Clay Archives - CreativeSonoma.org

Jenn Ban Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth, Visual Arts

Jenn Ban (she/they) is a Queer Filipinx-American multidisciplinary visual artist, certified Reiki Master, youth teaching artist, community organizer, and cultural practitioner.

Jenns work includes natural and upcycled textiles, painting, printmaking, murals, film and installations. They also offer Sacred Skin Adornments (Reiki infused tattoos), Reiki Sessions, host community circles, and teach workshops. They intersect art and healing through intention, meditation, and movement, focusing on themes of authentic connection, soul-transcendence, and individual and collective healing.

As an artist and cultural practitioner, their work has been featured across the United States and internationally in numerous articles, galleries, exhibits and museums in the Philippines and Europe. They are recognized for on-going contributions to a number of community-based organizations. Jenn is a Teaching Artist with Raizes Collective, co-organizer of Warriors Grace Austronesian Gatherings, co-founder of Commune Artist, a Resident Artist at Balay Kreative Studios and at Fibershed Learning Center and a recipient of the 2022 San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant.

Todd Barricklow Artisan, Ceramics, Functional Art, Other, Other, Sculpture, Visual Arts Conflicting ideologies as well as personal defects garner most of our cultural attention. I tend to look at different aspects of human behavior in an evolutionary light; addictions, attractions, fetishes, how do these traits forward us as animals? Besides making life interesting, why do we do these things and how do they develop? Sociological questions fuel much of my work. My characters sometimes resemble people that I come in contact with in my day to day dealings, yet others are strangers that I only catch a glimpse of. These beings occupy the scene and face objects and representations of our world. My work has always been a way for me to clear my head and process what I see around me. I feel like this work is definitely a product of watching the world, analyzing the way people act and then drawing conclusions. To some degree that is what the viewer does also. The grouping of images may seem obscure, but it is the viewers baggage that will fill in the gaps between these tiles and these images.

Joel Bennett Artisan, Ceramics BIO Joel Bennett has been a ceramic artist for over 45 years, was an adjunct professor of art at Santa Rosa Junior College for 34 years and has been active in the community as an artist-in-residence, art educator, and workshop instructor. His interest in traveling started at an early age, and over the past 25 years he’s been involved with ceramic and sculpture projects in Hungary, France, Vietnam, El Salvador, Argentina, and Cuba. He has participated in six International “Encuentros” in Cuba, and has written articles about ceramics on the Island that have appeared in Ceramics Monthly, and the Studio Potter Magazine. He has also hosted residencies of Cuban, Colombian, Hungarian, and Vietnamese Artists here in California that have included exhibitions and workshops. An award-winning ceramist, Bennettʼs work has been exhibited internationally and represented by galleries throughout California, the Southwest and Midwest. www.joelbennett.org

Susan Bercu Mixed, Visual Arts I am a visual storyteller creating three-dimensional assemblages that use recycled materials. My themes include our existential threats: science denial, global warming, assaults on our US Democracy and basic human rights. “Cast-Offs” Streamers is my current endeavor funded with an artist grant from Creative Sonoma’s ArtSurround. The intention is to create awareness around energy consumption and over-consumerism where our cast-offs are sent to the landfill. Everyone in the community is invited to collect and donate their plastic and metal waste for their new artistic lives in a collaborative hands-on creative project. The streamers are hung from the trees in Helen Putnam Plaza, Petaluma. “Art With Conscience” is my art website: https://www.susanbercu.art/. My need as an artist to create order out of chaos is tested in these hyper-chaotic times. The narrative leads me through a range of media where I rotate between 2-D and 3-D artworks. I paint and draw. I construct assemblages using recycled materials. I am compelled to sound the alarm about the universal threats and disasters...to implore members of our global community to act with conscience. My childhood fascination with President Abraham Lincoln culminates in "Strange Fates of Lincoln: A Portable Museum". https://www.lincolnstrangefates.com/ These bizarre but true events surrounding Lincoln and his family are chronicled in tabletop exhibits that I built from cardboard and illustrated with my drawings and paintings.

