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.
Jen’s been throwing pots with Love since 1994 and sells her work as Love Handles Pottery Studio. Moving to Portland in 2017 reignited her love for clay, she took every PDX class she could find before getting locked into a local community studio during lockdown. A thousand hours later her skills moved from student to teacher. She’s been loving teaching newbies and hosting NITE classes. Jen’s maker life includes throwing The Winter Market PDX & several other craft fairs around town. She and her partner enjoy babying their puppy Midge who’s part of the Morning Dog Pack.
Michelle received her undergrad degree at PSU with a focus in painting and print making. While obtaining her MFA in Applied Craft & Design at Pacific Northwest College of Art and Oregon College of Art & Craft, Michelle revisited her passion of sculpture and dove into the world of ceramic arts. It was love at first throw! She combines her love of functionality, pattern and miniature sculpture in her current pieces. If you peep through her studio window you will most likely find her playing with Dennis the studio pug, or painting tiny fireplaces!
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!
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.
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.