Panelist and Demonstrating Artist

Natasha Alphonse is a Seattle based artist, making functional ceramics inspired by nature and simplified design. She is a First Nations artist, from the Dene tribe and comes from Northern Saskatchewan. Her work pulls from childhood memories of growing up in a remote and wild landscape. Working to always find visual grounding balance in the forms, she uses atmospheric firing processes to add elements of perpetual change collaborating with fire.

Panelist and Interviewer

William Baker has worked as a studio potter in western North Carolina for the last 14 years,initially as a resident artist at the Odyssey Center in Asheville before establishing his own studio in Bakersville near the Penland School of Crafts. William creates functional and sculptural work beginning on the wheel and fired in a wood burning soda kiln.  From the initial design of each piece to the loading and firing of the kiln, William strives towards a balance between refinement and the constant exploration of process, observing and sharing the interactions between clay and fire.

www.williambakerpottery.com

@williambakerpottery

Plenary Speaker

Rob Barnard is a potter and writer who resides in the Shenandoah Valley. He began studying pottery at the University of Kentucky in 1971 and was a research student at Kyoto University of Fine Arts in Kyoto, Japan from 1974 to 1977, where he studied under the late Kazuo Yagi. He returned to the US in 1978. He has received two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, one in 1978, the second in 1990. He exhibits widely in the United States, Japan, and Great Britain and has had solo exhibitions in New York, Washington DC, Boston, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. He is the author of A Search for Relevance 2022 and A Life in Objects 2024 both published by Enshin Press.

Pre Conference Featured Artist

Chad Brown enjoys making wood fired alkaline glazed and salted pots.  Many of the shapes he makes today are like the ones his grandfather and great-great grandfather made.  Chad focuses on two aspects of pots: shape and surface. The shapes are designed by him and the surfaces are decorated by fire.  Occasionally the best shape and the best surface find each other; this is his forever pursuit.

Register for the pre-conference and join Chad Brown for his studio/kiln tour.

www.chadbrownpottery.com

@chad_brown_pottery

Panelist

Rose Hardesty uses a combination of wheel throwing and hand building techniques to create wood/salt fired functional pottery using North Carolina clay. Her forms are inspired by a mix of historical and contemporary ceramic pieces. These forms are canvases for interaction with the kiln atmosphere as well as layered surface decoration including painted slips, screen printed slip transfers, stamped slip inlay, drawn line inlay, underglaze crayon, and decal collage. Rose finds inspiration in the creatures and small natural vignettes she sees living in the mountains of North Carolina.

Panelist and Demonstrating Artist

Juana Gómez Ramírez, known as Xhana Compash Otol, is a master potter from Amatenango del Valle, Chiapas, renowned for its rich pottery tradition. Since the age of eight, Juana has crafted intricate clay figures, learning from her mother, Feliciana Ramírez Gómez. Her studio is a family-run operation, producing traditional pieces like jaguars and water jars. Each family member brings their unique style, with Juana overseeing the work. Juana's artistry preserves the cultural heritage of her community, blending tradition with personal expression. She continues to share the legacy of Tzeltal pottery through her craft.

Plenary Speaker, Interviewer, and Demonstrating Artist

Chris Gustin is a studio artist and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Chris’ work is published extensively and is represented in numerous public and private collections. With over fifty solo exhibitions, he has exhibited, lectured and taught workshops in the United States, Caribbean, South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He has received two National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowships, and four Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowships, the most recent in 2017.  He is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics and was elected to the American Craft Council College of Fellows in 2016. He was awarded the Masters of the Medium award from the Renwick Alliance in 2017.

Chris is cofounder of the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Maine, and currently serves as Honorary Trustee on its board. 

@gustinceramics

gustinceramics.com

Panelist, Interviewer, and Demonstrating Artist

Elisa Helland-Hansen, born 1950 in NYC, raised in Bergen, Norway, is educated at Bergen School of Arts and Crafts in the mid 1970s. Built a two-chambered wood-fired kiln in 1981 outside Bergen which she fired for 25 years. Now she works full time at her studio in Rosendal using a gas-kiln, only wood-firing a salt/soda kiln twice a year in Balestrand. She exhibits regularly both in Norway and abroad. She was head of the Ceramic Department as professor at HDK, University of Gothenburg from 2000 to 2005.

