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Artist Submissions


If you are an artist interested in submitting your work for consideration to be sold in the Gardiner Shop, you may apply by filling out our online submission form.

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Adé Studio: Andréa Kpenou

Andréa Kpenou is the founder and designer of Adé Studio.  A handcrafted company specializing in polymer clay earrings.  She first got her start in 2019, during maternity leave.  During this time period she started to experiment with polymer clay and was captivated by its properties.  After a year of developing a series of playful and colourful pieces, she founded Adé Studio. Andréa's original designs are a nod to her Beninese roots and a celebration of diversity in human bodies.  Infusing the Yoruba language by naming each pair of earrings.      

Air & Earth Design: Heidi von der Gathen

Heidi von der Gathen received a B.F.A., Sculpture, from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For ten years she taught, exhibited, and curated in the States, Canada, EU and Japan. She established a successful career in commercial post-production that culminated in a fruitful business partnership and Heidi's position of Partner/ Executive Producer. Inspired by years of travel, Heidi returned to personal creative practice in late 2016. Encouraged by word-of-mouth interest and subsequent sales, she founded Air & Earth Design in 2017. With Air & Earth Design, Heidi executes her work in precious metal clay. Tiny bits of recycled silver or gold are suspended in a clay base. Inspired by a recent technique from Japan, she fires these materials in a kiln at 1600F. The process leaves only metal behind, burning off each pieces clay binders. Heidi tears, molds, collages and cuts into the material before it is fired. The result is entirely unique. Hand crafted by the artist, each work varies in colour, pattern, size and weight.

Aitken and Hyde

Thomas Aitken and Kate Hyde work from their studio in the village of Warsaw, Ontario. They collaborate on ceramics that unite Thomas’s strong forms and Kate’s interest in colour and surface embellishment. Thomas holds a BFA in Ceramics from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Canada and Kate received her BA(Hons) in Textiles from Middlesex Polytechnic, Department of Art and Design, London, UK. They met during their Masters programs in Ceramics at the University of Wales Institute Cardiff, UK. Aitken and Hyde have participated in numerous annual juried shows, as well as solo and group exhibitions in Canada, Denmark, Australia, U.K, and U.S.A. They have also undertaken many private and public commissions.

Alana Marcoccia

Alana Marcoccia is an educator and multidisciplinary artist from the Greater Toronto area, Canada.  She discovered at a young age that creating art was part of her identity.  As a result she pursued studies in the arts.  In 2003, Alana completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio from Western University, Ontario with a focus on painting and video installation.  Events led her away from pursuing her own artwork.  However, she had opportunities to connect with art through her work in education.  In 2019, Alana took her first pottery class.  This reignited her creativity in the arts and from that moment, she immersed herself with a community of artists and creators.  Taking workshops and involving herself in mentorships, leading her to exhibit and sell her artworks.    

Alicia Niles

Alicia Niles was born in Venezuela, but calls Hamilton, ON, home. She pursued her education at John Abbott College, Mount Allison University, the Ontario College of Art and Design, and George Brown College. At Sheridan College, Alicia Niles pursued lampworking and bead-making and fell in love with glass. She then opened her Hamilton Studio in 2013 on Barton Street. Alicia divides her time between her own studio and exhibiting in shows across North America. She finds inspiration for her colorful jewelry designs in the natural world. Alicia delights in how light plays with glass, shining delicately through its smooth surfaces, or glowing warmly through its satiny finish. She also plays with texture and shape. For Alicia, jewelry should be lively, fun, and full of joy.

Alison Brannen

Alison Brannen is a Toronto-based artist who has been working in clay for 20 years. She is the recipient of three recent ceramic awards: the Anne Sneath Best in Show Award at the 2016 Hamilton and Region Juried Exhibition; the Tuckers Award of Merit at the 19th Toronto Potter’s Biennial in 2016; and the Best Non-Functional Award at the Burlington All-Guilds Show in 2017. Alison has exhibited at the Art Gallery of Burlington, Craft Ontario, Oeno Gallery, Todmorden Gallery, and Fusion Fireworks Exhibition. Brannen has presented workshops and lectured at St. Lawrence College Brockville, Fusion Clay and Glass Conference, the Art Gallery of Burlington Potters Guild, Mississauga Potters Guild, Pine Tree Potters, and Pleasant Pottery in Toronto. She taught ceramics at Rosedale Heights School of the Arts for 17 years. Brannen has an MFA in printmaking and photography from the University of New Mexico Albuquerque and a BFA in painting from York University. Alison creates sculptural works featuring textured surfaces that suggest disintegration, shedding, and falling away. Each piece records the marks of its firing and vary in colour, pattern, size, and weight.

Andrea Sinclair

Andrea Sinclair studied electrical engineering.  As well as acquiring certifications in coaching and nutrition. These seemingly disparate avenues lead to an interest in creativity and problem solving through the medium of ceramic. Previously she experimented with many art forms including silversmithing, textile arts, photography and so forth.  The common thread is the experimentation and a deep love of pattern and texture.  The inevitable cross-pollination lead her to new creative directions in the field of ceramics. Based in Toronto, she works out of a studio in the east end of the city for the last 20 plus years.  She continues to work and display in art galleries.  As well as been included in art tours such as the Bayview Art tour.

Andrea Vuletin

Andrea Vuletin is a graduate of OCAD University with a degree in Design. She has also studied ceramics at George Brown College. Vuletin's current body of work features functional vessels that engage the user in intimate and routine moments that go by without particular notice, but that follow daily patterns. Each person's patterns are a manifestation of their beliefs and habits, priorities that ultimately mould and shape us individually and as a culture. Andrea’s work consists of nature and fauna motifs. She applies an inlaid decoration technique, which involves carving designs onto ceramic surfaces then applying glaze for colouring. Handcrafted, all pieces will slightly vary in colour, pattern, size, and weight.

