Nature has always played an important role in Mindy’s life and work. Since graduating from the ACAD in 2002, she has developed a line of porcelain work that incorporates carved pattern or brush work designs based on naturally occurring motifs such as trees, leaves, and the soft curves of unfurling ferns. In 2009, Mindy was a presenter at the Cheongju International Craft Biennale in South Korea. At the same time she had her work in a 4-person show at the Tong-In Gallery in Seoul. Her work has been featured in publications such as Ceramics Monthly and in 500 Cups (Lark Books).

Trained as a designer for Romania’s porcelain and earthenware industry, Lucia worked with some of that country’s best producers. Since moving to Canada in 1988 her studio practice has included earthenware, faience, and porcelain ceramic work. Utilizing casting and hand-building processes she creates tableware, functional and non-functional objects, as well as large-scale work for interior design applications.

John was a full-time potter from 1974 through to 1997, when he began a hiatus from the studio in order to develop The Avens Gallery in Canmore. More than a decade later, the gallery is successfully representing dozens of local and regional artists, and John is getting some time back in the pottery studio. His original training with clay took place in Ontario where he apprenticed at Wilton Pottery and studied under Robin Hopper at Georgian College. In 1991 John established a studio called of Cabbages & Kings which he now shares with his daughter Katie who is working as a full-time studio potter.

Christian moved from the inner-city to a foothills wilderness setting to facilitate a lifestyle which revolves around the making of wood-fired pottery. He and his partner have hand-built a studio, home, and kilns that are off the grid and rely on wood fuel and solar power. In 2009, Christian was presented with the Alberta Craft Council’s Linda Stanier and Family Memorial Award for Excellence in Ceramics.

Since 1995, Ed has been the Ceramics Facilitator at the Banff Centre and has been responsible for all Ceramic Studio activity at the Centre, both technical and administrative. This includes creative residencies, workshops, classes, special projects, and artist consultations. As a practicing artist for more than twenty-five years, Ed has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions, nationally and internationally, including the United States, Mexico, Japan, France, England, Germany, Greece, Taiwan and Korea.

John is an internationally recognized ceramic artist. He was born in England and received his art training and teacher’s certificate at the Bath Academy of Art. In 1968, he moved to Canada and taught ceramics at both major Alberta universities and at ACAD. John is best known for his exploration of visually adventurous and technically exotic glazes. The work is contemporary in colour, imagery and surface, while the ideas may refer to historical or cultural contacts; be they 18th century North American folk traditions, Japanese Oribe designs, Spode transfer ware or stills from Fellini movies.

Katrina is a nationally and internationally known ceramic artist and educator based in Calgary, where she has been a member of the ceramics faculty at the ACAD since 2001. Born and raised on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, she received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax and her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. She has exhibited in numerous national and international group, two-person and solo exhibitions.

Fran’s career as a sculptor has encompassed a wide variety of experience, working in clay, as well as stone, ice, snow, concrete, fiberglass, sand and papier mache. She has achieved recognition as an art educator, highest honours in competition, project leadership, demonstration, competition judging and numerous solo and group exhibitions. A lifetime learner with boundless energy, Fran has a Master’s Degree in Art Education. She has attended a number of classes from the University of Alberta – Faculty of Extension, Red Deer College and the Banff Centre.

Brenda pursued her ceramics education at Red Deer College and the Australian National University. She was recently awarded an artist residency at the Strathnairn Art Association in Canberra, Australia. This, combined with her many years of making pots and teaching pottery the Edmonton area, has contributed to her creative shift from a maker of functional pottery to a more expressive and exploratory contemporary ceramic artist.

Originally from Massachusetts, she received her Bachelor of Fine Art from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1996 and her Master of Fine Art from Ohio State University in 1998. Dawn has taught at college and university levels and gives lectures, workshops and demonstrations in ceramic arts. She is inspired by her prairie surroundings and distant mountains but is reminded by the migrating birds of her strong connection to the ocean. Using metaphors and a symbolic vocabulary of clay objects, she produces sculpture that expresses a need to migrate or travel.

Sally creates beautifully fired terra-cotta pottery embellished with layers of colourful, painterly slips and glazes. Receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1983 from Virginia Commonwealth University, Sally started her own studio practice as well as becoming a reproduction potter for Colonial Williamsburg. Since moving to Calgary in 2003, she has continued her studio practice. Her current work blends her love for colour, paint and shapes with simple functional forms.

At his Ministik Pottery & Sculpture Studio, just east of Edmonton, Horst has shifted his focus from his functional pottery to figurative expressive forms. They are fired to stoneware temperatures and finished with either a hot or cold patina. By using the ‘non finito/unfinished’ technique he pays homage to one of his many inspirations, Rodin. Horst feels that this technique allows the viewer more freedom for personal interpretation and that the human form embodies the continual cycle of life and death, creation and decay.