Elisa has dedicated her 50-year career to making functional pots for kitchen and meals. “Useful things move me, especially those that are handled daily. Cooking and shared meals also spark ideas in my studio practice. I aim for multiple qualities in one object: a color that excites, a shape that entices, a weight that stimulates, a surface that invites, a volume that is enough, a detail that you want to remember”

Plenary Speaker and Panelist

Brenda Hornsby Heindl is an independent scholar and practicing potter. She is a graduate of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture and an alumna of Berea College in Kentucky where she worked in the Ceramics Apprenticeship Program.  Her prior work includes the Head of the Ceramics Department at Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates Auctions in Virginia, the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, and the Ceramics and Glass Department at Colonial Williamsburg. She also lectures and presents workshops on historic ceramics, kilns, and pottery manufacturing. As a production potter, she built a wood-firing, salt-glaze kiln in 2012, and uses her studio, Liberty Stoneware, as an outlet for historic ceramics research and pottery production. Since 2014 after working with individual pieces of historic pottery and finding little or no information about the potters who were Free People of Color, Brenda has been researching Free and Enslaved potters working in the South prior to the American Civil War in order to reconcile the records of their lives and bring to light the work they made. 

Panelist and Featured Presenter

Mark Hewitt has been making distinctive functional pottery in North Carolina since 1983. He spliced what he learned in his native England as an apprentice to pioneering potter, Michael Cardew, onto the pottery traditions of North Carolina and the South, bending those traditions into an elegant contemporary style. He uses local clays and glaze materials, and fires his pots in a large wood-burning kiln.

Mark works with apprentices, conveying production skills and aesthetic qualities to a new generation. Several of his former apprentices have gone on to establish their own successful independent careers. 

In addition, his recent work reassesses aspects of the industrial ceramic world into which he was born - his father and grandfather were Directors of Spode, the fine china manufacturer.

He was the 2014 Voulkos Fellow at the Archie Bray Institute in Helena, MT, a finalist for the 2015 American Craft Council/Balvenie Rare Craft Award, a 2015 United States Artist Fellow, and is current President of the North Carolina Pottery Center, in Seagrove, NC.

www.hewittpottery.com

@wmhewitt

Seagrove Pre-Conference Artist

Fred Jonhnston’s origins in clay are rooted in the southern folk pottery traditions of North Carolina.  Growing up in the rural south has given him access to its colorful history and characters, which serves as a wellspring of ideas.  Storytelling is a regional pastime, consequently, he questions how a pot can tell a story.  Yet his work draws from many cultures: Greek, Korean, Chinese, Pre-Columbian, European and Mimbres.

Johnston received a BFA from Alfred University in New York and a MFA from Penn State University in Pennsylvania before moving to Seagrove and establishing Johnston and Gentithes Pottery with his partner Carol Gentithes.

He continues to explore historical paintings, architecture, literature, sculpture and ceramics which he contrasts with the southern vernacular creating a hybrid and developing a personal language of forms and motifs. For example, he may use visual references from the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch or the literature of Joel Harris Chandler’s tales of Uncle Remus to redefine the archetypal jug form of the southern United States.

At the moment, Johnston is interested in the abstraction of nature.  He questions how mark making and decoration accentuates form while at the same time contemplating what forms are best suited for a particular zoomorphic motif.  He relies on intuition, spontaneity and what is visceral as a mode of creating, and believes that a pot truly reveals itself over time and use.  Only through deep investigation can one begin to internalize their ideas into a growing and evolving personal vision.  The journey continues.

www.johnstonandgentithes.com

@johnstongentithesstudios

Panelist and Demonstrating Artist

Emma Kaye is Ceramic Artist and Educator. She holds a BFA in Art History from Pratt Institute and an MFA in Ceramic Art at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Emma has completed Post Baccalaureate studies in Ceramics at Syracuse University and has been a sponsored participant at at Penland and Arrowmont Schools of Craft. In 2019, Emma was the recipient of Ceramic Monthly's Emerging Artist Award. Emma has taught and ran ceramics classes and workshops for adults and children through non-profits, public schools, and community spaces. Currently, she holds the position of Visiting Assistant Professor and Technician at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She exhibits her work nationally and is currently represented by the Plinth Gallery in Denver, Colorado.

