he finished his education and earned an MFA at the University of California, Davis. He has studied with Peter VandenBerge, Ruth Rippon and David Gilhooly. Glenn has been making and exhibiting his ceramic art for many years both in the Sacramento region, and nationally. Glenn’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Oakland Museum and the Crocker Art Museum, also in many private collections.
Shannon Sullivan
Originally from Madison, Wisconsin, Shannon Sullivan lives and works in Eureka, California. She earned a B.F.A. in ceramics from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 2002. She earned an M.F.A in ceramics with a minor in sculpture from the University of North Texas, School of Visual Arts in 2005. Currently, Sullivan is an Associate Professor of Art at the College of the Redwoods in Eureka, CA.
Bar Shacterman
Bar Shacterman's interest in clay was originally inspired by traditional Japanese clay work. His work is also inspired by the great contemporary clay artists Peter Voulkos and Paul Soldner.
Leslie Smith
Leslie Plato Smith, Associate Vice-Chancellor of Governmental Relations for City College of San Francisco, has received a national award from the Council for Advance and Support of Education, the National Association of State University and Land-Grant Colleges, the American Association of State College and Universities, and the American Association of Community Colleges for effort, initiative, and innovation in bringing together 60 different art departments to make 125 life size statues to visually show how budget cuts are negatively impacting our students and to fight for public education. My work has been featured in Ceramics Monthly, the Crocker-Kingsley, and recently received an Award of Excellence from the ACCI Gallery in Berkeley.
Anne Stryke
Anne Stryke is a native Californian who has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for the last 20 years. She has been teaching fine art sculpture classes at the Academy of Art University since 2001. In conjunction with teaching, she also maintains time in her studio to continue her own work.
Clayton Thiel
Clayton Thiel was born December 11, 1956 and was raised in the rural midwest near St. Louis, Missouri. He studied fine art at Maryville College in St. Louis receiving a Bachelor’s degree with highest honors. He then moved to California in 1979 to study sculpture with Peter Voulkos at UC Berkeley. He received an MFA degree from San Jose State University in 1985. He has exhibited his sculptures continuously over the past 25 years in both group and solo exhibits. Since 1989, Thiel has been teaching art history, sculpture and design classes full-time at Chabot College in Hayward.
Claudia Tarantino
Claudia Tarantino is a two-time recipient of Marin Arts Council Individual Artist Grants. Her work is exhibited nationally and her sculptures are in many private collections and museums. Images and reviews of Claudia's work have been published in numerous books and magazines. In 1978, she shifted from production stoneware to working in porcelain, making small one-of-a-kind sculptural containers, boxes and bottles, lusciously colored with underglazes and china paints.
Rogelio Urena
Rogelio Urena was introduced to clay during the fall 2007 semester at Chabot Community college when taking a ceramics class taught by Skip Esquierdo. Since then, he has been in love with clay .
Derik Van Beers
Derik Van Beers holds a Bachelor of Arts from University of California, Santa Barbara, has exhibited throughout the Bay Area. After years as a printmaker and painter, he has retuned to clay as his media of choice.
Susan Whitmore
Susan Whitmore holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Ceramics from Metropolitan State College, as well as a Master of Fine Arts, Ceramics from the University of Washington in Seattle. She has been featured in the publication 500 Animals in Clay: Contemporary Expressions of the Animal Form.
Cindy Williamson
Cindy Williamson has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions and is an active member of the Bay Area ceramic community.
Guangzhen Po Zhou
Artist's Statement I believe that an artist should be talented in creating many kinds of things. An art work should have some kind of visual power, surrealistic shock and a sense of humor.
Wanxin Zhang
In 1992, after Wanxin Zhang established his art career as a sculptor in China, he relocated to San Francisco with his family. There, he received his Masters in Fine Arts from the Academy of Art University in 1996. Now, as a studio sculptor and educator, Zhang is a first-place recipient of the Virginia A. Groot Foundation Grant in 2006, and the Joan Mitchell Grant in 2004. His sculptures have been shown in many galleries and museums around the nation, including solo museum shows at the University of Wyoming Art Museum, the Fresno Art Museum in California, and the Alden B. Dow Museum of Science and Art in Michigan. His works have been selected to be included in Confrontational Ceramics by Judith Schwartz and in a major editorial by the magazine American Ceramics.
Arthur Gonzalez......READ
Extensive publication documenting featured artists to accompany CAA 2010