Jim, a graduate of the Alberta College of Art + Design, has been a studio potter and educator for the more than thirty years. He furthered his education through residencies at the Banff Center, the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana and Tokoname, Japan. Jim has taught at the University of Manitoba, Red Deer College, Alberta College of Art + Design and Kootenay School of the Arts. Jim’s work is represented in public and private collections in Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Britain, Holland, Spain and throughout North America.

Trudy is an internationally exhibited, award-winning ceramic artist who completed her undergraduate training at the Alberta College of Art + Design and the University of Calgary (BFA), and her graduate studies at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia (MFA). Inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2002, Trudy is currently the Head of Ceramics and an instructor in the Visual Art Department at Red Deer College. She has had previous teaching positions at Kootenay School of the Arts, University of Manitoba, Alberta College of Art + Design, and the Universities of Calgary and Tasmania.

Ruth-Anne’s background is in fine arts, arts and culture management and adult education. She is currently the Program Coordinator for Adult Art at the City Arts Centre in Edmonton. Her piece is from a series of small-scale ceramic sculptures called “A Perfect State of Happiness” where she has tinkered with formal design, pop culture and the handmade. Using molded and thrown forms, with intense colours, Ruth-Anne explores amusing but bittersweet narratives that question tensions such as comfort and uncertainly, connection and disconnection and natural and built environments.

Since Stephanie graduated with her BFA, she has developed her career through both a studio practice and an assortment of technical and instructional positions with The Works Festival, Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts, Harcourt House Arts Centre and the Art Gallery of Alberta. In 2008, Stephanie was nominated for the Emerging Artist of the Year Award at the Mayor’s Evening of the Arts. That same year, she won the Enbridge Emerging Artist Award which provided national recognition. Today she works from a studio at Harcourt House Arts Centre in downtown Edmonton, where she was the 2007/2008 Artist in Residence. In the fall of 2009 Stephanie attended the Banff Centre for a two month long residency with a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and she received the Alberta Craft Council’s Award of Achievement.

Bradley is a studio potter living and working in Calgary. His education includes a B.Sc. in Zoology and training in art and design (ceramics) from both the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax and the Alberta College of Art + Design in Calgary. Alongside his busy studio practice he is the ceramics technician at the Alberta College of Art + Design. Bradley’s work has been recognized on local, provincial and international levels and he has been featured in many publications including books such as 500 Cups by Lark Publishing and Making Marks by Robin Hopper. His ceramics explore and portray the atmosphere of the prairies by manipulating the clays, slips, and glaze colours and adding regional icons such as a grain elevator or buffalo, with a delicacy and intimacy that comes from loving the land.

Born on the prairies, but raised primarily on the West Coast . Sean attended the Alberta College of Art + Design in Calgary in 2000, with the intention of studying Visual Communication Design.. In his first year at ACAD he took a ceramic elective with an inspiring instructor named Gary Williams, who assured him that he could in fact make a living as a ceramic artist. That led Sean to develop a serious interest in functional work, and specifically high temperature atmospheric firing. Inspired by visiting potters and a wheel throwing class, he began throwing pots daily, experimenting with off-round and altered forms, and enjoying the challenge of balancing functional and esthetic components and the rhythm of working in the studio. Sean has pursued residencies at Banff Centre, Medalta International Artists Residency, and most recently, Harbourfront Centre where working in Toronto afforded him numerous exhibition, gallery and teaching opportunities. In 2007, he returned to Alberta and currently works and teaches ceramics at the North Mount Pleasant Arts Centre in Calgary.

Dale has a diploma in visual communications from Medicine Hat College. He started his keen interest in ceramics as a truck driver, hauling raw clay from quarries in the Cypress Hills and other parts of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan to local brick, tile and clay processing factories. In 1995, he discovered the work of four eccentric 19th century British potters, the Martin brothers (Martinware Pottery). The Martins specialized in hand-built vessels and objects with gargoylese images, often birds, in a Gothic-revival style. Fast forward a century, Dale now imagines bird-like critters that might have migrated from the ceramics factories of England to the prairie clay pits of Alberta, perhaps reflecting the extensive industrial and studio pottery connections between the British midlands and Alberta. Dale’s work has been exhibited throughout southern Alberta and as far as Brooklyn, Toronto and Wyoming.

Neil started his ceramics career in the 1970s and was recently honoured with a retrospective exhibition at Triangle Gallery in Calgary. Much of Neil’s ceramic work reflects his parallel interest in “extreme” outdoor activity such as mountain climbing and wilderness survival. His landscape pieces often incorporate prairie and mountain textures and forms, and feature expanses of rock, water and sky. His use of clay materials, as well as his imagery, has a pared down character, perhaps reflecting the minimalist nature of both his creative processes and his low-impact exploration of wild areas. Over the years he has also gained a reputation for his large ceramic installations in many private, corporate, and public collections throughout Alberta, including the Sir Alexander Galt Museum in Lethbridge, the Medicine Hat Hospital, Foothills Hospital and the Tecumseh Naval Base in Calgary.