Lead - Starworks Ceramics Wood Firing

Ashton Keen is a ceramic artist working in Boston, Massachusetts as the Artist in Residence at Harvard Office of the Arts. She received her BFA from the University of Mississippi. Following graduation, she went on to become an intern at STARworks Center for Creative Enterprise. Most recently, she completed an MFA from Utah State University, as well as, a residency at the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park. Her work has been displayed in several national exhibitions and has received various awards, as well as being selected as one of Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artists 2024.

Seagrove Pre-Conference Artist

Levi Mahan grew up in Seagrove, North Carolina at Wild Rose Pottery, run by his parents. Since 2009, he has worked for and learned from his dad at From the Ground up Pottery. Levi has assisted with wood kiln building, loading, and firing for potters across North Carolina. He fires with wood while focusing on incorporating local materials whenever possible.

Seagrove Pre-Conference Artist

Michael Mahan fires for the effects of natural wood ash and flashing in his Manabigama, a cross-draft kiln designed by potters Bill Van Gilder and John Theis. His firing methods vary as he and his son have spent considerable time trying different ways of firing and cooling, using a wide variety of clay and local materials. Mahan built his first wood-fired kiln in 2009. He built a second kiln of similar style in Ireland in 2013, where he and his Irish wife Mary Holmes spend their summer every year. Michael has been making pottery since the early 1980s.

Panelist & Plenary Speaker

Photographer turned ceramic artist, Aarti Manik started her journey in clay with Hanif Galwani, a traditional potter in Dharavi, Mumbai. In 2014 she joined the 7 month course taught by Sarah Camille Wilson at Golden Bridge Pottery (GBP), a studio established by Deborah Smith and Ray Meeker in Pondicherry in 1971. In 2016, she spent 6 months as an apprentice to Penny Simpson, a slipware potter in Devon (UK). Since her return to India, she has been teaching and working at Golden Bridge Pottery. 

Plenary Speaker, Panelist, and Demonstrating Artist

Joe Molinaro has been conducting research in South America for over 26 years and has produced a book on this research (Mythical Figures and Mucawas, 2014) with colleagues Richard Burkett and Nan Coffin.  A recipient of two Fulbright Awards in Ecuador, he has written extensively on this research and is also the producer of two ceramic video documentaries (Jatun Molino, an Amazonian Pottery Village/1996, and Jatumpamba, an Andean Pottery Village/2003).

Joe received his BS degree in Art from Ball State University and later his MFA degree in Art from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.  He taught at Broward Community College in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and at Eastern Kentucky University where he is now Professor Emeritus.  He is also the author of the book A Pottery Tour of Kentuckyand regularly contributes writings on aspects of the ceramic arts for various national and international ceramic publications.  He served as Program Director for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA/2005-09).

Panelist & Student Exhibition Juror

Priscilla Mouritzen is a South African-born ceramic artist who has lived and worked in Denmark for the past 35 years. Recent Artist-in-Residence work periods (in Arizona, Montana and North Carolina in the US, in Kohila in Estonia and in Johannesburg in South Africa) have given her the opportunity to experiment with different ways of treating the clay surface prior to wood-firing. She fires her high temperature work at the International Ceramic Center - Guldagergaard in Denmark, in the huge Cross Draught kiln built by Fred Olsen in 1998, or the Train kiln built by Robert Sanderson and Coll Minogue.

pinchpots.blogspot.com

@priscillamouritzen

Interviewer, Panelist, and Demonstrating Artist

Born and raised in rural upstate New York, Ted Neal has received degrees from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (MFA 1998), Utah State University (BFA 1995), and Brigham Young University Idaho (AAS 1991). His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions including: Earth MattersNCECA 2010 Invitational in Philadelphia, PA, Strictly Functional Pottery National in East Petersburg PA, Forms and Shapes: The Useful Teapot at AKAR Gallery in Iowa City, IA, NCECA Clay National in Columbus, OH. Ted is currently a Professor of Ceramics in the School of Art at Ball State University in Muncie Indiana, studio artist, and kiln builder.

Interviewer and Student Exhibition Juror

John Neely is Professor of Ceramics at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. With a BFA from Alfred University and an MFA from Ohio University, he has exhibited and lectured in the US, Europe and around the Pacific Rim. He is known in woodfire circles as the originator of the “train kiln” concept.

