Indigo Fire

Ned's work is influenced by 20th century English and Japanese pottery.  He believes there is beauty in function and his pots are made to be used.  He enjoys glaze chemistry and building out the studio space. 

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Outside of pottery Ned enjoys chess, woodworking, bonsai, Starcraft and rock climbing.  He lives in Arlington with his partner Alex and dog Lola.

Ariane joined Indigo Fire as a staff member in Jan, 2020.  Her role here has quickly grown and we are now proud to have her as the Studio Manager.  On top of being friendly, helpful and smart, Ariane has a strong background in ceramics.  She has a BA from Bennington College where she concentrated in ceramics.  She previously worked at Mud Flat as a tech and is well versed in pottery studio operations.  Her pottery emphasizes decoration and ranges between the detailed illustration and the goofy doodle. 

Peter is the studio manager at our Watertown location.  After Peter graduated Gordon College majoring in Communication Arts, he took a beginner wheel throwing class and knew right away that pottery was what he wanted to be involved in for the long haul. Peter enjoys wheel throwing, and experimenting with hand building. When he's not at the studio Peter plays kick ball,  walks on the beach and volunteers with Beverly main streets, the city where he's lived in for 4 years during and after college. Peter worked previously at Clay Dreaming in Beverly. 

Maddy has been throwing at Indigo Fire consistently since 2016.  They come from a musical family and apply that creativity to their pottery.  They have a wide range of thrown shapes and glazes that they use.  Maddy knows the studio extremely well and will probably share a throwing tip with you if they have the time.  They run the studio on Saturdays.  

Isabel is a Belmont High School student who started throwing at Indigo Fire in 2019.  She has many artistic interests including writing, painting, music and of course pottery.  She is very knowledgeable about the studio and a good resource if you have any questions while working here.  You will find Isabel in the studio on Saturday afternoons.

Kirya has been making pottery at Indigo Fire for seven years.  She has spent much of her summers working here, helping with our summer kids program.  She enjoys functional, thrown pottery.  Kirya works Sundays at the studio.

Kim first fell in love with pottery 20 years ago when a friend taught her how to use a kick wheel at summer camp. Since then, she has seized every opportunity to get her hands into clay. She loves exploring simple, graceful forms and incorporating her love of nature into sgraffito and other surface design techniques. Kim joined Indigo Fire in 2021 after teaching wheel-throwing at Mudville Pottery for four years.

Kim (@thedustypotter) • Instagram photos and videos

As a child, I loved to draw.  By my teens, that love had evolved into linoleum carving and print-making.  Some 40 years later I am delighted to find that the sgraffito process of scratching through a layer of colored slip or underglaze to expose the clay surface beneath beautifully brings together my two childhood artistic pleasures; and the 3-dimensional clay forms add to the fun challenge of working in-the-round.

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https://www.instagram.com/sarann.jacobson/

Marc is a maker, teacher, and thinker who likes minutae, processes, and materials. He has taught ceramics to learners of all ages in the Boston area since 1998. He has worked professionally, exhibited, and lectured, locally and internationally. He draws hundreds of patterns, and occasionally finds time to work with enamels, glass, fabric, and paper. He is totally engaged with the way humor and curiosity influence fine art, design, and even engineering.

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http://www.marcmancuso.com/

Robert Boyer has been working in clay for over fifteen years, making on the wheel and exploring a variety of hand building techniques. He has previously taught both wheel throwing and hand building classes at MIT’s Student Art Association. His inspirations typically come from highly repetitive patterns in nature and leverage his background in the sciences looking to atomic structure and algorithmic thought processes as often as wood grain and feathers. Although Robert’s interests span a wide range of ceramic ware, sculpture and abstraction he’s probably happiest when poking thousands of holes in what was once a perfectly functional vase.

