Meet The Instructors...
Paige Smelley has been a potter for 12 years. She started taking hand building classes in high school, this is where she fell in love with clay. From there she attended Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire and obtained a minor in Fine Art focus in ceramics, this is where she started throwing on the wheel and fell in love with teaching. After graduation in 2015, she worked for a short time at a ceramics studio in Manchester, New Hampshire. She moved to Portland in 2015 and started working at Morning Ceramics in 2018. In 2020 she started building kilns at Skutt ceramics and is happy to say her professional life is very ceramics centered.
IG: thepotterypaige
Erika Rier is an interdisciplinary artist who has focused mostly on works-on-paper, textiles, and zines until 2019 when she began exploring handbuilt ceramics. Erika's work explores the intersection of politics and history with modern aesthetics and playful design. She has one of each of the following: a husband, a daughter, a fluffy cat, and a black cat.
IG: erika_rier
It was love at first sight when Carina first found clay while struggling through an undergraduate degree in painting. She swapped clay for painting and never looked back! 15 years later, she’s worked as an arts educator and administrator and is finally working full-time as an artist. Carina loves teaching and believes in finding joy in the processes of learning something new. When her hands aren’t in clay, you can find her hiking, teaching herself Spanish, and doting on her houseplants and cat.
You'll likely find Sara proselytizing at the banding wheel about the joys of coiling! Sara earned her BFA in ceramics from University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2018, and has a passion for sharing wheel and handbuilding techniques with beginning students. She strives to imbue her work with humor, curiosity, and observation, and hopes to convey the harvest around and within. Sara loves her partner, her poodle (Marko!), veggie gardening, making music, cooking, D&D, and bouldering. She is currently learning to sew.
Before graduating from the University of Northern Colorado with her degree in ceramic arts, and her Master’s degree in Visual Art & Design, Holly de Saillan discovered her affinity for clay in her high school years. Clay has been her primary mode of artistic expression for over thirty years. Her inspirations come from her observations of the natural world, her travels and the history of ceramic art. Holly strives to allow the organic quality of clay to be a guiding force in her simple yet complex sculptural and functional work. Holly enjoys teaching ceramic workshops in Portland and still teaches Art Appreciation at Haywood Community College, NC remotely. Holly relocated to Oregon in 2020 and now happily resides in SE Portland, Oregon with her partner, her cat and Renard, a little dog recently adopted. She maintains studio space at Stark Street Ceramic studio.
Angela found her way to clay through archaeology, where she had the opportunity to study and catalog ancient pottery as an undergrad before switching her focus in grad school to study plants in the archaeological record. After a long interlude living abroad and working as a researcher and educator, Angela dove back into her own art practice in 2021 and fell in love with clay again. Since then, she has combined her love of plants and clay into nature-inspired functional pottery and enjoys inspiring others to get messy and creative. When she isn't working in the studio or teaching an art workshop or yoga, she is outside gardening and exploring the PNW with her twins, husband, and pup Hugo.
Ruoxi rekindled her love for pottery in 2021, making super small batch work. She fell in love with the connection, creativity, and focus pottery offered. Since then she's built out her own home studio & expanded her work into markets, a website, and local shops. Ruoxi has a continuous curiosity for clay and a love for creating beautiful, functional wares that bring joy to those who use it. She uses both the potter's wheel and handbuilding techniques in her practice, and now she's looking forward to sharing her knowledge with others & bring more people into this amazing community!
Madison Loveall is a PNW native ceramic artist with over a decade of experience. His style focuses on surface texture techniques in primarily functional pottery, as well as increasingly large format wheel thrown vessels. Patternistic carving designs and form manipulation make his work distinguishable. Among his favorite forms are plant pots, sculptural vases, and centerpiece bowls.
Chloë is a Midwest native who relocated to the Pacific Northwest in 2019. Her love for ceramics began 10 years ago while studying illustration in college, where she discovered a new medium to express her creativity. With experience in wheel throwing, slip casting, and handbuilding, Chloë is passionate about working with clay in all its forms. When she's not teaching, you can find her in the studio as the Morning Ceramics Studio Supervisor. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her cat, Egg, and diving into a good book!
A Portland native, Margaret found her love for clay at Cleveland High School, and continued learning the ins and outs at Portland State while pursuing two degrees in Graphic Design, and Arts and Letters. Her first career as a Graphic Designer started at Nike, where she designed graphics and prints for the Apparel and Shoe division, but on weekends Margaret continued to make pottery at Multnomah Art Center. In 1991, Margaret moved to CA with her husband and raised two kids, 2 dogs, 3 cats and a guinea pig. Since moving back to Portland in 2015, Margaret has spent time exploring the trails of Forest Park, the Oregon coast and central Oregon, constantly inspired by the beauty of nature. Margaret now spends most of her time creating one of a kind hand built pieces, which are usually embellished with layers of patterns and textures.