@neelyjc

Interviewer & Panelist

Lindsay Oesterritter is currently a full-time studio potter in Manassas Virginia, she has been utilizing wood fire techniques for over 15 years. She is co-organizer of Southern Crossing Pottery Festival held in her hometown of Louisville KY. Most recently in 2024 Lindsay was asked to be on the organizing board of the North Carolina Wood Fire Conference, a biannual conference that brings artists from all over the globe together.  She also taught a summer wood firing workshop at Alfred University in Alfred New York, the top American University for ceramics. In 2020 she published her first book, Mastering Kilns & Firing. She earned her MFA from Utah State University in Logan Utah. She held the position of Assistant Professor of Ceramics at Western Kentucky University (2009-2015) and earned Associate Professor in 2015. Lindsay had the fortune to be a resident artist at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg and in Australia at Strathnairn Arts Association. She has had the opportunity to lead workshops, curate exhibitions, lecture and exhibit nationally and internationally and is continually inspired by the craft community.

www.loceramics.com

@alindsayo

Panelist and Demonstrating Artist

For 39 years Lisa Orr has been professional potter and student of ceramics.  She completed an MFA at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1992 and later received grants including a Fulbright and a MAAA/NEA.  Her work is in numerous public and private collections including the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, and the permanent collection of WOCEF in Korea.  Currently she teaches, lectures and shows nationally and internationally.

@lisaorrpottery

Panelist and Pre-Conference Artist

Travis Owens grew up making pots with his family at Jugtown Pottery, in Moore County, NC.  He began making pots at an early age; learning from his parents, much the way his family has passed down the craft for over 150 years. As is important with all Jugtown pots, Travis’ pieces use local clays and glazes, all of which are formulated at Jugtown and have their own unique style, which draw from historic forms of his family. 

Travis graduated from NC State University, College of Design in 2007 with a Bachelor’s in Art + Design. He has given talks about Jugtown and his family’s legacy to many groups around the country, and enjoys helping people learn about the wonderful legacy that continues.  Jugtown Pottery began by, and continues to use the influence of regional pots and classic ancient pottery forms blended to create a functional, understated and graceful pot.

Travis continues to hold this as the standard by which all pots must be made. He has a great respect for the role his family has played in keeping the area’s pottery tradition alive. As with all things, there must be an evolution from generation to generation, in order to keep the tradition going, but Travis also continues to make the classic utilitarian forms that his family made in the area a century and a half ago. At the Jugtown museum, you can find a history of Jugtown pots, but also a history of Owen/Owens family pots, which serve as representation and inspiration for everyone.

www.jugtownwares.com

Panelist and Interviewer

Scott Parady is the founder and Director of Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology Project. He has worked as a ceramic artist for the last thirty years and has been teaching at California State University, Sacramento since 2003.

In 2014 Scott began the dream of building the Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology Project on the 80-acre property his family had resided on since 2003. 

Scott’s dream for the Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology Project is to combine the opportunities of a ceramic-centered residency with a lived experience of becoming a better steward of the land through sustainable living practices and forest management skills.

Seagrove Pre-Conference Artist

Anne Pärtna is a graduate of East Carolina University (2007) and holds an MFA degree with concentration in Ceramics. She received her BFA degree from Estonian Academy of Art (2000), in her native Estonia where her family still resides on a farm on the Gulf of Finland. She threw her first pot on the hub of an overturned tricycle when she was nine years old while her younger brother spun the wheel. Anne prefers the volatile atmosphere of wood firing but also uses salt and simple glazes to bring the surfaces of her wide range of forms to life.

Anne and her partner Adam Landman live in Seagrove NC, where they are nurturing a partnership in business called Blue Hen Pottery. 

www.bluehenpottery.net

@bluehenpottery

Plenary Speaker, Interviewer, and Panelist

Dr. Elizabeth Perrill is a Professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA. In 2018, the permanent reinstallation of the African Galleries at the North Carolina Museum of Art, completed during her five-year role as Consulting Curator for African Art, won an American Alliance of Museums Excellence in Exhibitions Award. Dr. Perrill was recently lead curator for the exhibition iNgqikithi yokuPhica / Weaving Meanings: South African Telephone wire on view at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, November 2024 - November 2025. Her primary research interests include histories of Southern African ceramics, South African contemporary art, and economic histories of ceramic arts in the modern and contemporary eras. Perrill’s single-author works include Burnished: Zulu Ceramics Between Rural and Urban South Africa (2022), Zulu Pottery (2012) and Ukucwebezela: To Shine (2008), as well as numerous scholarly articles and exhibition catalog essays.