Aneela Dias-D'Sousa

Aneela Dias-D’Sousa established herself as a ceramic artist after graduating from the University of Mumbai with a BFA in Ceramics. After immigrating to Canada, she continued her education at Sheridan College as a mature student. Aneela currently lives and works in Pickering, Ontario, and has pursued residencies at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre and the International Ceramics Centre in Kecskemet, Hungary. The Creative Directions program has offered Aneela Dias D'Sousa the opportunity to analyze what truly inspires her and create objects that reflect these revelations. Aneela explores her long-standing interest in human connection and interaction through ceramics. In her porcelain Incubate Series, for example, Aneela creates functional ceramics that intend to inspire reflection on the ephemerality of the moment you are in and your connection with others.

Anne-Marie Chagnon

Multidisciplinary artist endowed with a bountiful imagination and trained at the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQÀM), Anne-Marie Chagnon explores materials instinctively. She invents, shapes and sculpts exclusive pieces, as prevailing as they are timeless. Her conviction: being your true self is remarkable. Chagnon creates original jewellery for women that distinguish themselves by their independence of spirit. The jewellery she creates indulges the desire of self-expression for the woman who chooses them. Her creations convey that energy which also emanates strongly from the women who wear them. Anne-Marie Chagnon shapes and sculpts original and exclusive pieces, as contemporary as they are timeless

Annie McDonald

Annie McDonald studied art, taught, and completed a BA (Honour's) degree in Cultural Theory at Trent University. Annie has creates ceramics in her studio near Brighton, Ontario. Learning the craft largely through trial, error, and research, she has attended workshops and participated in mentorship programs, broadening her skills. McDonald was awarded “Best in Clay” at the 2019 Fusion Clay and Glass Exhibit at Wychwood Barns in Toronto. Annie work at the expressive end of the art spectrum. She always look for some light, whether she is building a sculptural vessel or a figure. Annie McDonald strives to imbue meaning at each stage of the process. She start with a general concept, before printing on the clay with home-made slips, inks, and/or underglazes, then incorporate those components into the work. Glazes are applied to some pieces, then some of the parts are enhanced by smoke firing in a pit. Annie arrange and rearrange the forms, using a haptic sense in the construction of the characters and vessels.

Arlene Kushnir

Arlene Kushnir started her ceramic practice after completing her post graduate degree in the History of Art.  Enrolling herself full time in a ceramics program, as an edition attended evening classes to grow her skills.  Initially, she shared her studio with Gloria Richmond and upon her passing set up her own studio in the basement of her home. Arlene specializes in porcelain pottery and looks to the history of ceramic making.  She forms vessels on a wheel and plays with surface technique through carvings, glazes, and patterns.  She reflects the world we live in and our dependency on each other for needs and survival.  It is through our interconnections and cooperation that plays a crucial part in our lives. She has been based in Toronto for over 30 years and continues her practice at her home.          

Audrey Mah

Audrey Mah is a professional craftsperson and ceramic art educator. She received formal instruction at OCAD Univeristy and the University of Waterloo, where she earned Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts, as well as  specialized training at the Instituto Allende in Mexico. Mah has earned numerous grants and awards, including the Tequila Sauza Sculpture Award, Art Quest Award in Ceramics, and Ontario Arts Council grants. She has sold and exhibited her work in Los Angeles and Palm Springs, California; Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; and Toronto, Canada, among other major art centers. Audrey produces vessels that are inspired by geometry and form. Her work portrays a sense of elegance through its simplicity and symmetry. She achieves a wide range of forms and surface applications, including sgraffito, inlay, and airbrushing. Influenced by architecture, she presents a sleek and stylish ceramic construction. Audrey is constantly experimenting with various materials and techniques, and with each stage of her work, she advances. From geometric forms on the surface of her hollow cast bowls, to minimalist hand-built vessels, her exuded bowl forms are not just containers or receptacles; they are architecture. Mah currently lives and works in Toronto.

Bhavna Bhatnager

Bhavna Bhatnagar volunteered at the London art gallery as a corporate consultant. In addition, she furthered her passion for art by attending George Brown College where she graduated with a Diploma in ceramics. Today she resides in Mississauga and operates her own studio and has been an active member in the community. From participating in juried shows, giving workshops and successfully coordinating her own solo annual art exhibits, she continues to present her unique artwork throughout the community. Bhavna Bhatnagar strives to capture the beauty of nature, philosophy, and spirituality through a blend of Western and Indian ceramic hand-building techniques. She uses subtle textures, stamps, mixed-media details to create interesting combinations of 3D and 2D designs. Furthermore, she leverages colourful glazes and eye-catching patterns to unify and accent these textures and designs. Overall, Bhavna Bhatnagar draws heavy inspiration from textiles, philosophy, and her Indian background, combining traditional religious symbolism with Westernized abstract design principles.

Black Dog Publishing

Black Dog Publishing is a British book publisher produces a broad range of illustrated books that respond to and showcase developments in contemporary art and culture. Topics covered by Black Dog include architecture, art, craft, design, environment, fashion, film, music and photography.  Their books are produced in collaboration with international artists and organizations.  They work with longstanding distributors to supply them to bookshops, galleries and organizations worldwide.

Brenda Nieves

Brenda Nieves works in multiple mediums in her studio in the Mississauga Living Arts Centre. Trained as a fashion designer, Nieves now works in both mid-fire stoneware and high-fire porcelain. Brenda Nieves focuses on hand building, including coil, slab, slamming, forming, and carving and incorporating thrown elements. Her practice includes both additive and subtractive processes. Nieves' passion for colour is reflected in her use of multiple glazes and their exciting results. Brenda describes her work as expressing “an image of the natural world transformed in clay and glaze." Nieves' creative life is a composite formed by the life she has lived with fragments of memories, excursions north coloring the visions she has for her work. The power of the human spirit is mirrored in her representation of the power of water, rocks and growth. The impetus to create art full time is her desire to make life precious for both herself and those who engage in her work.

