OUR TEACHERS
Molly Altman
Altman began working in clay in her hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts. In 2019, she obtained a BA in ceramics from Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. Her experience includes an internship with Studio Potter Journal in Easthampton, Massachusetts, an apprenticeship to Noel Bailey in Waitsfield, Vermont, a position as a technical assistant to Kenyon Hansen at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine, and a production potter position at Mark of the Potter in Clarkesville, Georgia. She has made work as a resident artist at Green River Pottery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and at Recipiente Estudio in Mexico City. She was a current Artist in Residence at Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology in Loch Lomond, California before becoming a resident at the Carbondale Clay Center.
For more info visit Molly’s Website.
Steven Colby
Steven Colby is a studio potter & educator living in beautiful Carbondale, Colorado. Present with a reverence for the past, Steven works to push forward clay traditions in the studio and in the classroom. Steven received his MFA from Penn State University in 2012 and his BFA from Alfred University in 1999. He has been an artist in residence at Baltimore Clayworks, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Archie Bray Foundation, Mendocino Art Center and the Carbondale Clay Center.
Instagram: @stevencolbypotter
Laura Dortmans
Laura Dortmans is a ceramic artist originally from the south-eastern coast of Australia. She completed her MFA in Ceramics at the State University of New York at New Paltz in 2024 and is now based in Snowmass Village, Colorado. Laura’s studio research explores materiality and body. Working with experimental processes, her ceramic sculptures perform as a surrogate for her own physicality and the sensations of the body – not as a direct representation of body, but as the feeling of being in her body.. Laura seeks a material language that conveys movement, visual tension and spaciousness.
For more info visit Laura’s Website.
Matthew Eames
Matthew Eames is a ceramic artist born on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In 2007, he received his BFA in Ceramics from the University of Hartford. After graduating, he took a residency position at the Worcester Center for Crafts and a year later he began working as a Studio Resident Technician. Matthew then attended a post-baccalaureate program at the University of Arkansas and went on to earn his MFA in Ceramics from Wichita State University in 2013. After graduate school, he moved to the Aspen Valley for the Carbondale Clay Center’s Residency, which transitioned into a full time position as the Studio and Gallery Manager. Matthew has had the privilege of exhibiting in many national shows, including a solo exhibition at the Ulrich Museum of Art in Wichita, Kansas, and an installation for NCECA’s Project Space at the 2017 conference.
For more info visit Matthew’s Website.
Lisa Ellena
Lisa Ellena is a Colorado native, and first became obsessed with ceramics when she began taking clay classes at Front Range Community College in the 90’s. From there she went on to study art at the University of Wisconsin in River Falls where she completed a BFA, then later at San Diego State University where she earned a MFA degree in ceramics. In 2010 Lisa moved back to Colorado to participate in the artist-in-residence program at the Carbondale Clay Center. She maintains her studio practice at S.A.W. (Studio for Arts and Works) where she continues to make pots and sculptural paintings on clay. Lisa teaches ceramics at both the C.C.C. and Colorado Mountain College’s Aspen campus. The joys of supporting students in their explorations of clay, both on and off the wheel, keeps her coming back to the classroom.
For more info visit Lisa Ellena SAW Page
Gabby Gawreluk
Originally from Minnesota, Gabby received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Stout. In 2018, she completed one year expanding her art practice as a special student at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. From 2019-2020, she attended Colorado State University as a Post-Baccalaureate student. Gabby creates functional and sculptural ceramics that is wheel thrown as well as constructed from slabs of clay. Her work is featured in both juried and invitational shows in galleries around the nation. Currently she resides in Saint Paul, Minnesota where she is the Anonymous Artists Fellow at Northern Clay Center.
For more info visit Gabby’s Website.
Anne Goldberg
Anne Goldberg has been playing with clay since childhood. Today, she makes wheel-thrown and hand-built ceramics in her studio in Carbondale, Colorado. Anne also teaches ceramics at Colorado Mountain College – Aspen.
Anne has been an Artist-in-Residence at Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass Village, CO, and also studied at Cornell University, Stanford University, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill and Carbondale Clay Center. Her work is included in 500 Cups and 500 Pitchers, both published by Lark Books, and has been shown in exhibitions around the U.S.
