I began exploring clay and its magical properties of malleable material in high school, creating small sculptures and tiles. I never saw a pottery wheel until I attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2000 and began taking my first pottery course. It was there I began learning the arduous and exciting process of making pottery. I earned a BFA in 2003 and, upon graduation, decided to move to Pittsburgh to learn about the arts community and to continue making pots. In 2005, I began teaching at the Manchester Craftsman’s Guild where I taught for eight years, this is where I learned the real power of clay and how it can transform people, including myself. In 2010, I created my own home studio and Wolf’s Den Pottery was born.  Around this same time I switched from cone 10 gas firing and atmospheric firings to cone 6 electric firing. Our son was born in 2013 and I began a full time studio practice, creating pottery for Wolf’s Den Pottery.      

Inspired by a wheel thrown demonstration by Shoji Hamada, a Japanese living treasure, I began working in porcelain and stoneware clay over 48 years ago. I design and handcraft functional pieces and jewelry, using sgraffito, imprints, colored inlaid porcelains and silver, and ash glazes as decoration. I have exhibited in national juried shows, art fairs, galleries, and the Museum of Composition and Design in NYC. I had a one woman show, taught at a college level, juried for art leagues. I have been on the standards committee, was a longtime member of the artists advisory board, and a juror for the Three Rivers Art Festival. I am a member of the Craftsmen Guild of Pittsburgh.

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I am a potter living and working in Pittsburgh, PA, but I recently discovered the joys of wintering in Florida! I fell in love with clay in high school (and that was a very long time ago). Since that time I have continued to improve my skills at Penn State University, The Carnegie, Nancy Smith’s studio, Fireborn Studios, and Touchstone Center for Crafts.    In my studio I create functional artwork intended for daily use in the kitchen and home.  My work is primarily wheel thrown Porcelain. I love making pottery, and and am grateful for the people who have inspired and encouraged me to continue this work that is my passion.  www.jollypottery.wixsite.com/gallery    

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Linda & Jim Winegar have been creating with clay for 50 years. Their home and studio is located on 60 rural acres in southwestern Pennsylvania. Their functional and decorative stoneware pottery is created mostly on the potter’s wheel. Many pieces are enhanced with hand-embossed or carved patterns, hand-formed leaves & acorns and sometimes with the addition of semi-precious gemstones. They carefully formulate their glazes to enhance their forms with a unique and distinctive color palette, including a copper red glaze. All pieces are fired in a gas kiln to 2300 degrees, providing for strength and durability. The Winegars studied at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, obtaining degrees in Art Education, concentrating in Ceramics. For more than 20 years they marketed their pottery to shops & galleries throughout the U.S., from Maine to Florida, to California & Alaska. For 5 years, they operated Artbeat , a gallery in Waynesburg, PA, with works by more than 80 additional artists. Artbeat closed its doors in January 2018, providing the Winegars with more time to travel, explore new work, teach classes and participate in additional art festivals. The Winegars are members of the Craftsmen’s Guild of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen.

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Art is where your heart meets your mind. My work begins in thought and is then expressed through my passion for this medium. It is a place where only my thoughts and actions take place to form clay into a vessel that can be used everyday. It is my goal to create pieces that not only make me proud but also can add joy to another person’s life just in using something as simple as a cup or bowl… from my hand to yours.

 

 

         

Linda Dujmic is a Pittsburgh potter and fiber artist.  Her work reflects her love of nature and she uses her garden plants as inspiration for the designs and colors of her pottery and wall hangings.  Her pottery consists of wheel thrown as well as hand built pieces.  Linda’s fiber work includes art quilts, wall hangings and eco-printed silk scarves.