Broken Plates: Gillian Preston

Gillian Preston is the artist and founder of Broken Plates. She works out of Pittsburgh, PA, where she creates fine art in addition to her line of glass wearables. She studied glass at the Cleveland Institute of Art under Brent Kee Young with a strong emphasis on drawing, earning her BFA in glass. As a result of these dual interests, Preston combines the intimate qualities of hand drawn imagery with contemporary and traditional glass practices to bring light and character to her ideas and narratives. Her work has been recognized In New Glass Review 29 and 31 and is currently on exhibition in boutiques and galleries internationally. Preston's line of glass jewelry is called Broken Plates. These glass wearables are cut from the surface of hand blown glass. The process begins in a hot glass studio. Here, layers of bold, crisp colors are applied to molten glass and blown into a flat surface (or plate). This will serve as the canvas for the final products. The pieces are either infused with hand drawn imagery or left as a raw, organic surface. Each wearable is cut by hand or with the use of a CNC waterjet. Then, they get polished and fashioned into their final form. The name "Broken Plates" is a reference to the work’s origin. The result is a highly unique line of jewelry that transcends current trends and captures the stunning qualities of hand blown glass. This sculptural series of glass wearables is an excuse to experiment with new textures and materials. The pieces explore the more tactile experiences one might only have once deviating from a two dimensional format.  Each glasswork plays with form and light and interacts with the contours of the body. These translucent terrains use repetition to create their undulating forms while they refract the light and hug the body.

Bruce Cochrane

Bruce Cochrane is an internationally acclaimed ceramic artist and recently retired Professor of Ceramics at Sheridan College. In over 30 years of teaching, he was instrumental in developing the Ceramic Program’s national reputation. He is one of Canada’s pre-eminent ceramic artists, with work featured in international public and private collections. Cochrane's studies began at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and continued in Alfred, New York at the New York State College of Ceramics, where he received his Masters of Fine Art. Since graduating in 1978, he has participated in over 300 exhibitions. Cochrane continues to share his knowledge in lectures and workshops throughout North America. Cochrane's work can be found in the permanent collections of the Royal Ontario Museum and Gardiner Museum in Toronto; Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa; and Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England. Cochrane lives in Toronto and maintains his studio practice in Grey Highlands, Ontario.

Bruce Cochrane & Zsuzsa Monostory

The individual work of Bruce Cochrane reveals his ongoing interest in the structure of pottery form as it has evolved from a more traditional background. In contrast to previous work, clays gestural and plastic qualities have given way to a more hard edge and geometric solution. The wheel-forming process is used to construct these functional and sculptural vessels.  As well as the use of slabs of clay assembled into a set of intersecting planes and volumes to suggest architecture or geological formation. In opposition to the constructed vessels' formality, they are subjected to a wood-firing process at 2400°F, rendering an unpredictable atmospheric and random surface. The effects, rather than supporting the hard edge form, soften it with rich color and flame patterns. This contrast of form and surface intrigues and motivates me to explore further. Zsuzsa’s inspiration comes from architecture, nature and all things living. It is her background as a biologist that makes the human form, nature, and behaviour intriguing to her.  Human gesture and emotion are qualities she brings into ceramic figures. Some involve relationships of two or more individuals that express personal experience as well as fictitious interactions. The animals are exciting to sculpt. Equally important to the anatomical correctness is the understanding  about their way of life, social structure, and behaviour. These characteristics  can be built into the narrative. “As a biologist, environmental issues were always close to my heart. Becoming an artist made it easier for me to express my concerns in a different way."

Carol Nesbitt

Glass artist Carol Nesbitt creates original and functional designs, as well as one-of-a-kind sculptural pieces. Her work is inspired by nature and the beauty that surrounds us every day. Nesbitt is drawn to the fluidity of glass and its endless possibilities. Her appreciation for glass emerged during the “hot process”, when she creates a variety of organic forms, patterns, and colours. Surface texture and interior optics are given special attention with each piece she produces. Nesbitt studied glassblowing at Sheridan College’s School of Craft and Design, followed by a one-year independent study program. Her work has been shown in exhibitions and galleries across Canada and the United States, and is included in private collections in Canada, the United States, England, and Ireland.

Carolynn Bloomer

Carolynn Bloomer studied Fine Art at John Abbott College in the West Island of Montreal before attending OCAD University to focus on design and techniques related particularly to ceramics. Bloomer has been creating things from clay for more than thirty years, as well as teaching. Making well-designed functional ware, she captures the natural and luminescent finish of porcelain. Her work is in the collection of Scotiabank, and has been purchased by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. Her corporate commissions include Estée Lauder Canada. In 2016, Bloomer won “Best Ceramics” at the FUSION Association for Clay and Glass annual show.

Catharina Goldnau

Catharina Goldnau explores transitions, juxtaposing traditions, and materials in sculptural work that borders functionality. Born next to the Iron Curtain in Germany, she moved to Canada at the age of 19. After academic studies, four children and a teaching career, Catharina studied ceramics under Linda Sormin and Bruce Cochrane. She is an award-winning graduate with a BA in Craft and Design and a specialty in Ceramics from Sheridan College. Forming clay by hand complements the intellectual task of manipulating clay and glaze chemistry. Catharina Goldnau is compelled to innovate, exploring non-traditional ways to manipulate clays. Combining alternative materials with clay yields intriguing variations of form and unusual finish.  The effects of heat and fire play a pan-ultimate role in altering the piece, creating new forms and surfaces, tearing and splitting in the fire. Resins and textiles may complement sculptural pieces.

Catherine Thomas

Catherine Thomas uses clay, reclaimed wood, and found objects to create sculptural and functional objects that reflect the beauty and fragility of the urban and natural environments. She works almost exclusively in a reduction atmosphere with wood as the fuel to create complex surfaces. The scars, marks, and flaws on the surfaces of her pieces are a reference to our own lives. Catherine is an engineer by training and had studied with various clay and wood artists to develop her own vocabulary and story. Catherine's interest is in functional artwork, the mystery and language of everyday objects, and the ongoing process of creation and interpretation.  She brings a lifetime of storytelling to the making of her work. The sound of the sea, the rustle of aspen leaves in the wind, the flicker of fire inspire and compel the artist to build.

Chayle Jewellery

Chayle Bowen is the owner and designer behind Chayle Jewellery Studio. She is a Canadian artist based in Ottawa, Ontario with a BFA from NSCAD University specializing in jewellery, printmaking, and book arts. Her work as an artist goldsmith combines her passion for traditonal metalsmithing and minimalist design. The resulting pieces are graceful but bold, and emphasize the contours and negative spaces within the body. Comfort and wearability is always at the forefront of thought. Chayle Bowen ensures all materials are ethically mined and sustainably sourced. Gold and silver is sourced from a refinery which works towards sustainable practices by producing metal from 100% recycled sources. Clients can be assured that their jewellery is ethical and environmentally conscious.