Cade Burkhammer Artisan, Audio, Ceramics, Design, Fiction, Functional Art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Instrumental, Interior Design, Literature, Media, Mixed, Multi-Media, Music, Other, Other, Other, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Teacher/Instructor, Video, Visual Arts Cade Burkhammer, born April 21st 1973, has been painting and exhibiting paintings and playing music since he was 13 years old around the country. Painting styles include surreal oils, abstract acrylic and latex, experimental and controlled mixed media, watercolor illustration, original Photoshop photography, ceramics, bronze sculpture, writing, landscape design, gardening, science, healing arts, bardic meditation, drumming, piano, DJ... Cade is the creator of 'The Wise Fool Tarot', a self-published independent manifesto that took 15 years of research, meditation, painting, writing and raising funds for printing and distributing. This year will be Cade's second tarot release collaborating with another author. His third oracle deck is in the making. Cade is the creator of 'Wrecords', a series of recordings and sound collages in the vain of Vicki Bennett and Philip Jeck, which is the musical accompaniment for the video series 'Recycled Memories.' A multi-media event featuring video and sound collage of noisy vintage meditation of the forgotten past and dreamy future combined with live drums, piano and sometimes female vocals.

Patti Buttitta Artisan, Design, Functional Art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Mixed, Other, Other, Other, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Visual Arts Patti Buttitta, artist and graphic designer— Patti draws on her background and experience as an artist, illustrator, writer and printmaker. She enjoys the challenge of complicated projects, but relishes the simple and immediate. She is known for innovative graphic design ideas, including logos, brand packaging, catalogs, books, publications, newsletters, direct-mail marketing campaigns and websites. She has achieved stunning results within limited budgets. Clearly communicating and concisely articulating concepts, she works with clients, colleagues, vendors, suppliers and other professionals to bring creative concepts to life. Her illustrations have complemented her many design solutions for wine labels, food packaging, marketing materials and brochures. Patti has turned her attention to website design, applying the same sense for clear communication and satisfying visual organization.

Mari Capon Acting, Artisan, Arts Administration, Ballet, Ballroom, Children's, Choreography, Dance, Directing, Fiber Art, Fiction, Folk Art, Hip-Hop & Funk, Illustration, Improvisation, Improvisation, Latin, Literature, Media, Modern, Muralist, Music, Non-Fiction, Other, Other, Other, Painting, Performance Art, Poetry, Printmaking, Puppetry, Sculpture, Storytelling, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth, Theatre, Video, Visual Arts, Vocal Mari has been professionally involved in the arts world for over twenty years. As a child, she was a creative dancer at Virginia Tanner's Children Dance Theater, and she oil painted and sang in choirs. As a teen she acted, and was a make-up artist, poet, essayist, and ballroom dancer, and in young adulthood, she was a tango dancer and professional performing artist as an Art Model for artists working for Disney, EA, and countless Universities, Ateliers, Institutes, and Studios, and especially enjoyed set, costume, and lighting designs for painters and illustrators. Upon realizing that she most enjoyed coaching artists through their process, she began teaching, first creating art curriculum for a K-12 after-school program while becoming bilingual in Peru, before returning to the U.S. to become a certified cognitive movement, creative dance, and preschool music instructor. She began providing, teaching, and consulting for bilingual preschools and Summer Camps, tutoring, and coaching gymnastics, and continued to teach the arts and sports. She also taught inclusive sex education and spiritual development for children at interfaith, non-denominational churches, and facilitated somatic processing, while attending weekly classes in various forms. As an undergrad, Mari authored an Interdisciplinary Arts Curriculum Program for Pre-K through 12th Grade and became credentialed. She will research, publish, and offer her program while continuing to teach Interdisciplinary Arts.

Ron Carter Architecture, Artisan, Audio, Ceramics, Children's, Creative Sonoma Grantee, Design, Directing, Fashion Design, Fiction, Film, Functional Art, Furniture, Graphic Design, Illustration, Instrumental, Interior Design, Jewelry, Literature, Media, Mixed, Muralist, Music, Other, Other, Other, Painting, Photography, Poetry, Sculpture, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth, Theatre, Video, Visual Arts, Woodworking

My Path... Divergent visions gave rise to my creative present. A present refreshed by art as life and livelihood.