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Nancy Smeltzer has been developing her ceramic art over the last 25 years. She was introduced to wood firing and vapor glazing during her ceramic studies at Indiana University of PA. Workshops with Kevin Crowe, Jack Troy, Suze Lindsey, Kirk Magnus and Ron Meyers also influenced her.  In 2000 she established Little Mahoning Creek Pottery in Smicksburg, PA. Nancy became a bird watcher on her many trips to Chincoteague Island Virginia. Many of her pots are decorated with images of nature and the birding world. She fires her work in a Manibigama wood kiln and a Joe Finch designed downdraft wood kiln with gass assist. In 2011 when her neighbor took down her old barn, she had the wood repurposed for a gallery that sets beside her 1894 house. Highlight shows are the 2011 “Animal Craft” Fowler /Kellogg Art Center (2nd floor Gallery Chautauqua Institute; 2012 Exploration in Clay, Clay Place Gallery, Carnegie, PA;  2013 “Potters of Smicksburg New Work”, The Artist Hand Gallery, Indiana,PA; and 2014 “Illusions PCG”, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Nancy became a juried member of the Pittsburgh Craftsmen’s Guild 2000 and in 2012 Juried into the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen.

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  I came to pottery about the same time I started gardening and enjoying cooking.  Each day I enter my woodland studio and make pots that speak of my surroundings–quietly elegant, functional pots that hint at leaves whispering or egrets winging along the Susquehanna.   Whether I throw the clay into vessels or roll it into slabs that become canvases, I often finish my pieces with sparse brushwork reminiscent of Japanese sumie.  I work to make the good individual pot that only comes from working on a series of related forms over time.  The way the glaze breaks on a defining edge, the gentle curve of a cup’s lip, the arc of a handle as it reaches above the teapot to meet the user’s hand– these are the touchstones, the pulse, of my daily work. I work alone and produce each piece myself.  Dark stoneware enhances the glazes I’ve formulated over the 30 years of making.  All my pottery is lead free and safe to eat from.  Functional stoneware for food and flowers.   www.pamcummings.com          

Education 1969 Graduated Garfield High School  Arts Magnet school program in Ceramics and painting Seattle WA 1969-1971 Ceramics major University of Washington, studied with Patti Warashina and Robert Sperry 1972-1975 Seattle Parks Department pottery classes Pottery workshops over many years, including with Paul Soldner, Frank Boyden, David Shaner, Patti Warashina, Michael Simon, and others. Work 1975-1982   Taught pottery classes and fired kilns for the Seattle Parks Department 1972-1976   Raku demonstrations at various art festivals in the Seattle area 1992-1996   Taught pottery classes at the Sawtooth in Winston Salem NC 1972-Present   Making and selling pottery at craft shows, first in the Seattle area, now on the East Coast. In the last 15 years I have taught a few workshops at the Sawtooth Center in Winston Salem Galleries and organizations Cicada Gallery Seattle WA 1975-1982 Washington Pottery Association board member 1982-1984 Piedmont Craftsmen Board of Directors 1998-2000 Piedmont Craftsmen member 1998-present Piedmont Craftsmen Gallery 1998-present  https://rachelsmithpottery.square.site      