Christy Chor

Christy Chor received her BA in Craft and Design from Sheridan College. She has participated in many local and international ceramic exhibitions in Canada, the United States, Hong Kong, and Serbia. Chor has received several academic and art scholarships. She was also recognized as an Emerging Ceramic Artist at the 2018 Fusion Clay and Glass Show in Toronto. Before immigrating to Canada from Hong Kong to study ceramics, she worked as a creative director and project manager. Nature is the fountain of Christy’s inspirations. The majesty of the landscape, the orchestra of wildlife and the experiences of life are all part of the “flow” of life. It is a pleasure to observe and capture the grace and poetry of nature.  The flow, tranquility, dynamic vitality of natural beings, moments of solidarity, heartfelt interactions between humans are the stimuli for her immersive imagination.

Cinelli Maillet

Jean-Sebastien Maillet studied jewellery design under the direction of Master Silversmith, Michet-Alain Forgue in Quebec City. While, native Torontonian Lisa Cinelli studied jewellery design in Florence. Lisa Cinelli and Jean Sebastien met in Toronto in 2002 and before long they knew they were a match and not only because their similar design aesthetic. Since then, they have created numerous jewellery classics, a cultish following and a family. Cinelli Maillet is a contemporary jewellery company committed to creating original designs and to producing high quality hand-made pieces. Together, Lisa Cinelli and Jean-Sebastien Maillet take form and inspiration from nature to create pieces that are sensual, tactile and wearable. Their style is both modern and timeless. It speaks for itself.

Colouring it Forward Inc.

Colouring It Forward is a social enterprise including a not-for-profit organization called CIF Reconciliation Society and a business called Colouring It Forward Inc. The purpose of the social enterprise is to advance education on Indigenous issues, art, language, and culture through a grassroots approach. CIF Reconciliation Society works in collaboration with organizations such as Kamotaan Consulting and Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society to deliver art-based workshops and events that provide education on Indigenous ways of knowing and promote healing and reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Diana Frost is the inspiration behind Colouring It Forward. Originally from Quebec, Frost spent her teenage years in Western Africa, which was an early awakening to different cultures and the difficulties of living in a developing country. Following that experience, she obtained a Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Sherbrooke with the intention of helping people to improve their standard of living by working on water and sanitation projects. Frost is an Algonquin Métis, an artist, and a musician. A percentage of the proceeds from the colouring books goes to the artists and elders, as well as community projects to generate jobs, and support small businesses and education programming.

Corey Moranis

Corey Moranis is a Canadian artist and designer specializing in Lucite jewellery. She studied in the Textile Department at OCAD University. Corey Moranis favours Lucite because of its capacity for colour, and its playful and mesmerizing light effects. Each necklace, ring, bracelet, and pair of earrings is a wearable art object, handcrafted with singular care and attention. Each lucite piece is hand crafted and hand shaped.  Uses a ring rod to shape the ring for sizing only. If you treat your piece with care, it will last forever.  The biggest concern with Lucite is scratching. To avoid scratching, try not to drop or crush your jewelry. Store your jewelry in a safe spot, away from direct sunlight. If you are traveling with your piece, protect it in your luggage by keeping it away from other hard objects.  It is natural for plastic to get a bit dirty overtime, fingerprints and smudges can accumulate on surfaces. If you notice your piece could be cleaned up, use water and a soft, non-fuzzing cloth. Do not use a glass cleaner.  Keep away from perfume.

Courtney Downman

Courtney Downman is a Canadian Glass Artist, Instructor, and current Artist-in-Residence at the Living Arts Centre glass studio in Mississauga, Ontario. She began working with glass in 2012 after enrolling in the Craft and Design program at Sheridan College.  After a year, she was hired as a teaching assistant to the glass program.  In 2016, Courtney was awarded a two year Artist-in-Residence fellowship at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga, Ontario.  After completing her Bachelors at Sheridan in Craft and Design, she returned to her residency at the Living Arts. She continues her glass practice and participates in shows and juried exhibitions including most recently the 2023 Carnegi Craft.

Cuir Ceramics: Alejandra Vera

Alejandra Vera is an interdisciplinary artist interested in art, craft, and design. She has a BFA from NSCAD University in Fine Arts, an MFA from the University of Barcelona, and a diploma in ceramics from Escola d’Art La Industrial in Spain. She is originally from Quito, Ecuador, and is currently based in Toronto. After training in painting and sculpture, she discovered ceramics later in her career, a medium that dramatically changed her artistic practice. Her current interest is to explore ceramic processes and techniques in a way that speaks to a broader interdisciplinary practice.

Danielle Skentzos

Danielle Skentzos lives in the fields of Oro-Medonte, Ontario. Her first career is in education and she earned degrees from the University of Western Ontario and Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. It was when she returned to Canada that she first experienced the feeling of clay smoothly turning through her hands on a pottery wheel. It was a curiosity that unearthed a feeling of home; of early years spent watching animals and acres grow and a youth of tending local gardens with friends. Danielle learned about ceramics from a variety of generous artists and time spent at the Haliburton School of Art. She founded Shiralee Pottery to share her work, inspired by the beauty found near home. Creative Directions has planted seeds of inspiration for new designs and built a community with others who appreciate the wonder of what our earth offers; clay.

DaNisha Sculpture: Dan and Nisha Ferguson

Composed of Dan and Nisha Ferguson, who met while attending the Art Centre of Central Technical School in Toronto, DaNisha is a delicate balance of two artistic souls working in tandem. They integrate their talents and ideas in order to bring objects of beauty into the world. Their pieces are expressions of joy and wonder to be shared by all who see them.