Experiences like the ‘Tubbs Fire’ that hit Santa Rosa serve to strengthen the ‘artist within me’. It foements subjective creative moments that utilize my past, present - and my future as focal lenses. Spontaneously, I chose The San Francisco Art Institute over The Rhode Island School of Design and the School of the Art Institute at Chicago for my formal Art education. I received my BFA in Interdisciplinary Art and Public Art. I’ve studied stone sculpture for 10 years with Master Sculpture-Ante’ Marinovic, one of Croatia’s premier stone sculptors and is considered a Croatian national treasure. I explore the collaboration between artist, media and tool in such a fashion as to give rise to multiple layers of compressed info within each piece I create no matter if it is a purely visual work or an interactive space or environmental art form. For me, art screams out into all aspects of my life. As an artist in western society, dogma and bravado go hand in hand with economic choice. Art is my life. If it’s not nailed down or permanently affixed, it’s in trouble of becoming art resource material. Well, upon further review, even that won’t deter me from considering an objects use in an art piece.

Joann Cassady Artisan, Ceramics, Design, Graphic Design, Sculpture, Visual Arts JOANN CASSADY, Ceramic Sculptor As an artist, my life has gone full circle. After art school and a career in commercial graphics, I left the industry to follow my heart back to early childhood, playing in the backyard, squishing mud pies through my fingers. This time around, clay has replaced the mud but the pleasure I get from holding the earth in my hands is just the same. And with the clay has come a passion for a firing technique called “Raku” which in Japanese means, “pleasure" or "enjoyment”. For the past twelve years I have traveled to Mexico to study pottery with Juan Quezada, considered a National Living Treasure in his country. Working with Juan and my many other friends in the pueblo of Mata Ortiz has been a wonderful learning experience. I have discovered new methods of working with clay using only the most basic of tools and from these experiences, grown steadily as an artist. Even more than that, however, getting to know the Mata Ortiz community has been the cultural event of a lifetime. More recently I have been able to work collaboratively with Jerardo Tena, who is one of the finest painters in the pueblo. Annually I sponsor him and together we give workshops sharing the techniques of Mata Ortiz with colleges, art centers and community centers around the Bay Area. Now I look for what I can do next and challenge myself to create something different today than I did yesterday. I'm drawn to create shapes that are simple and elegant and in their simplicity, capture your eye’s attention. Then, in contrast, are my whimsical Raku Fish, each one an original and each one with it’s own personality sure to bring a smile to your face. My pieces are all original, all made by hand using coils of clay and pinching techniques and then fired by Raku or Pit Firing techniques. Molds are not used in my process and there are no short cuts. The clay and the process can be unforgiving, even humbling at times, and not all pieces reach the intended end. But when they do, the magic in that moment is the inspiration that drives the process and fuels my passion to do it again. It's a joy. Joann Cassady • Whimsical & Sculptural Raku & Pit Fired Ceramics 245 Theresa Court, Healdsburg, CA 95448 • 707 431-8319 • www.imakepots.com

Hilarie Coate Folk Art, Holidays Shop Local, Jewelry, Other, Other, Puppetry, Sculpture, Woodworking Hilarie Coate's works celebrate the Mexican holiday traditions of the Day of the Dead. As an artisan, educator and pollinator of handcrafts and celebrations, she bridges the boundaries of life and death and of style and culture. With care and with respect and with an eye to both the history and the future of the holiday, she works in wax, wood, metal, tin, silk, paper, beading and clay in remembrance of los Muertos. She has taught children’s craft workshops, made parade art for the Grateful Dead, directed the Mendocino Coast Day of the Dead Festival, and was the only American volunteer in props and costumes at the 2017 CDMX Gran Desfile de Dia de los Muertos. She studied papier-mâché mask making in Venice, Italy, and Catrinas en cartoneria in Puebla, Mexico and she integrates new international ideas and techniques in the syncretic tradition of the holiday. Her studio - Peace, Love & Death is located in Fulton Crossing and houses a library of hard to find Muertos art and history in print and on video. She offers festival support, custom pieces, and individual and group classes.