Anne was born in Boston and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts. She moved to Colorado in the fall of 2003. From 2004 to 2007, she spent summers as the Head Ceramics Studio Manager at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, where she also taught ceramics to adults and children. Since late 2007, she has been a year-round resident of Carbondale, Colorado.
For more info visit Anne’s Website.
Matt Johnson
Matt spent his high school years here in Carbondale, which is also when he became enthralled with ceramics. He went on to study Ceramics, Painting and Drawing at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, and then returned to the Roaring Fork Valley and was the director of the Woody Creek Ceramics Studio, a non profit with COMPASS and the Community School. After nearly five years teaching wheel throwing and sculpture to ages from Kindergarten through adult, Matt became a teacher at the Waldorf School on the Roaring Fork, where he taught many subjects including arts, woodwork, stone carving, and more academic classes as well. He spent the last three years delving into furniture design with his father, a long time furniture maker and woodcarver. Matt has continued to weave ceramic work into his practice and has done some mixed media projects with wood and clay as well.
Travis McFlynn
I am a sculptor actively collecting techniques in arts that require the alchemical transformation of fire and heat to complete their process. Ceramics, glass and metal in particular. Perhaps a bit of food here and there… and Fun is the sharpest tool in my toolbox.
Frank McGuirk
Frank McGuirk is a full time studio potter. He completed the full undergraduate curriculum in Ceramics at Colorado State University and worked as a potter in the 1970s. Frank then went on to earn a PhD in psychology in 1974. In 2006, he realized a long held ambition by returning to ceramic work full-time. He makes hundreds of utilitarian pots each year. Many of McGuirk’s recent works are in private and corporate collections. He also has shown in Colorado galleries and in numerous shows and exhibitions. McGuirk’s ceramic pieces are functional and architectural. Most of his work is wheel thrown with some hand building and a mix of surface treatments. Frank has also taught ceramics classes over the past several years.
For more info visit Frank’s Facebook Page.
JJ Peet
The work Peet creates through drawings, films, ceramics, sculptures and actions, probes the thresholds between visual, tactile and covert operations via an ongoing narrative on the coded relationship between art, nature, politics and the universe.
Peet earned his MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2006 and a BFA from the University of Minnesota in 1999. Peet was a Professor in Sculpture/Ceramics at Columbia University from (2011-2023). In addition, Peet has taught ceramics at the 92nd Street Y from (2008-2023). His work has been featured in Artforum, Art in America, Bomb, Frieze, Modern Painters, The New Yorker, and TimeOut, among numerous other publications. Recent Solo exhibition at David Peterson Gallery, Minneapolis MN(2023), Solo exhibitions include DOWNSTAIRS projects, Brooklyn, NY (2019), Galerie Quatre, Arles, France (2018), FRAC PACA, Marseille, France (2018), University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA (2017), Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA (2017), Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA (2016), Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2016), The Contemporary Austin, Austin, TX (2015), and On Stellar Rays, New York, NY (2015, 2012, 2010, 2009).
For more info visit JJ’s Website
Adam Ting
My work is heavily influenced by the natural places I immerse myself in. In each of these places wind, water, rock, and wood converge in distinct ways to form unique landscapes. Living things mingle on these landscapes, each constrained by the forces of nature. Working with clay, and particularly wood firing, allows me a satisfying connection to these processes. Encapsulated in a cup are the geological processes that form the clay, the cultural influences that provide form and function, and a personal touch that brings it to life, All of this is a reminder that objects and moments do not stand alone but are connections to all that has come before.
For more info visit Adam’s Website
Lea Tyler
With a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the State University of New York, New Paltz, Lea Tyler first arrived in Carbondale in 2005 as the lucky recipient of a residency at the Carbondale Clay Center. After completion of her CCC residency she was awarded a residency at Anderson Ranch Arts Center. Tyler immediately fell in love with the community in the Roaring Fork Valley and decided to stay in the area to peruse different business ventures but always keeping her hands in clay. The tactile quality and seductive nature of clay has always captivated Tyler. With endless possibilities to create clay she enjoys experimenting with clay, predominantly a slip caster, Tyler also enjoys the grounding sensation throwing pots provides.