David Migwans

David Migwans is a contemporary artist based on Manitoulin Island, Ontario. His works include ceramics, paintings, and carved sculptures based on contemporary and traditional Ojibwe art styles. He received an Honours in Fine Art at Cambrian College. David Migwans was a Jury Member of Craft Projects with the Ontario Art Council, and led the Whisper of Spirit Artist Symposium with the Canada Council for the Arts. He has published articles for Akewekon Literary Journal and FUSION Magazine, and held numerous exhibitions throughout Canada. His works can be seen at Whetung Art Gallery, Serpent River Trading Post, Canadian Guild of Craft, and Indian Hills Gallery.

Days of August: Marie-Pier

Marie-Pier was born in Montreal, Canada.  After completing a Bachelors in Fine Arts and a major in cinematography, she moved to Australia in 2004.  She worked in the camera department on feature films for a decade before starting her own jewellery brand after finishing silversmithing classes at the Jam Factory in Adelaide. Days of August was founded in 2011.  The signature look comes from unconventional use of industrial grade stainless steel.  It is a metal not typically used to make jewellery.  This meant reinventing and adapting traditional fabrication techniques to accomodate its solidity and strength. The stainless steel perfectly compliments Marie-Pier's design style.  It is  minimal and simple. These architectural and contemporary statement pieces are timeless and combines clean lines and composition that is wearable throughout all seasons. With a focus on sustainability, Marie-Pier put in place eco-friendly practices from the start, parnering with Ecologi to offset her environmental footprint.  Making Days of August a 100% carbon neutral business.

Dconstruct: Lisa and Sean Reico

Dconstruct is formed by Lisa and Sean Reico who are are Winnipeg, Manitoba based artists. They are inspired by their love for, and interest in, minimalist design and modern architecture. Together, their mission is to innovate through their use of unique elements, and to support the community at large by using eco-friendly materials such as 40% recycled resins, which incorporate organic materials and hand woven weaves developed by skilled artisans in diverse regions around the world. Although Lisa and Sean have no formal training in the fine arts, their respective decade long interest and passion for architecture and design inspired them to start Dconstruct jewelry.

Debra Sloan

Debra Sloan first took pottery classes when she was 16 leading her to a lifetime working with clay. After traveling for a year from 1972, she started in a self-directed apprenticeship from 1973 to 1979 where she managed a pottery school. She then attended the Vancouver School of Art from 1979 to 1982, and later attained her BFA from ECUAD in 2005. By the mid 1980’s, she started a family and now has four adult children and five grandchildren. Throughout the decades, she maintained a studio practice, taught clay sculpture classes, served on provincial craft boards, adjudicated, presented talks, published essays on ceramics, and has been collecting and writing about the 100-year ceramic history in BC. Debra’s work is exhibited and held in collections, regionally, nationally, and internationally. She has received provincial, national and international grants and awards, and attended international residencies, including most recently, in 2019, a residency at Shigaraki, Japan, supported by a Canada Council grant. Emerging from the Covid-years, in 2022 she participated in a collaboration with the Craft Council of BC (CCBC) and the Joe Ink Dance Company for a successful theatrical Dance/Craft production. Additionally very significantly, during 2022, the CCBC digitized her BC Ceramic Mark Registry, Debra’s compilation of over 500 BC ceramic marks, along with artist profiles. Debra Sloan has served as President of the North-West Ceramics Foundation since 2018, which in 2023 will celebrate its 30th anniversary.

Eekta Trienekens

Eekta Trienekens grew up in the Netherlands and lived in the medieval cities of Amersfoort and Leiden before moving to Canada a little over a decade ago. Her mother is from Punjab, India, and Eekta spent many seasons there for extended visits with her grandparents. The extreme contrast between these two worlds is a strong influence in her work, oscillating between a sense of belonging and otherness. She has a degree in Arts Education (Utrecht) and South Asian Studies (Leiden). Though Eekta works in a variety of materials, ceramics has been her main artistic practice since 2015. Since fall 2015, she has been spending most of her available time in the potters studio. She's so grateful to have this opportunity as a member of the wonderful community of the Waterloo Potters Workshop. Each and every day she am learning and enjoying the many processes and techniques that come with working with clay. ​

Eiko Maeda

Eiko Maeda graduated from Joshibi University of Art and Design in Tokyo, Japan. She is currently based in Woodbridge, Ontario. Maeda trained in ceramics at the Visual Arts Center in Montreal, and learned nerikomi (a traditional Japanese hand-building technique) under Eiji Murofushi in Fuji, Japan. In nerikomi, coloured clay is stacked together and sliced through in cross-sections to form small blocks. These blocks are then carefully pressed together to create repeating patterns and sliced into thin slabs. The slabs are draped over uniquely carved plaster molds to form vessel forms. The focus of Eiko Maeda's work is creating contemporary designs using traditional methods and forms of Japanese ceramics. Having been raised in Japan, she says, "my culture is an integral part of who I am and how I approach my work. Through my art, I strive to express the elegance, delicacy, and modesty of Japanese culture."

Enarmoured: Jordan Clarke

Enarmoured is handcrafted fine art jewellery created by artist Jordan Clarke in Toronto, Ontario. Working with brass and silver, Jordan creates bold, elegant, and timeless pieces of small-batch jewellery. Her background in Fine Art informs Jordan’s approach to design. Inspired by ancient armour, her collection explores the idea of protective adornment as both feminine and elegant. Starting with a brass or silver sheet, each piece is hand cut, filed, pierced, sanded, and surface finished using various techniques and finally assembled. With a process that is entirely hands-on, Jordan uses hand tools the traditional way without relying on large equipment to do the work. Each piece of jewellery, from the initial sketch to completion, is formed lovingly by hand. Each piece of jewellery, from the initial sketch to completion, is formed lovingly by hand. Using both traditional and innovative jewellery-making techniques, Jordan creates unique pieces of wearable art.

Enas Satir

Enas Satir is a Sudanese multidisciplinary artist living in Toronto, Ontario. She works with ceramics, illustrations, video making, storytelling and photography. Her art is focused on political art, issues of race, blackness and African identity. Taking inspiration from the beauty and complexity of her country, Sudan. Enas started their career as an architect after graduating from the University of Khartoum, Faculty of Architecture in 2007. Working as an architect for 5 years gave her the start to creative thinking, focusing on 3D rendering, leading to graphic design.  Obtaining a Master's degree in graphic design in Florence, Italy in 2013, she started to explore with mixed media and ceramics.  She continues her practice experimenting with different mediums and designs.