Jason Cool Acting, Architecture, Artisan, Arts Administration, Ballroom, Ceramics, Children's, Choreography, Composition, Crew, Dance, Design, Directing, Equipment, Fashion Design, Fiber Art, Fiction, Film Office, Folk Art, Functional Art, Furniture, General Services, Glass, Hip-Hop & Funk, Illustration, Improvisation, Improvisation, Instrumental, Interior Design, Jewelry, Literature, Media, Mixed, Modern, Multi-Media, Music, Non-Fiction, Other, Other, Other, Other, Other, Other, Other, Other, Other, Painting, Performance Art, Photography, Poetry, Production, Professional Performance, Puppetry, Sculpture, Storytelling, Talent, Teacher/Instructor, Theatre, Visual Arts, Vocal, Woodworking

Jason Cool/Henson

Raised by musical and artistic tallent. from my grandfather Walter cool.writing and composing set designs on and off Broadway as well as music teacher. He tought me many things about music ,set design ,and writing stories making songs.mom colleen cool was a d.j for many years growing up .her morning talk show won an addy award. experience of the evolution of radio stations format from vinal,reel to reel,8 track,cassette,cd,to digital.learned lots about the insider secrets and politics , selling air time ,being a paid musical artist.and much more.on my dad's side .the "story family." his grandmother had 21 kids .4 sets of twins ,all natural birth!all musicians playing together ofton..on ed sullvon show and groucho marks.this popular family band and I would practice at grandma's regularly. As a kid growing up. i would try many instruments pianos ,drums,accordion ,banjo ,mandolin etc. I have been in theater,loved the arts, music ,writer. open to everything since i was a young kid.arts and music are my life!if i dont know how to do something,i will be honest!i ask,try and will do all things of interest with love !and any collaboration with heart.I Compromise to learn others perspectives because im always learning. preforming on and off stage.jamming with the public.sharing what i know. Learning what others are willing or able to teach.I loved all the music,art,storys,I have been a part of, or experienced 1999 to current over 15 countries I visited. World Share

Nicole Rose Gelormino Arts Administration, Illustration, Mixed, Other, Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth, Visual Arts Nicole Rose Gelormino is a teaching artist and painter. A SF Bay Area native, Gelormino has maintained a studio practice alongside her career in teaching art and leading professional development in arts education for over a decade. In her studio practice, Gelormino is committed to the continued exploration of the nuances of personal memory, the body and internalized cultural paradigms. She employs the paint and painting methods in the process of reflection and discovery within the pscyho-visceral landscape. Gelormino holds a Single Subject Teaching Credential in Visual Art and recently served on the advisory panel to the California Department of Credentialing. She worked for a few years on the Teachers Advisory Group to the SF Museum of Modern Art, writing curriculum for their collection and special exhibitions. She has also worked in arts administration in schools and other non-profit and public agencies. Some additional settings she has taught in include: professional development for teachers in schools and museums, youth and families before and after school and at special events, summer arts programs run by the city of San Francisco. At Gateway High School, Gelormino also served as the Arts Department Coordinator and Teaching Coach for other teaching artists.

Ehme Haas Artisan, Audio, Ceramics, Fiber Art, Jewelry, Literature, Media, Mixed, Multi-Media, Music, Other, Painting, Poetry, Sculpture, Visual Arts, Vocal e.h.me is a multi-medium, hungry fArtist currently beginning an exploration of the play between place and perspective with mobile-inspired, found object suspended sculpture. an imported local of the Russian River area with a tendency toward forest frolicking, she is inspired by birth cycles and bridges, plastic bags caught in tree boughs, fermentation and regeneration. she seeks to convey a sense of the beautiful wonder within even the 'ugly' parts of experience. create(or) de(con)struct

Ash Hay Film, Media, Other, Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture, Visual Arts My art is diaristic and centered in the body; how it communicates with the earth, itself, and bodies around it. In my work, I explore ideas of gender expression, body acceptance, and radical softness. Fatness, my own and others’, comes up often as I am continually confronted with how fat bodies are treated and how they navigate this world. My use of large soft sculpture, techniques of paper layering in my paintings and works on paper, and a color palette rooted in the color pink, all support my overarching theme of softness as power. I am influenced heavily by the works of Loise Bourgeois and Kiki Smith as well as the lineage of fiber artists and crafters in my own family.