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www.instagram.com/robertdboyer/

I am an art teacher and a potter. I have been teaching art for 4 years and have been making pottery for about 13 years. I graduated from Marywood University with my BFA in Ceramics in 2014, and I received my Masters in Arts Teaching from Tufts University in 2016. I create functional pottery that can be handled regularly, and interacts with its user.  Most importantly, enjoyed by people daily. I mainly create wheel thrown work. I am always thinking of new ideas, forms, and vessels. 

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https://www.potterybymo.com/

Instagram: @potterybymo

Cat has been making pottery since she was a child.  She completed a bachelors in fine art with a focus on ceramics in undergrad.  In 2012 she took up a residency at Gimhae Clayarch Museum in South Korea.  At this point in her life she has finally found the space to dedicate her time to pottery.  Her pottery is beautiful and playful with unique illustrations.  She teaches weekend workshops and the teen pottery class.

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https://www.instagram.com/callmecatdaze/

Instagram: @callmecatdaze

Donna Pioli has been working with clay since she fell in love with ceramics over 15 years ago. She is known for imbuing her work with feminine, playful details. Donna delights in the control and malleability that clay affords and is eager to bring this passion to her teaching. Her studio is based in Dedham, MA at Mother Brook Arts & Community Center.

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claypio by Donna Pioli (@claypio) • Instagram photos and videos

Conor graduated from Eckerd College with a BFA in Visual Art.  He's been working with clay for over 10 years.  In 2014, he moved to San Francisco and joined Clay By The Bay where he taught and led the operations and program development for 5 years.  Conor returned to the North Shore in 2020 and looks forward to joining and the east coast clay community and sharing what he’s learned.

Conor's work is mostly hand built, soft slab forms that mimic the functional, but are often quite impractical when put to use. His lack of concern for the function of a piece provides room for the whimsical and gestural shapes that emerge as he interacts with the clay.  This playfulness and freedom to explore informs his style of teaching.

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Conor Pickett (@cornerpockett) • Instagram photos and videos

Josephine graduated from Wheaton College with a BA in Fine Arts.  She interned with The Bright Angle in Asheville, NC where she worked with slip casting, glaze formulation and firings.  She managed her own studio in western mass for a while before moving back to Boston.

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Her work often derives meaning from social issues to offer a new perspective.  She's inspired by home, nature, patterns, and textures.  

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Josephine Coppinger Portfolio (@muse.bouche) • Instagram photos and videos

Erik Wilson is a ceramic artist at Mudflat Studios in Somerville, MA. His work is wheel thrown and functional, gas and wood fired.  Erik explores forms through many production cycles and iterations.  He enjoys altered, wheel thrown pottery and dynamic textures.  Erik teaches the intermediate throwing class and has a lot to offer students who have taken multiple pottery classes.

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Erik Wilson (@wilsonerikb) • Instagram photos and videos

Sarah has worked with clay since studying full time at the School for Professional Crafts at the Worcester Center for Crafts 20 years ago. There she learned everything from wheel throwing and hand building to glaze preparation and firing all different types of kilns. She is drawn to the moments and materials on display when nature meets the human-constructed environment such as rust, weathered paint, and discarded bricks. Sarah has been throwing at Indigo Fire since 2019.

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Sarah Carroll (@rustbucketpottery) • Instagram photos and videos

Brendan is based in Somerville and has been working with clay for about 8 years.  Since taking his first class, he's been pulled by the iterative, peaceful process and am consistently surprised by similarities found between ceramics, yoga, and nature.  His work centers around wheel throwing with an emphasis on simple shapes with small alterations and textures.

Brandon VanWormer is a ceramic artist who completed his MFA at Indiana University in the Spring of 2022, concluding with his thesis exhibition titled Emergent Forms. He uses thrown and altered pottery as a means of exploring abstract form. Using creases and curved planes, he composes foreshortened protrusions and hidden recesses that live in the walls of his pots. This slowly-evolving vocabulary often quotes the landscape, the human body, and his favorite makers.

Brandon discovered his passion for teaching while in graduate school and, after relocating to Cambridge, MA, now disseminates his clay knowledge at multiple studios in the Boston area while continuing to make his own work at the Harvard Ceramics Program.