Farheen Ali

Farheen Ali is a Toronto-based illustrator and jewellery artist. A medical illustrator by profession, Farheen has always been intrigued by organic forms and colors that exist in nature. Her training in landscape watercolour and Japanese sumi-e painting has inspired her to pay careful attention to and capture natural shapes in her artwork. Six years ago, she started to experiment with wire wrapped jewelry and discovered that she could create organic shapes and forms not just on a flat surface but in 3D as well. She now works with a palette of unique beads and found objects to create wearable pieces of art. Farheen’s works consist mostly of stainless steel and copper wire-wrapped statement necklaces, pendants and earrings. These utilize upcycled materials mixed with raw stones, Swarovski crystals and pearls. Each piece is one-of-a-kind and tells its own story depending on the where the different elements that create it have come from. When starting to build a statement necklace, Farheen Ali starts by selecting a unique bead or stone, which will become the focal point of the piece. Then using steel wire, wire cutters, pliers and dremel she drills holes and wraps a variety of other complementary beads and crystals one by one, building the necklace on a dress form, similar to as one builds a painting, stroke by stroke. Color and composition play an important role and as the piece grows. Adding different tints and textures results in creating balance and movement to the necklace, until the piece is complete.

Florence Chik-Lau

Florence Chik-Lau graduated from the Ontario College of Art, working as a graphic designer in Toronto for many years. Clay became her primary artistic medium after relocating to Prince Edward County, Ontario. Since then, Florence's sculptures have been selected to participate in many prestigious juried shows including Fireworks, McMichael Fall Art Sale, and the Animal Stories Show at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art. Florence Chik-Lau's work celebrates the special affinity between human and animal as well as the beauty that exists in all creatures. She strives to capture the character as well as the spirit of my animal subjects while exploring a broad range of universal emotions such as love, friendship, tolerance, loneliness and sadness. Beneath the gentle and beguiling animal exterior, deeper emotions and meaning are hopefully captured in the subject's gesture and expression. Florence Chik-Lau uses a very organic process of creating. The element of chance are allowed to influence the posture and the attitude of the finished sculpture. All her work is completely created by hand with slabs of clay and finished with many thin layers of ceramic stains and a touch of clear glaze. They are fired at least twice in a kiln. The surface of the sculpture is sometimes smooth, and sometimes highly textured. Each piece is unique and no two are exactly alike. Some of her recent works are anthropomorphic in nature. Whether they are true to life or hybrid, the animals are always portrayed with warmth, humour and dignity.

François Grenier

François Grenier started working and studying ceramics in 2016 while still living in Vancouver. The medium captivated him early on, and he steadily acquired knowledge in the application of form and surface treatment. Moving five years ago to be closer to someone he cares for and whom inspired him to work with the medium of clay, he is now settled in Chatham, a small town located in the Southwestern part of Ontario. Aside from his Artichoke Series dishware set, François Grenier now focus on abstract non-functional vessels and figurative sculptures. His work is influenced by the great American ceramists’ sculptural works of the mid-twentieth century: Price, Mason, Voulkos and De Staebler. Grenier believes these artists took ceramics to an entirely new level, the fine arts. They guide his technical evolution and inspire him to break away toward an unexplored mode of expression.

Giftologie: Teresa Schaubel

As a third-generation business owner, it is in Teresa Schaubel's blood to connect people with things. From her first business selling fruits and vegetables from her family's garden at age six, she knew this is what she wanted to do. Teresa Schaubel now owns a successful trophy and awards business, Custom Images Sales. In 2015, she indulged my creative side and repurposed the materials that were once used for plaques, medals and trophies to create unique cuffs and necklaces with meaningful messages. Teresa Schaubel is passionate about creating inspirational jewelry that will encourage the wearer to feel empowered. A portion of the proceeds from each sale supports women’s initiatives locally and globally.

Gordon Boyd

Gordon Boyd was born and raised in Northern Manitoba, growing up inspired by the colours of the landscape around him, he began painting and drawing at a young age. After being introduced to glass in 2015, he moved to Ontario to study the craft. While completing his Bachelors of Craft and Design at Sheridan College, Gordon worked in a variety of studios learning how to care for and build the equipment. He used his free time to continue his exploration of glass. Currently Gordon Boyd is working as an artist-in-residence at the Living Art Centre in Mississauga. Here he refines his craft and is preparing to return to Manitoba to open his own studio which began construction in mid-2020.

Gracia Isabel Gomez

Originally from Mexico City, Gracia Isabel Gomez graduated with honours from the Ceramics Program at Sheridan College in 2016. Her work has been exhibited locally and internationally. She has participated in various workshops and mentorship programs, and currently works as a ceramic artist and instructor in the Greater Toronto Area. Gracia Isabel Gomez draws inspiration from mythology and her own dream world. She uses clay to express the hybrid traditions of her country. She is also interested in exploring themes related to colonialism. Using cultural symbols and traditions, she aims to help heal the wounds from the past. Her interpretation of the creative process as a continuum, forces herto explore utility, artistic expression and multiple techniques in the objects I make.

Gwen Friedman

Gwen Friedman was raised in Zimbabwe in southern Africa. Here she developed an early appreciation for earthy, African vessels, designed for daily use. Trained at the Kim Sacks School of Ceramics in Johannesburg, South Africa, this aesthetic strongly influences her work, expressed through subtle, natural hues, and surfaces of unglazed ‘naked’ clay. Continuing her studies through ceramics courses in Toronto, Friedman works from her downtown Toronto studio producing minimalist ceramic art that balances form and function. Her work includes both thrown and hand built vessels. The outside of her pieces are left unglazed, to evoke the tactile texture of natural clay. Her work is decorated with a fluid simplicity, using a soft palette of coloured clays and slips.  The interior of her pieces are glazed, to ensure they are food safe.