Panelist

Andrew Sartorious grew up in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He graduated from the College of Wooster in Ohio with a BA in English literature. Andrew moved to Kochi prefecture in Japan to work as a high school English instructor. While in Japan, Andrew traveled to many historic ceramic centers while in Japan, and began to teach himself how to throw on a potter’s wheel. He returned to America, after four years of living in Japan, to apprentice with Jeff Shapiro in the Hudson River Valley. After completing his year and a half apprenticeship Andrew moved to Long Island, New York and built and fired a small salt and wood kiln in Mattituck, New York. In the spring of 2019, Andrew received a Master’s in Fine Art focused in ceramics from State University of New York at New Paltz. Andrew is currently the Program Manager and Lead Instructor at The Oki Doki Studio in Germantown, NY. Andrew lives, works, creates and teaches in Germantown and loves building an educational program focused around his life’s learning in atmospheric firings. He continues to create functional and sculptural work that explores the processes of wood and soda firing locally harvested materials. 

Panelist and Demonstrating Artist

Josh Scott earned his BFA from the University of North Florida in 2017 and an MFA in Ceramics from Utah State University in 2021. Based in northeast Florida, he is a ceramic artist and potter focused on the functional essence of pottery. Drawing inspiration from his decade-long experience as a painter, Josh crafts pots with a clear purpose, accentuating their form with nuanced surfaces. He works with porcelaneous and iron-rich stoneware clays, firing them in a wood-burning kiln to achieve vibrant, textured finishes. His practice emphasizes community and the rewarding process of wood firing.

Panelist and Demonstrating Artist

Galen Sedberry is a potter working in Burnsville, NC - sharing a studio with his father and potter Ken Sedberry. Galen’s interest in clay peaked during a year off from college when he began helping Ken in his studio and learning the basics of throwing, glazing and firing. Galen then returned to college, receiving a degree in Appropriate Technology. After several years in the solar industry, first as an installer and later as a superintendent overseeing the construction of utility scale solar projects, his hands found their way back to clay.

Currently I am investigating the possibilities between deliberate surface decoration and the limitless variables derived from wood firing. I want my imagery to evoke themes of movement and energy, an aesthetic that I rely of the firing process to deliver. I relish this collaborative approach, as it forces me to give up a fraction of control - allowing chance and serendipity to play a small role. The imagery I choose to decorate my pots derives entirely from my immediate surroundings, including the natural color hues I see outside my studio window.

Panelist and Demonstrating Artist

Ken Sedberry received his M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1977 followed by a residency at The Archie Bray Foundation until 1979. Returning to the East Coast, Ken taught at The Catholic University of America until 1981. He now lives and works in Burnsville, North Carolina.

Ken’s work for the last 50 years has focused on achieving vibrant colors at stoneware temperatures.  With the development of chambered climbing kilns, came decorative stoneware and porcelain.  Much of his work comes out of this tradition.

Seagrove Pre-Conference Artist

Hitomi Shibata is a Japanese native ceramic artist in Seagrove, North Carolina, USA. She has Ceramic Art degrees (B.Ed& M. Ed in Art education) from Okayama University in Japan. She established a professional career in Shigaraki which is one of the oldest pottery villages in Japan. The Rotary International scholarship brought her to the USA and she became a special student at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth (CVPA Ceramics) in 2002. Moving to NC, USA in 2005 with her husband, Takuro Shibata, and set up her permanent pottery studio in Seagrove which is the biggest pottery town in the USA. She makes functional wood-fired pottery and sculptural ceramic work in her studio, and fires wood kilns that she and Takuro built. Artist-in-residence programs at Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Shigaraki, Japan (1996-1997), Cub Creek Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Appomattox, VA (2003), and North Carolina Pottery Center, Seagrove, NC (2005-2007). Leading Workshops at Peters Valley School of Craft, NJ (2017), The Art League in Alexandria, VA (2019), Penland School of Crafts, NC (2019). Became a member of International Academy of Ceramics (IAC) in Geneva, Switzerland in 2018, and Artaxis member in 2021. Gave lectures at NCECA in 2016 and 2021. She has many ceramic exhibitions in Japan, USA, China, Taiwan and UK.

