Dustin Barzell is a Brooklyn-based artist who creates colorful and playful ceramics using fresh and improvisational techniques. Dustin also teaches experiential clay-based workshops in Brooklyn intended to restore and encourage a sense of play.

http://ThePottersCast.com/864

Matthew Blakely set up a pottery and gallery in Australia and was a selected member of The Potters Society of Australia and Craft Australia. Matthew returned to the UK in 2002 and set up a pottery there. Matthew was selected as a Fellow of The Craft Potters association, and he served as a Council member for the CPA from 2010 til 2016. In 2010 Matthew was awarded an Arts Council grant to research the making of place specific ceramics. From 2017 to 2021 Matthew was a Trustee of Clay College Stoke, a new ceramics tertiary college and has been involved in fundraising, setting up, and running the college

http://ThePottersCast.com/863

Tosha McCarter is a Ceramic Artist born and raised in Northern California. Her introduction to the arts stared at an early age when her late father instilled a spirt of self discovery through creativity. After years of expression through her art, she came back to ceramics, one of the earliest art forms that she and her father did together. Studying at Shasta College under professor and sculptural artist David Grimm Gentry, her passion grew quickly as she discovered the strong connections she felt working with clay.

http://ThePottersCast.com/862

Valerie Costanza earned a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts with emphasis in Ceramics from the Gwen Frostic School of Art inside Western Michigan University. While attending art school in Kalamazoo, MI (yes it's a real place!) Valerie found a passion for working with her hands and using materials from earth to make functional objects and sculpture. Upon graduation, her work moved all across the country, living and working nomadically in various states growing as an artist and maker. Now, nestled in Georgia, Valerie has officially opened her own humble ceramics small business - mind body clay ceramics & teaches the art of creating in clay to the public.

Sara Ballek is back on The Potters Cast. Sara's first visit to the show was back in 2020 right before the pandemic struck. So I thought it would be great to get an update on how things have progressed and changed in her life. So this is my second conversation with Sara.

http://ThePottersCast.com/860

Growing up in Seattle, Hayne Bayless first got interested in clay when he found an old potter's wheel and kiln in a corner of the high school art room. The art teacher knew enough about pottery to point him to Leach's A Potter's Book, and that became his guide. Other than lessons with a potter in Tokyo as a late teen, Hayne managed to avoid any formal education in ceramics.

Hayne abandoned wheel-throwing early on, lured by the freedom that hand-building offers. He set up his first studio in a tiny basement he shared with a washer and dryer, a stack of snow tires, mice and the snakes that ate them. The workspace amounted to a little more than a hundred square feet. To navigate the cramped quarters he sometimes had to slide sideways, and since then it’s been Sideways Studio. It also applies to a certain way of looking at things; instead of encountering an idea head-on, you might approach it from a different angle, even sideways. It can help avoid the traps of your own assumptions and biases. His studio is larger now and still cluttered, but he doesn't have to walk sideways.

Shikha Joshi is a studio potter based in Round Rock, Texas. Born and raised in New Delhi, India, Joshi learned ceramics through community classes and workshops in the US. Joshi likes her pieces to be used, and aspires to make work that brings joy to people's daily lives.

http://ThePottersCast.com/858

Kylie Smithline received her BFA in Ceramics at Jacksonville University. As a ceramicist, Kylie enjoys creating large-scale sculptural work that is non-representational as well as functional-work that corresponds with the sculptures. Kylie began working with clay in high school and decided to choose this as a career path after falling in love with the material and process.

http://ThePottersCast.com/857

Nathan and Andrew Pauls are brothers and they have collaborated on some art. Andrew, who is a musician, wrote 14 songs for a song writers event where people are challenged to create a record album length group of songs in one month. Nathan joined in on all the fun and created a series of mugs in response to the music that Andrew wrote. This is the result of their collaboration.  Each mug on the show notes page is made by Nathan, and right below it is the song created by Andrew that inspired Nathan. They are presented in order of creation.

http://ThePottersCast.com/856