Thomas Bothe’s story is the classic case of what can happen when you follow your bliss. After being laid off from his job as an engineer in 1993, Thomas took some time to reflect on what he might like to do with his life. He came to Pittsburgh for a few weeks to help in his brother’s Fine Furniture design business and found himself drawn to the creative, hands-on work life his brother enjoyed. That Fall, he took his first pottery class with Stephen Merritt at Rochester Institute of Technology and soon realized he had found his new career. More pottery classes and more time working alongside his brother in the furniture business convinced him that he had to give pottery a try. In the fall of 1994 he stopped looking for engineering jobs and dedicated the next year to developing his skills as a potter. He hasn’t looked back. Thomas acquired a job in production pottery at Earth Tones Pottery and also became a studio tech at the Manchester Craftsmen Guild in Pittsburgh. He eventually became a resident artist at MCG, where he learned glazes and fired cone 10 reduction kilns and taught pottery and hand building to high school students. He also attended numerous workshops and lectures by ceramic artists such as Ken Ferguson, Karen Karnes, Michael Simon, Richard Aerni, and David McDonald, to name a few. At night, Thomas began developing his own signature style in the basement of the home he was renting. Four years later, he began to sell raku and functional pottery at shows, which allowed him to give up his “day jobs.” Today, Thomas exhibits his single-fired wood-ash glazed pottery at juried art festivals across the country. In 2010 he began to include his crystalline work at his shows. Thomas is an exhibiting member of the Craftsmen’s Guild of Pittsburgh, Ohio Designer Crafts, and the Michigan Guild. Thomas’s work has received several awards for his work, including: 2017 Best in Category, Bethesda Row Arts Festival, Bethesda, MD 2017 Best of Show, Upper Arlington Labor Day Arts Festival, Upper Arlington, OH 2015 1st in Ceramics, Letchworth Arts and Crafts Show, Castile, NY 2015 Outstanding Craftsmanship, A Fair in the Park, Pittsburgh PA 2015 Honors, Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh, PA 2015 Award of Merit, Boardwalk Art Show and Festival, Virginia Beach, VA 2014 1st in Ceramics, Letchworth Arts and Crafts Show, Castile, NY 2014 Best in Show, Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh, PA 2013 Sand Dollar Award, Boardwalk Art Show and Festival, Virginia Beach, VA 2013 Third in Ceramics, Summerfair, Cincinnati, OH 2010 Third in Ceramics, Boardwalk Art Show and Festival, Virginia Beach, VA 2005 Functional Ceramics Exhibition, The Wayne Center for the Arts, Wooster, Ohio 2005 Best in Ceramics, Artigras Fine Arts Festival, Jupiter, FL 2004 Honorable Mention Ceramics, Lewiston Art Festival, NY 2004 Best Booth Design , Berea Arts Festival, Berea Ohio Thomas was also published in Pottery Making Illustratted Article, “Making of the Elephant Teapot” Mar2005, Vol.8 Issue 2. When he’s not in the studio Thomas can be found playing Irish button box, jazz piano, chess, golf, or bicycling. He lives in scenic Washington, Pennsylvania, about 25 miles south of Pittsburgh, with his wife, Francine, and their seven cats. www.botheclay.com    

  We gather different experiences: As a child: Mother and I spend hours removing paint from the old rocker.  A friend teaches us to cane; we weave a seat. As a teenager: Pottery demonstrations at the Three Rivers Arts Festival fascinate.  The clay rises like magic from the wheel and transforms into a graceful vase. As a college student: Take any course.  But registering for ceramics demands permission from the professor.  In the basement of Fine Arts I explain, graduation comes but Physics offers no jobs.  I need to learn a trade.  Smiling at the exaggeration, he accepts me. Learn photography from a friend in graphics.   What appears when you are close, when you eliminate grays leaving just black and white? As a parent: Jennifer likes pottery and asks for a wheel.  We build one and make some pots.  Not unexpectedly, I do most of the building and make most of the pots. Stephan makes a mixed media clay figure with a stick as a staff.  What media can I mix?  I try childhood caning, student photography and pottery.  The combination works. As an unemployed: Consider the unreasonable, making a living as a potter.  Yes, it is unreasonable. www.potteryandcane.weebly.com    

Hawksbill Pottery produces a unique collection of handcrafted stoneware and tile wall pieces.  Some pieces are thrown on a potter’s wheel while others are hand built with slabs and extruded pieces.  Each piece is embossed with original designs and hand painted with lead free studio mixed glazes.  All work is ovenproof, dishwasher and microwave safe.    Vicki & Scott Supraner have been professional ceramic artists for over thirty years. After graduating from Purchase College in New York, they relocated to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.  There, they established the Hawksbill Pottery taking the name Hawksbill from the local mountain and creek.  Living and working in Charlottesville, VA for the past twenty years, they continue to make and exhibit their ceramic art at shows and festivals around the country.  

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Working together as a team for over 14 years, Victor Field and Megan Huston have combined their two art forms to create Ataraxia Designs. Victor attended San Diego State University in San Diego, CA majoring in Philosophy, History and Literature. Megan attended Goucher College in Towson, MD majoring in Studio Arts and Secondary Education. Their artwork which has been derived from life experiences combines two art forms, Victor’s poetry and Megan’s illustrations. Part of their goal is to create artwork that is simple, elegant, and something many can identify with throughout the different stages of life. The two of them love to travel, enjoy the outdoors, mountains, trees, friendships, stories and laughter.  Each piece is handmade by them in Bedford, located in the mountains of Western PA. www.ataraxiadesigns.com

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