Lorna Meaden
Glaze Soda Firing, Cross Draft Gas Kiln
Lorna Meaden has lived in Durango off and on for almost 30 years. Having originally moved to town to go to Fort Lewis College, she has had many adventures in the local art scene along with intermittent moves to other places for education, artist residencies, and as much international travel as possible.
She has had multiple local studio spaces including her current home studio on the north end of town. She opened and ran the Durango Clay Center in the late 90’s-early 2000’s. She received her MFA in ceramics from Ohio University in 2005. She has completed several artist residencies in the west. She has been visiting faculty at San Juan College in Farmington, Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, and Fort Lewis College in Durango. Some of what she has considers her most fulfilling work has been teaching and learning abroad including time spent in Jamaica, Nicaragua, Nepal, Italy, and most recently Bali, Indonesia.
Lorna is currently a full-time studio potter in Durango.
Ashton Keen
Low Fire Soda Firing, Cross Draft Gas Kiln
Ashton Keen 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. 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. This past summer she attended a residency at the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park where she focused on pouring pots and atmospheric firing.
James Tingey
Wood Firing, Tube Kiln
James Tingey is a studio potter whose work explores ideas of utility, process, material and landscape. His work incorporates a straight forward visual language to address function, and the vocabularies of utility and wood firing to investigate the intersection of processes and control. James is Raw Materials Technical Specialist and Grinding Room Manager at NYSCC @ Alfred University.
A native Oregonian, James received his Master’s of Fine Art with a concentration in Ceramics from Ohio University in 2012.
Prior to joining NYSCC he has held appointments at LH Project (OR), Vincennes University (IN), and Brookhaven College (TX).
He has exhibited his work widely in over 75 invitational and juried shows, and received awards from Strictly Functional Pottery National, Clemson Ceramics National Exhibition, and Studio Potter Magazine. James has been Visiting Artist at Clark College (WA), Gonzaga University (WA) Lane Community College (OR), Kendall College of Art and Design (MI), University of Kansas (KS), and Louisiana Tech University (LA), and a Presenter at 2016 Waubonsee International Woodfire Conference, and 2017 NCECA Conference, in Portland, OR. He completed a yearlong residency at Galeri Estudi in Barcelona in 2003, and Pleasant Hill Pottery in 2012-2013. His work as been featured in Woodfired Ceramics: 100 Contemporary Artists, 500 Cups, and 500 Teapots: Volume 2, both by Lark books, the 2011 NCECA Journal, and Ceramics Monthly Magazine.
Stuart Gair
Oxidation Cool Soda Firing, Cross Draft Gas Kiln
Stuart Gair received a history degree from Ohio University and completed an MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Gair has spent time making work and teaching at the Archie Bray Foundation (Helena, MT), Harvard University (Cambridge, MA) as well as Colorado Mountain College (Aspen, CO). Currently, Stuart lives and works as a full time studio artist in Athens, Ohio where he is exploring alternative ways of firing the soda kiln. The geometric forms he creates are driven by form, function, utility, subtlety, and discovery. Gair hopes that each piece is used and enjoyed whether displayed on a table or in the hands of the user.
Hayun Surl
Reduction Cool Soda Firing, Down Draft Gas Kiln
Hayun Surl, a Korean native, is an Assistant Professor of Ceramics at Angelo State University in Texas. He earned his MFA in Ceramics from Ohio University. Before moving to the U.S., Surl completed a two-year apprenticeship in Korean traditional pottery and kiln design. He is passionate about blending Eastern and Western techniques and philosophies in his work, which is also deeply influenced by his background as an architectural interior designer—particularly in how space and form evoke responses from viewers. Surl has conducted numerous workshops both nationally and internationally, and his work has been featured in the NCECA Journal and Ceramics Monthly.
Antra Sinha
Reduction Cool Wood Firing, Train Kiln
Antra Sinha is a ceramic artist, educator, and community builder with the arts. She received her BFA & MFA from the MS University of Baroda in India. She was then an apprentice to Ray Meeker at Golden Bridge Pottery starting in 2002, where she worked for a decade. An award from Japan Foundation took her to the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Japan for a six-month residency. She completed a large-scale sculpture there, which brought her a commission in 2011 for a five-foot sculpture for a hotel in India.
She designed and built a unique kiln and set up a ceramic studio, Earth Art, in Pondicherry, India. In 2015, she received a STEM scholarship to pursue her second MFA at Utah State University, which she completed in 2018.
The key themes found in her artistic practice are the elemental and geometric forms found in nature. She is inspired by the macro and the micro of the universe. In her creative work she uses various processes involved in making sculptural works, including wheel-throwing, hand-building, coiling, slip cast in mold, as well as newer technologies.
She has attended conferences, residencies, exhibited, and worked with artists in Japan, Indonesia, Australia, Germany, Taiwan, Korea, Denmark, and USA. She has received several awards, including the NCECA Multicultural Fellowship in 2016. She is a member of IAC, ARTAXIS, ISCAEE, ICAF, and UTAHCLAYARTS. She served as a standing committee member for NCECA’s Collaboration & Engagement from 2021 - 23. She currently serves on the board of NCECA as On-Site Conference Liaison. She lives with her husband in Logan, UT, where she serves as Gallery Coordinator and Art Instructor at Utah State University.
Olivia Tani
Reduction Cooled Soda Firing, Cross Draft Gas Kiln
Olivia earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2017. Following graduation, she moved to Minneapolis, MN as a 2017-2018 Fogelberg Studio Fellowship resident artist at the Northern Clay Center. Olivia continued her engagement in the Minnesota clay community and is currently a studio artist, gallery artist and teaching artist at the Northern Clay Center.
Ben Eberle
Wood Soda Firing, Catenary Arch Kiln
Ben Eberle is a ceramic artist living in western, Massachusetts, making wood-soda fired pots at his home studio. The past 25yrs in clay have taken him from Skidmore College where he earned a BA in English, to an apprenticeship with Toshiko Takaezu, and then an MFA at San Jose State University. He has worked and taught at an array of community clay studios all over the northeast, and showed his work locally, regionally, and nationally for over a decade.
Bryce Brisco
Wood Firing, Catenary Arch Kiln
Bryce originally hails from rural Northwestern Arkansas. After receiving a Bachelors of Fine Arts with Honors in Painting from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, he pursued the study of functional pottery in North Carolina, and Louisiana. He attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, where he received a Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramics. He served four years as an Artist-in-Residence at the Appalachian Center for Craft, in Smithville, Tennessee. He has an extensive exhibition and curatorial record, and has published articles in Ceramics Monthly, Pottery Making Illustrated, CFile Ceramics, and Ceramics Arts and Perception. He currently serves as the Executive Director at the Community Creative Center, an arts education nonprofit.
Brad Schwieger
Glaze Soda Firing, Cross Draft Gas Kiln
Brad Schwieger has been teaching at Ohio University since 1990 and is presently a Professor Emeritus of Art. Prior to that he was an Associate Professor at Vincennes University in Indiana (1985-1990). Brad received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Utah State University in 1983 and his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 1981. Brad has shown his work in multiple exhibitions throughout the U.S.A. as well as international exhibitions in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, England, Germany, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Romania and Spain.