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. Below are our current teachers along with their work.

 ANGELA SMITH-KIRKMAN

Angela is the owner of Paseo Pottery, Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery, and Tumbleroot Pottery Pub. Angela is a ceramic artist and photographer with over thirty years of experience specializing in rustic dinnerware influenced by years of travel. She recently returned from a two-year journey around the world with her family during which they hiked the Inca Trail, snuck into a communist headquarters in Bulgaria, rode camelback through the Sahara, caught the swine flu in Istanbul, were 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 and libations. 

 MIKE WALSH

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.

 CAROLYN LIVESEY

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.

 JOAN HENDERSON

JORDAN PEDERSON

Jordan likes to make cutesy seasonal decor and dinnerware sets on the wheel. She moved to Santa Fe in July 2023, after spending 8 months living out of a backpack, working on farms and in hostels across Europe and Turkiye. She has no background in the arts, but decided to try out pottery after binging The Great Pottery Throw Down during the pandemic. She has now been doing pottery on and off for 2 years. Jordan is a studio manager at Paseo Pottery, and also teaches wheel throwing experiences. Outside of the studio, Jordan loves to hike, paddle board, read, swim, hang out with her cats (Frankie and Ollie), watch Below Deck, and travel.

 IZZIE KIRKMAN

Growing up immersed in the world of clay, Izzie’s connection to Paseo Pottery runs deep. With a mother who was a volunteer at the studio's inception, Izzie spent countless hours exploring the art of pottery from a young age. This early exposure sparked a passion that blossomed over the years. In 2019, she began to delve more seriously into pottery, taking and teaching classes at Paseo Pottery. Her dedication and enthusiasm for the craft led to a significant milestone in December 2023, when Izzie was appointed as one of the studio managers. In this role, she not only oversees studio operations but also leads as the kids' class teacher, as well as teaching hand-building and wheel experiences.

 EJ SERBIAK

Emma Jo is based out of Santa Fe, NM and started her work with ceramics during college in Flagstaff, AZ. After taking a class on a whim, she quickly fell in love with clay because it made her feel like she could make anything she could possibly dream of. She had an amazing professor who inspired her and made her feel like she would have a career in ceramics, even though she was already two years into a science degree. After taking a gap semester (during which she took another ceramics class at a local community college), she decided to continue on with her degree in science and, as a compromise, take every single ceramics class she could possibly squeeze in. After graduating, Ej quickly found a clay community in Los Alamos and got involved in teaching, glaze making, and firing her own work for the first time. She is now a studio manager at Paseo Pottery and enjoys teaching and being involved in all aspects of the clay process. Ej hopes to have her own small studio one day where she can teach the thing she loves most. 

 GEORGINA GIBSON

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.

 TIFF CLENDENIN

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!).

 MICHAEL STANTON

 MARK SISTRAND

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.”

 TERRI LUCKETT

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.

 LAUREN PAIGE

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.

 ANTHONY KUROWSKI

Anthony thoroughly enjoys the sense of working within the elements of earth. With a background of different art mediums. Including drawing, painting, carving, photography, and graphic design. He is Mostly simply just interested in anything that allows the free flow of the higher mind manifested into a physical expression. Clay has allowed him to combine all these expressions into a robust form of enjoyment. Also interests in animals, and herbalism pottery has allowed him to share his ideas of the importance of the connection we have to these beautiful co habitants of our planet. Often carving animals and plants into his design. Pottery to him not only allows a sense of enjoyment, but a call to purpose as well.

 SUSAN MCDUFFIE

Susan McDuffie has been making pottery off and on since she was eight years old. After a year at Alfred she was a founding member of the Genesee Coop Pottery in Rochester, NY, until her move to Santa Fe in 1982.  She worked with Polly Whitcomb and other artists at the Canyon Road Pottery, and spent twenty-five years as an OT with the SFPS. After a break from clay, Susan is delighted to be back potting and loves the community she’s found at the Paseo Potttery! Influences and inspirations include thrown Japanese folk pottery as well as early Neolithic vessels.

 SHANNON MCQUILKIN

Shannon has dabbled in pottery her entire life, mainly learning from her Grandmother Billie who was an artist and ceramicist. She took a long pause from pottery while running two restaurant/bars in Portland Oregon and it wasn't until moving to Santa Fe and taking the time to do a "deep dive" that her love of playing with earth came back to her. She now is a full time ceramicist who teaches experiences here at Paseo and works out of her home studio.

 BEN WALDER

Ben has been playing with clay for as long as he can remember, though formally making pottery since high school (around 2007). For him, clay is more than simply a material to use to make pots. Clay reminds us of our ancestral heritage, evokes ecology and helps to give us a sense of place, reinforcing the relationships we have to our bodies, community, and the Earth. Ben is particularly interested in the processes involved in creating ceramics, the "happy accidents" and the many invaluable lessons that can be gleaned along the way, especially through wood-firing. After having had multiple home studios, worked in a tile factory and apprenticed with a potter in Oregon, he feels especially grateful for the opportunity to share his love of clay with the Paseo Pottery community through teaching beginning wheel and hand-building experiences and classes.

 CLARA MIKOVEC

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.

Esperanza “Espi” is an artist from Santa Clara Pueblo and has been interning at Paseo Pottery since January 2024. They do a variety of work including ceramics, painting, drawing and sometimes sculpture with found objects. Ceramics is a new passion for her. She mainly does hand building but is learning the wheel as well. Working with underglazes for each piece, their art is playful and colorful, having a childlike feel about it. He is currently studying at Santa Fe Community College going for a degree in Fine Arts with a focus in drawing and painting and a certificate in ceramics. They are dedicated to creating art that sparks joy and curiosity in everyone who sees it. 

 ESPERANZA “ESPI” CHAVARRIA

 Emily Hyland - Yogasource

Emily earned her 200 hr certification and 75hrs of advanced training in therapeutics at Yogamaya in 2012 and has since studied Yin with Corina Benner through Wake Up Yoga in Philadelphia. Emily taught and mentored at an array of NYC studios over the past decade; most notably, she was a founding team member at Love is Juniper in Prospect Heights where she helped develop and lead teacher training. Emily endeavors to infuse her classroom with warmth and positivity. Her teaching centers around encouraging students to tune into the experience of sensation within in order to develop ongoing, active dialogue with the body.