Details:

website: www.studiotouya.com

@studiotouya

Seagrove Pre-Conference Artist

Takuro Shibata is a potter and the director of Starworks Ceramics and Material Research. He holds a degree in chemical engineering from Doshisha University in Kyoto. His background includes technical ceramic research including firing, developing and testing of clays and glaze. He has been a ceramics technical instructor at the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Shigaraki Japan and has been a resident artist at the Peters Valley Crafts Education Center in Layton, NJ and the Cub Creek Foundation in Appomattox in VA.

www.studiotouya.com

@studiotouya

@takuroshibataceramics

Interviewer and Panelist

Mark Skudlarek’s journey began in 1978 while attending Saint Johns University in central Minnesota. Mark was originally interested in painting but after taking a ceramics class, was drawn to clay. In 1981, he had a opportunity to travel to central France and work in the historic pottery village of La Borne. It was there that Mark had his first experience firing wood-burning kilns. He was immediately seduced by the process and results from these kilns. Returning home in 1983, Skudlarek sought an apprenticeship with Todd Piker at the, Cornwall Bridge Pottery and in 1988, moved to Wisconsin where he established the foundation for my first kiln.

Herrick H. Smith is native to Saint Augustine, Florida, and holds a BA in Economics from the University of North Florida and apprenticed at Spinning Earth Pottery with Danny Meisinger. In 2017 he graduated from Fort Hays State University with an MFA in Ceramics. Herrick is a husband, father, potter, and Art Educator focused on local clays and atmospheric firing. The completion of the St. Augagama kiln in 2024 was the realization an 8 year dream and is fired several times per year. When not in the studio he loves the outdoors with his family.

www.smithworksstudios.com

IG: @smithworksstudios

Seagrove Pre-Conference Artist

David Stuempfle built his studio in Seagrove, NC in the late 1980s and since then has built three wood kilns. David’s ceramics have been featured in numerous articles and books, including Ceramics in America (2021). His work can be found in major museum and private collections throughout the United States and abroad—the Mint Museum of Craft and Design, the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park Museum (Japan), the Museum of American Ceramic Art, the Mobile Museum of Art, the Fuller Craft Museum, the Asheville Museum of Art, the Chipstone Foundation, and the Museum of International Folk Art, among others. He has worked across Europe, Estonia, Japan, and South Korea to learn from other working potters, absorbing and adapting the intricacies of his international colleagues’ techniques. He has been a US/Japan Creative Artists Fellowship recipient, and an NEA/Central and Eastern Europe Visual Arts Fellowship recipient. He has taught at Penland School of Crafts, the Bascom Center for Visual Arts, Peters Valley School of Craft, studios in Canada, Portugal, and numerous universities and colleges.

Beyond his mastery of form and material, David is an energetic educator and advocate for the tradition. He lectures widely and provides intimate demonstrations of his monumental jar making throughout America. He has curated several exhibits at the NC Pottery Center as well as the Mint Museum, where he curated an exhibition devoted to world pottery traditions.

www.stuempflepottery.com

Seagrove Pre-Conference Artist

Kate Waltman began assisting an en plein air painter as an elementary school student, developing her love for the natural world and specifically studying plant life. At the age of 14, she changed mediums and talked her way into Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center’s pottery studio. She assisted for 2 years and was then hired as a potter. Kate went on to earn a BFA in Art and Design from Alfred University. She opened her pottery studio in Seagrove, North Carolina in 2010. Kate’s pots are made with local materials, boldly carved with organic patterns inspired by Art Deco design, and fired in a large wood-burning kiln. Kate shows her pots, lectures, and teaches throughout the USA. 

Details:

https://thetrianglestudio.com/

@kayetwaltman

Panelist

Julie Wiggins received a BFA from East Carolina University 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. After graduating college, she began her ceramic career in Charlotte where she developed a body of work, managed Clayworks ceramic studio and helped establish Thrown Together Potters. Among other awards and grants, she was the recipient of “NC Best in Craft” from Our State Magazine in 2021, Skutt Ceramic Artist of the Year (2016) and “Best in Show” at the Potters’ Market (2022) at the Mint Museum where she is represented in their permanent collection. Julie’s passion for teaching extends to craft schools, art organizations and community centers nationwide, as well as, historically recognized areas of China, Italy and Greece. In 2021, she moved her home and studio to Bakersville, NC tucked into the Blue Ridge Parkway where she lives, makes pots, fires her noborigama wood kiln and tends to her enchanted gardens near Penland School of Crafts with her pup, Leon Bridges.