MEET THE ARTISTS
Paseo Pottery was founded in 1991 as an artists’ co-op of sorts by three of Santa Fe’s most renowned ceramic artists: Janet Williams, Mike Walsh, and Ginny Zipperer. The work of these founding potters is currently for sale in our showroom, along with pieces by artists Angela Smith Kirkman, Christopher Southward, Ron Strauss, and Douglas Hough.
Angela Smith Kirkman has recently taken over the management of Paseo Pottery and has launched our new charitable mission. Angela is a ceramic artist and photographer with nearly thirty years of experience specializing in rustic dinnerware influenced by years of travel. She recently returned from a journey around the world during which she hiked the Inca Trail, snuck into a communist headquarters in Bulgaria, rode camelback through the Sahara, caught the swine flu in Istanbul, was chased out of the Grand Mosque of Uqba, lived on a vineyard in Portugal, taught at a tribal school in Rajasthan, biked floating markets of Thailand, and communed with snow monkeys in Japan. Angela is excited to be back home in Santa Fe harnessing her love for pottery to give back to the community.
It was while earning a B.S. in art education that Mike got his first taste of working in clay. Graduation was soon followed by an apprenticeship which led to working as a full-time potter. In the past few years Mike has devoted part of his time to teaching ceramics to both high school and adult students.
Joan has been making pottery on and off for over 40 years, since high school where she had a wonderful pottery art teacher. She attended school for chemistry for a few years before attending the School of Visual Arts in NYC where she obtained a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts, focused on drawing and installation type sculpture. She always came back to pottery though, for its zen like practice; “just” making beautiful utilitarian objects, unburdened by having to consider the meaning behind them. Recently retired from years of teaching in Santa Fe public schools while raising her 2 sons, she is enjoying teaching hand building and wheel throwing classes, while delving back into her own pottery making practice once again.
Carolyn has a bachelor’s degree in art and has worked as a production potter for three different artists in North Carolina, one in Virginia and one in California. While working for these potters over the years she has acquired a variety of advanced skills and has carried the best with her from each of these experiences.
Aside from production, she enjoys creating one of a kind thrown pieces by adding found objects and some handbuilding accessories to embellish the ordinary and make it extraordinary. Additionally, her years as a jeweler inspired her down the path of the destruction/reconstruction of pottery.
Cate Stanley got her start in pottery 5 years ago as a volunteer for a small arts council in Driggs, ID. Drawn to clay for its tactile and technical nature she enjoys teaching beginners the fundamentals.
Specializing in wheel throwing, Cate has been volunteering and teaching at Paseo Pottery since Spring 2022. As a ceramic artist she focuses on functional ware.
Clara graduated from Iowa State University in 2022 with a BFA in German and Integrated Studio Arts. She works full time at a stable where she assists with training and caring for dressage horses. She has her own big orange horse named Poe.
At Iowa State Clara interned with her professor for three semesters, a tutelage which began with mixing dozens of glaze tests. She has continued to build on that education, and is still endlessly fascinated by the chemistry of ceramic glazes.
Clara moved to New Mexico in the fall of 2022 and quickly found Paseo Pottery to be an incredible way to connect with Santa Fe. She has learned so much more about clay as well as community since volunteering, and she loves to share that with new students. In her classes she guides her students through the fundamentals of working with clay with the intention of helping them access the confidence needed to experiment on their own.
Clara's personal practice involves making utilitarian pottery meant for rough-and-tumble everyday use. She crafts her pieces in order to be used, enjoyed, and inevitably broken - thus completing a small work of art.
Georgina Gibson, with a background in marine sciences, has explored various art mediums over the years, including painting, drawing, and quilting. However, her introduction to ceramics a few years ago proved to be transformative. Joining the Paseo community in 2022, she initially immersed herself in wheel-throwing classes before transitioning to a role as a studio volunteer. By 2023, she had ventured into teaching. Georgina's artistic journey is marked by her penchant for experimentation, evident in her exploration of a wide range of ceramic techniques. Currently, she finds particular delight in delving into hand-building with colored clay (Nerikomi) and wheel-throwing with wild-harvested clay.
Lauren Paige joined the Santa Fe community in the spring of 2017. She brings with her a diverse background in contemporary fine art and community arts. Lauren graduated with honors from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in Ceramics in 2011. Since graduation in Baltimore, her passion for arts and community has taken her to explore California and Colorado, expanding her experience through artist residencies, education positions, gallery management, development, and more.
Lauren has taught numerous ceramics classes to youth, teens, and adults in a variety of ceramic techniques. She has experience firing a range of kilns including electric, gas, wood, soda, and raku. She has experience utilizing and teaching a variety of ceramic processes including slip-casting, wheel throwing, and hand-building, and surface treatments ranging from sand blasting to china painting. Her personal practice has ranged from a portfolio of hand-built sculptures, to more recently a body of work composed of wheel-thrown pottery.
Mark has been working in clay since he was a kid and pretty much has never stopped. While he was in high school in Connecticut, he was introduced to the potter’s wheel. In his early twenties, he ended up at Ruby’s Clay Studio in San Francisco, an institution with many highly skilled potters, and learned just about everything he knows about clay there.
He has been a teacher for over 30 years and enjoys sharing tips he has learned from the best of the best! In the past, he’s taught at Ruby’s Clay Studio and sfclayworks in addition to holding workshops and demonstrations at UC Berkeley, Mills College, and Heath Ceramics — all in the San Francisco Bay area. He is located in Santa Fe now, for good!
“Clay is my chosen medium because I can turn it into almost anything if I set my mind to it. I enjoy the wheel, hand-building, and working in mosaics. I make all the tiles and forms for my mosaic sculptures. I like seeing my large totems and globes in the landscape.”
Michael Stanton has been working in clay since 1991. He is the recipient of a Special Award at the 7th Annual Tokyo-New York Friendship Ceramics Competition in 2003. Having worked with Raku for over 10 years, he is now concentrating on functional ware. His work has been featured and sold in galleries and shops from New York and Cape Cod to Santa Fe. At present, he is thrilled to be collaborating with Acoma Pueblo artist, Wanema Garcia.
Terri graduated from St. John’s College in the foothills of Santa Fe in 1985. Since then, she has been a globetrotter for work, but always drawn home to The City Different in some way or other. In 2021, she returned home for good after retiring from corporate life.
Pottery has offered her an important escape from the stress of work as it is an immersive process, fully occupying the mind and the senses in the act of creation. It is an important vehicle to exploring her creative side, and redefining herself outside of the limited confines of work. Always a student, pottery offers her a path of endless learning.
With a lifelong interest and love for working with clay, Tiff joined the Paseo community in 2023. She initially intended to work at Paseo as a studio volunteer but soon ventured into teaching handbuilding. Tiff focuses on the organic forms and range of creative possibilities that handbuilding allows for. Her artistic background ranges from multimedia sculpture, filmmaking, photography, and growing food (master gardener!).