Aldo was born in San Martino Di Finita Italy. He studied at the Alberta College of Art + Design and graduated with a BFA in 1981. His work is in the Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and has been exhibited and collected across Canada, in the United States, China, England, France, and Italy.

Jim is internationally known for his large carved bas-relief brick murals. These feature historical, natural and religious images and are installed in architectural and monumental settings throughout western states and provinces. The laughing monks are a small-scale spin-off of his murals. Jim is also well-known for his extensive contribution to heritage and cultural communities. He was a founding member of the Alberta Craft Council, President of the Alberta Potter’s Association, President of the Archaeological Society, Chairman of the Historical Resources Advisory Board, and has been a long-term campaigner to protect and preserve the historic Medicine Hat ceramics factories. Jim received the 2009 Alberta Craft Council Award of Honour.

Brian studied ceramics at University of Regina and Ohio State University. He deliberately and creatively reinvents the folklore of western Canada; early explorers, fur traders, historic politicians and even famous hockey players. His public commissions include mythical beaver paddling an impossible canoe, busts of local heroes, a comfy red brick couch for a Calgary main street, and supersized commuter legs standing on an Edmonton transit platform. Brian received the Alberta Craft Council’s Award of Achievement in 2005. Last year his work was included in Unity & Diversity, an exhibition at the 2009 Cheongju International Craft Biennale in Cheongju, South Korea. In January 2010, his work and other elements of the exhibition returned to Canada to appear at the Museum of Vancouver as part of the Cultural Olympiad activities for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Rita has been a studio potter since her graduation from the ceramics program at the Alberta College of Art + Design in Calgary, in 1976. For Rita the four year program was a time of intense study and practical experience, working in a medium that requires not only skill but also a vast technical knowledge of a complex process. Aside from her studio practice Rita has also taught numerous classes and workshops for various potters’ organizations. Rita’s pottery ranges from utilitarian to intricate vessels, all created with great attention to detail and displaying a skilful application of decorative brushwork. Her delicately thrown line of painted porcelaineous stoneware has been widely exhibited and collected and is in prominent collections such as the Alberta Foundation for the Arts permanent collection, and was recently published in the book, 500 Plates & Chargers by Lark Books.

Connie started her clay journey in 1971 and since 1978 she has been working full-time as a ceramic artist. She recently participated in 5 years of advanced studies through the Australian National University Diploma Course in Ceramics. Her approach to working with clay has evolved as she investigates a balance between function and aesthetic interests, and as shapes and designs build upon themselves and new versions of form and decoration filter through the body of work and refresh the process. She attempts to create forms with rich surfaces which are then further enhanced by the sharing that occurs through their use. Connie says that she is happiest when someone expresses their joy in using one of her pieces.

Auvery graduated from the Art and Design Program at Red Deer College in 1997. She and husband Joe work from a home studio on their family farm near Ponoka. She has been active in the Alberta Potters Association. Auvery is particularly interested in blending functional forms with decorative influences such as wood-block prints or art nouveau graphics.

Joe graduated from Red Deer College in 1996 and continues his growth as a potter through involvement in the Alberta Potters Association. He is the fourth generation living and working on a family farm in central Alberta. Understandably he uses his pottery to explore various references to farmland and agriculture, such as patterns of cultivated fields, the sharp angles of the machines with which he farms, soil and grain colours, even grain bin forms.

Since discovering her affinity for clay, 30 years ago, Shirley has been enamored with the aesthetics of art and the manipulative and sensual qualities of clay. She has drawn from personal experiences relating to her view of life and to her extensive travels; relying more and more on her experiences in various cultures. Shirley’s work includes both sculptural and functional vessels and a range of clays and firing processes. She also enjoys teaching and often teaches short workshops. She has exhibited internationally including Canada, the U.S., Norway, Greece, Turkey and Mexico and attended residency programs in several of those countries.

Carol and Richard Selfridge are ceramic artists working collaboratively in Edmonton, Canada since 1974. Their illusionistic majolica and wood-fired stoneware has been exhibited nationally and internationally in over 200 juried and invitational exhibitions in the past 35 years. There work is in many public and private collections including those of Jean Chretien, former Prime Minister of Canada, Claridge Collection (Bronfman), and the Archie Bray Foundation.

