Kevin Keane is a brand new arrival in the pottery game. Kevin touched clay for the first time a little over 12 months ago from the time of this episode, and has been on a whirlwind journey of making and learning since. Now based in County Clare, on the West Coast of Ireland, Kevin spent most of 2023 travelling by land from Ireland to Morocco, all the way to Norway, taking pottery classes and meeting Masters from different disciplines. Kevin is very much in the developmental phase of his career - having sold out in just one day at Christmas markets in Dublin, and a successful first online sale, 2024 looks bright for Kevin! 

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Sofie Neuendorf is an Australian ceramic artist who discovered wheel throwing as a teenager, and has been potting ever since. In 2017, Sofie opened a pottery studio 'Lunio by Sofie' in Northern New South Wales. Immersing herself in the local ceramics community, Sofie has spent the past five years participating in wood firings.

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Lesley Bevan is an artist and voice over actor currently living in Chicago, IL. Lesley received a BS in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and enjoyed a career in theatre, TV and film, regionally and internationally, for over 20 years. Lesley took her first pottery class in 1999, while a resident actor at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. For years Lesley chased two passions, clay by day and theatre by night, sometimes smuggling work into her dressing room to slip-trail pots during intermission. Lesley clearly remembers the matinee when she found herself onstage performing Lady MacBeth’s “Out Damned Spot” speech in front of an audience of 500 people while simultaneously working out the design for a new mug in her head. It was a moment of clarity. By 2015, Leslie had committed to a full time career in clay. Today, Lesley is a studio artist at Lillstreet Art Center, where she creates her own work and fires the soda kiln for a robust soda firing program.

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Ali Schorman specializes in making ornately decorated, functional slipcast wares. She works part-time as a glaze tech at the Mesa Arts Center. Aki received a BFA with a concentration in drawing from Arizona State University in 2002. Ali lives with her husband and two boys in Chandler, Arizona.

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Sinead Davies & David McDonald are a pair of tradies/hobby potters creating their artworks in their home studio in tropical far north Queensland, Australia. Sinead focuses on practicality and function while Dave expresses creative flair and experimentation. However, the compatibility of their aesthetic preferences creates cohesion and crossover in their pieces.

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Nicki Wells is a fascinating creative who not only makes ceramics, but is also a musician, composer, and vocalist. Nicki is deeply inspired by the nature of the Wye Valley where she currently resides and creates her ceramics, as well as her unique upbringing in London, Italy, and the foothills of Dharamashala, India.

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David Sullivan is a potter and manager at Sawmill Pottery in Putnam, CT and adjunct at Quinebaug Valley Community College. Primarily though, David is a teacher. Having taught in different community studios for nearly 15 years, David strives to impart the value of thoughtful slow craft to his students while instructing them on best techniques.

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Roanoke-based high school art teacher and potter, Ingrid Chase creates one-of-a-kind functional pieces. Inspired by her handmade bisque stamps, Ingrid embraces the freedom of working intuitively to develop complex surfaces rich in their visual and tactile nature.

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Ben Wadler is a sculptor making pottery under the name Special Vessels. Borrowing forms freely from found and imagined architecture, comic books, video games, psychedelia, erotica, calligraphy, and cake decoration — Ben's pieces evoke a faux history that feels both sacred and silly. Reverent and irreverent. Ben likes to imagine the work serving as the first point of contact with an alien race, and how it would look in the vacuum of space. Until then, Ben listens for distant radio signals on WFMU, emanating from his home planet of New Jersey. Ben studied sculpture at the Royal College of Art in London, at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Ben is currently based in Vienna and Tel Aviv.

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Originally from western Massachusetts, Alesia Allen got a BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design in fashion design! Alesia began her pottery journey in 2012 after she randomly decided to visit an open house at a pottery studio in her hometown. Alesia ended up taking several handbuilding classes with one of the studio owners and realized soon after starting the classes that clay was going to be her life. Alesia moved to Phoenix, AZ in 2014 and quickly found a new studio to call home and began doing arts and crafts shows around the Phoenix metro area.

http://ThePottersCast.com/987