Hannah Faas

Hannah Faas was born, raised, and based out of Hamilton, Ontario. Hannah is a sculptural ceramic artist and graduated from the Ceramics Program at Sheridan College in 2022. Growing up, ceramics were cherished household objects that held deep personal meaning and served as tokens of family memories and experiences in Hannah's home. Hannah’s work now explores how we all become who we are over time by slowly collecting and containing memories and experiences over the course of our lives. Prior to attending Sheridan, Hannah Faas obtained a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in accounting, in 2016 from the University of Guelph and worked as a public accountant and auditor for two years.

Hannun Lyn

Hannun Lyn is a graduate of Sheridan College’s renowned Craft & Design School of Ceramics. Hannun’s works are exhibited at The Gardiner Museum Shop, The Aga Khan Museum Shop and The Canadian Contemporary Craft Shop at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, Shane Norrie Gallery in Stratford, Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo, the Burlington Art Centre in Burlington, and the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Hannun's works are a reflection on the real gratitudes and necessities of life. They are aimed to bring a renewal of joy and spirit to our lives, and bring happiness to everyday rituals. Hannun continues to experiment, test, and learn in all of her works. When not exploring new ideas, they work as an instructor at the Gardiner Museum and the JCC in Toronto.

Henderson Dry Goods: Alex Henderson

Henderson Dry Goods is a company founded by Alex Henderson, a Port Moody, British Columbia-based industrial designer and artist. Born in Calgary and raised in Saskatoon, Henderson moved to Vancouver in 2000 and began her post-secondary education in the Fine Arts program at Langara College before entering Emily Carr’s Industrial Design program. In 2008, she established Henderson Dry Goods. Working from her home studio, Henderson designs and manufactures small home decor items, most notably a line of  popular Christmas ornaments, in small batch runs. Her pieces are playful, nostalgic, and quirky. She draws on a personal iconography that reflects her upbringing on the Canadian prairies and her current surroundings in the awe-inspiring landscapes of British Columbia. Henderson Dry Goods by Alex Henderson is proud to describe their work as "Canadiana."

Here and Here: Amy Rogers

Amy Rogers designs accessories for people and their spaces. While her hands are constantly making, her concepts and inspiration are wide-ranging and the results are just as varied, from fine art to finely-crafted jewellery. Amy studied Fiber Arts at the Kansas City Art Institute and Mixed Media at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She also spent 10 years working in the New York fashion industry. Amy sells her unique jewellery under the name Here and Here, a nod to the connections she holds to the many cities she has lived in. Amy's most recent pieces are the result of intuitively working with clay, often combined with leather and fiber accents. Amy aims to create pieces that are bold and joyful, with designs that are playful and even anti-serious.

Hiroshi Yamamoto

Born in Shiga-prefecture, Japan, Hiroshi Yamamoto graduated Kyoto Industrial Design Institute and Kyoto Japanese Art School. Here he studied traditional arts and history, including Nihonga and Sumi-e style painting. He studied under Mr. Rokuro Yamamoto, a specialist in Nihonga, and is deeply influenced by the works of Tohaku Hasegawa, an artist from the 16th century. Hiroshi’s work has received awards in the graphic art field in Japan, USA and Canada. Hiroshi Yamamoto had over 20 individual exhibitions, in both Japan and Canada. While the growing city is surrounded by high-rises and modern architecture, his art portrays the range of aesthetics in the cityscape.  Each piece captures the everyday vignettes of the city that is enveloped by nature, colour, and life.  He also depict moments of calm in the city, a place that is often imagined as busy and stressful.

Humade

Humade is a company founded by sisters Gieke and Lotte in Amsterdam, Netherlands. They strive to create products that are made specifically for the customer and their character. Using unorthodox material and techniques, they offer simplicity and keep the essence of design. Sharing a passion and true dedication they find balance between man, product and space.

IMPAPER

We are more than just a brand, we’re a social movement. Behind our brand we’re a young group of motivated and ambitious change makers. By purchasing our products, you’re supporting a better today, a better tomorrow and a better life for someone. For every product purchased, IMPAPER (Impact Paper) will make a contribution to a specific cause to help improve the lives of others. We give annually through local and international non-profit organizations such as UNICEF, Trees for the Future, Feeding America, the Global Family Foundation and more. We aim to empower our customers to create a better future for those in need. Our priority is to make the world a better place and play our part in solving global problems. IMPAPER ventures to bring creative and originally designed gift & stationary products that make a difference. All of our products are designed and made in-house in Alberta, Canada since 2015. We aim to bring forth a line of products that reach out to our customers whether it be through inspiration or amusement. Thank you for joining us and helping us make an impact. We look forward to working with you for years to come!

Jack Bush

Jack Hamilton Bush was a successful Canadian painter.  The artist was born in Toronto, March 20, 1909 and passed in Toronto, January 24, 1977. He devoted his artistic self in his early years to landscape and figurative work. In the late 1940’s, Bush started experimenting with abstraction and in 1953 was one of the founding members of Painters Eleven. Jack Bush went on to become one of the finest Color Field artists of all time and enjoyed a substantial international reputation that continues to this day. His paintings are cherished by Private Collectors and major Gallery Collections worldwide. JACK celebrates his and other influential Canadian artists’ art.

Jacquie Blondin

Jacquie Blondin studied Art & Art History at McMaster University with a focus in Drawing and Sculpture. Her passion for clay ignited while teaching overseas in the Dominican Republic where she was introduced to ceramics in tourism and community clay cultures. She has been actively involved in the GTA ceramic community since 2013 and dedicates her time to learning, practicing and producing both functional tableware and ceramic sculpture. Jacquie presently lives and works in Mississauga, Ontario. Jacquie Blondin is interested in creating complex designs on simple forms with opposing tensions and surfaces. Her soft slab functional tableware focuses on presentation and containment and includes cups, mugs, saucers, bowls, platters and other serving dishes as well as hand carved pedestal bowls. These pieces are intended to delight the senses with a poppy pod motif, which can be seen and felt while enjoying your favorite foods and tonics. The floral theme allows you to celebrate the joy and hope of spring throughout the all seasons.