Denis Hazlewood Sculpture, Visual Arts

Denis Hazlewood

Conceptual hand-built ceramic sculpture

I began throwing in 1970, and had switched to hand-building by 1974. My work is primarily conceptual, and often whimsical in nature, though, on occasion, I do functional pieces. A forty-eight year career in Architecture and Civil Engineering drives my interest in "architectural", slab-built, forms. I generally prefer to use very little glaze, letting the clay body speak for itself. I have studied with Dan and Carol Goodsell, at Shibui Studio, in Paradise, CA; Jim and Mary Shorba, of Pye In the Sky, Jerome, AZ; Ann Peet Carrington, at The College of Marin; and various resident artists, at Sonoma Ceramics, at the Sonoma Community Center, Sonoma, CA

Dustin Heald Audio, Composition, Crew, Film, Film Office, General Services, Instrumental, Media, Multi-Media, Music, Other, Painting, Photography, Sculpture, Technical, Theatre, Visual Arts, Vocal Located in California's North Bay Area, Dustin Heald is a multifaceted artist specializing in Music, Makeup Effects, sculpture, Special Prop fabrication, and character design. Dustin has experience working in film, television and theater, as well as mask making, casualty simulation, and hair work. He has worked on projects in LA, Pittsburgh PA, Cairo Egypt, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Dustin is a singer/songwriter who plays guitar and drums. He is involved in various collaborative projects with other artists as well as producing his own original material.

Sarah Hylton Artisan, Creative Sonoma Grantee, Improvisation, Mixed, Other, Painting, Sculpture, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth Expressive Artist and Arts Facilitator specializing in a whole person-centered approach for creating art. An avid painter, dancer and ceramic sculptor; often found dancing while painting. Sarah’s paintings have been featured in galleries, juried exhibits and are in private collections. She is currently represented by Lori Austin Gallery in Sebastopol, CA. She began receiving awards as a child for her original artwork though has always resonated with the outsider and naïve artist. She is a self-taught artist and process oriented. After raising her artistically talented son, as an only parent, she is whole heartedly devoting herself to her own creative process and arts based restorative community projects. She is a 2020 Creative Sonoma Pop Up Art Grant recipient. Her current projects include the Hexagons Of Dignity Tapestry and the Art Tent. The community mural installation on the Art Tent is postponed due to Shelter In Place.

Jennifer Joyce Artisan, Ceramics, Functional Art, Instrumental, Jewelry, Music, Other, Other, Sculpture, Teacher/Instructor, Teaching Artist for Adults, Teaching Artist for Youth, Visual Arts, Vocal

Jennifer Joyce, a native of Southern California, embarked on a life of creating functional and sculptural ceramics in 1995.

Joyce is a sculptor and ceramist whose body of work is both thoughtful and whimsical. She brings a unique background in dance, music, archaeology and photography to her art. As a past modern dancer and working archaeologist, Jennifer weaves lightness and whimsy, movement, dance and music into her pieces.

Jennifer opened her own ceramics school in Santa Monica, California in 1995 for 18 years and established another location in San Clemente in 2013. In her San Clemente studio she continued her ceramics school and also founded the Artists Studios of San Clemente, an artist studio collective that is still thriving.

Since moving to Sonoma County, Jennifer has opened her private studio to teaching ceramics and sculpture, has taught numerous classes and workshops at the Sonoma Community Center, teaches for the Mentor Program and has taught part-time at the Sonoma Academy in Santa Rosa. Her emphasis is on hand building, wheel throwing and figurative sculpture.