Diane’s studio pottery line, called Arabesque, is represented across Canada and the United States. After degrees from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Desgin and University of Washington (Seattle), she attended Banff Centre and then settled in Calgary. Diane’s recent work is a celebration of the language of decoration combined with both wheel thrown and press molded forms. Her sources of decoration range from Persian and Oriental ceramics to the wildflowers and birds of Canadian landscapes. Diane also writes for ceramics, fine craft and arts publications and teaches in post-secondary and continuing education settings. She has served as a Director on both the Alberta Potters Association board and the Alberta Craft Council board. In 2005, Diane was awarded the Alberta Craft Council's Linda Stanier and Family Memorial Award for Excellence in Ceramics.

Do-Hee Sung grew up in Korea and lived in Seoul for 25 years, but never understood the value of Korean culture until she emigrated. Living in Canada has helped her realize the truth of who she is and the value of her Korean roots. Do-Hee graduated from the Alberta College of Art + Design in 2005 and has been developing her ceramics career since. In her current work, she is specializing in functional ware with traditional Asian motifs as well as contemporized Korean and Canadian influences. Do-Hee strives to share her experiences of two different cultures with users and to bring her personal story into their homes. Do Hee’s Alberta work has recently been featured in several projects in Korea, including the Unity & Diversity exhibition of Canadian fine craft at the Cheongju International Craft Biennale, and a 4-person exhibition of Calgary potters which she organized for the Tong-In Gallery in Seoul.

Mary grew up beside the Miramichi River in rural New Brunswick. Childhood berry picking, fishing and other nature-based experiences remain a strong influence in her work. She was introduced to Raku firing at the School of Art and Design in Fredericton, New Brunswick. She continues to develop this because “for me, Raku is more than just a firing process; it is a thought process and a way of life”. Mary has also studied at John Abbott College in Montréal, and Ecole Des Arts Appliqué in Cote D’Ivoire, West Africa. After completing her BFA at the University of Calgary, she has settled in that city and works in drawing, painting, sculpture and mixed media. Principally, “I work with clay because of Raku”.

Darlene is a school teacher as well as a ceramics educator. While teaching from her hone studio and through the Calgary Board of Education, she has expanded her ceramics activity through the City of Calgary Continuing Education, University of Calgary, Series at Red Deer College, and the Australia National University Long Distance Learning. Her current work is focussed on playful and whimsical, yet functional, vessels using a terra cotta clay body and colour majolica glazes.

Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Barbara received a BFA in Ceramics from Memphis College of Art where she studied under Thorne Edwards and Peter Sohngen. Further studies at The Ohio State University resulted in an MFA in Ceramics, and she stayed on in Columbus, building her studio practice. Barbara exhibits across Canada as well as internationally, and has continued teaching part time at ACAD. Her work has received substantial recognition, with multiple inclusions in such publications as 500 Cups by Lark Publishing (2004), Soda, Clay and Fire by Gail Nichols (2006) and The Ceramic Spectrum by Robin Hopper (revised edition 2001). Many public and corporate collections contain her work, including the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Canada Council Art Bank, Glenbow Museum, San Angelo Museum of Art (Texas), Harrison Museum of Art (Utah), among many others. Her work is collected privately across Canada, the United States and England. She was awarded project grants in 2008 and 2003 from Alberta Foundation for the Arts Project Grant and Canada Council respectively, and in 2006 was nominated for an Alberta Craft Council Award of Excellence.

Following a long career in cultural administration, Keith is emerging as a ceramics sculptor. He has studied at the University of Alberta Faculty of Extension, City Arts Centre, Harcourt House and through the Sculptor’s Association of Alberta. He specializes in figure, portrait and abstract ceramic work, combing sculpting and casting processes. Keith has also been President of the Edmonton Arts Council, has instructed regularly and participated in juries for Edmonton Arts Council and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Sam studied at the Banff Center, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and apprenticed with world renowned potter Michael Cardrew at Wenford Bridge Pottery in Cornwall England. He has also made several study tours to Japan, Korea, and China. He has been a functional potter for over 35 years and creates his popular line of functional pottery alongside his wife and fellow potter Antonia Huysman in their home and studio. In addition to making pottery Sam gathers and refines the local clays he uses in his work and has built most of the equipment that he uses in his studio. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is in many private, corporate, and public collections. "If all ceramics were divided into two groups there would be those objects that are dusted and those pots that are washed. Almost all of mine would end up in the kitchen sink".

Linda works with simple forms that provide a ceramic “canvas” for variations of colour and tone derived from the vagaries of the firing process. Her interest lies primarily in the unexpected but controlled world of alternative firing where ambient temperature, humidity, or other environmental factors add an element of surprise to the final outcome. She intends each finished piece to be visually pleasing or intriguing, while also communicating the energy generated in her creative and technical processes. Linda has studied at Series (Red Deer College), Metchosin International Summer School for the Arts, and at the Medalta Artist in Residence program. She was nominated for a 2009 (St. Albert) Mayor’s Emerging Artist Award and is currently the President of the St. Albert Potters’ Guild.