James Wardhaugh

James Wardhaugh was born in Edmonton in 1986. Growing up in the Ottawa area he first attended post secondary education at the Haliburton School of Art + Design for art fundamentals, and then glass. He then attended the craft and design program at Sheridan College where he majored in glass. After graduating, he stayed on one extra year working at a teaching assistant. He then went on to work for several glass studies including Tsunami Glassworks, the Jeff Goodman studio, and the Living Arts Center. He also worked with many other independent artists. James Wardhaugh uses glass color and form to create works that have an elemental feel to them. James is inspired by the natural beauty of the world as well as chemical properties and reactions. His work can be found in galleries across Canada.

Jane Wilson

After graduating from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario Jane Wilson studied ceramics in the Design Program at Georgian College, Barrie, Ontario and later at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Banff, Alberta. Since 1981, her work has been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and the United States. Jane Wilson presently lives and works from her studio in the country near the village of Millbrook. “I think of clay as a touchstone, linking different worlds and traditions.  Making pots is an encounter with these worlds and a way of connecting with areas of experience, which are larger than oneself. From the beginning of pot making, it seems to me that the potter’s task has been to find a unity between form and surface.  My relationship to the integration of form and surface is the thread that binds the different aspects of my work together and continues to be my greatest pleasure and challenge as a potter.”

Janet Macpherson

Accomplished artist, Janet Macpherson, uses her Catholic upbringing to inform her works. She is inspired by religious tradition including illuminated manuscripts, depictions of martyred saints, as well as medieval woodcuts. Her work lays out a fascination with all sorts of creatures, too. Often, Macpherson’s pieces play with animal-human hybrids, monsters and themes of the grotesque. Her ceramic works sometimes bare striking gold markings and always have the feeling of being something quite precious if but peculiar. Janet Macpherson earned her Bachelor degree in philosophy from York University, and studied ceramics at Sheridan College. She holds an MFA from The Ohio State University. She has been the recipient of a research grant from The Canada Council for the Arts, the 2013 Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics, and the RBC Emerging Artists Studio Set-up Award presented by Craft Ontario. Janet currently lives and works in Toronto.

Japneet Kaur

Japneet Kaur graduated from Chandigarh College of Art in India in 2003. Born and raised in Punjab, she moved to Toronto in 2006, and has since been telling her tiny stories through pottery, drawing, painting, and animation. Japneet's works evoke stories of home, and places of comfort and solace to nurture the spirit. With each piece of pottery, they are hand sculpted and individually illustrated to reflect these ideas. Earth, the progenitor of clay, is the ultimate alchemist that folds within it the circles of life. From it, sprouts spring from hard shelled seeds, nurturing from them lush forests and coaxing forth hope.

Jeff Pratt Pottery: Jeff Pratt

Jeff Pratt graduated in Fine Art from the University of Guelph in 1980. He has worked in many media including painting, sculpture and print making.  For the past several years he has been making pottery out of his studio in Collingwood, Ontario and continues to make various works of art.    

Jess Riva Cooper

Jess Riva Cooper is an artist and educator based in Toronto, integrating colour, drawing, clay and numerous other materials to create sculptures and installation-based artworks. In many of Cooper’s sculptures the world sprouts plant matter. Colour and form burst forth from quiet gardens and bring chaos to ordered spaces. Nature undergoes a reclamation process by creeping over structures, subverting past states and creating a preternatural transformation. Cooper received her BFA from NSCAD and her MFA in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design. She widely exhibits her work and has participated in numerous artist residencies such as Medalta (Alberta), The Archie Bray Foundation (Montana), and The Kohler Arts/Industry Program (Wisconsin).

Jing Han Yang

Jing Han Yang is a multidisciplinary artist whose work aims to obscure familiar environments and objects. Yang is inspired by the simultaneousbanality and visual maximalism of commercial media. Many of their works look at themes of interpersonal relationships and bodily autonomy. Clay and printmaking figure as natural mediums for Yang to communicate their ideas. They feel clay can be plastic yet rigid, capturing both the permanence of an environment or object and the impermanence of memory. Printmaking, for Yang, is about replicating symbols, shapes, and ideas and therefore an appropriate medium to use in an investigation of commercialism. Their work has been exhibited at Visual Arts Mississauga, Sheridan College, and the Art Museum. Yang will be pursuing a Master of Fine Arts from Jingdezhen Ceramic University in September of 2023. "I am an artist as much as I am an educator. I am interested in creating work that inspires and drives people to create their own work. I want to encourage people to understand material and texture and to be closer to the objects they interact with every day. I enjoy playing with new forms of media and employing the elements of printmaking to them. I am experimenting with shifting wide-held perspectives on what is commonplace and reconsidering them as spectacular."

Jocelyn Jenkins

Jocelyn Jenkins studied Mechanical Engineering and received a Diploma and Masters in International Development. After returning from working in Nepal with UNICEF she found herself towards working with clay and began making her living as a ceramicist. Presently she divides her time by working on her own projects while running a studio facility teaching adults and children community programs. Sgraffito is the preferred surface decoration technique for Jocelyn Jenkins. She says, "It allows me to pluck images from my daily life and to move back and forth across the blurry line that divides pure decoration from narration. I hand build as well throw work in order to have more control over the forms which I can carve into.  The interplay between the form, and the sgraffito decoration is the most satisfying part of the making process. It also has a pronounced impact on the nature of the completed work, as the narrative is interpreted by the user."

John Ikeda

In 1971, John Ikeda established a studio pottery in Lethbridge, Alberta shortly after graduation from the University of Lethbridge, with a BA in Fine Arts.  Creating functional pottery and sculpture in high-fired stoneware and porcelain in his studio in 1978, he moved east and established his current studio in St. Bernardin, Ontario. Set in a rural setting close to nature, the adventure of acquiring unfamiliar practical skills of carpentry, plumbing, electrical mechanics, arboriculture horticulture, and firewood processing is a challenge for the artist.  However, it is rewarding for the goal of self-reliance and seeking a meaningful personal integration in the creation of a life and of art.

Jon De Porter

The career of Jon De Porter has been shaped by his ability to evolve to adapt to the ever-changing nature of the Canadian fashion/retail scene. Recognised for the chic aesthetic of his elevated classic taste, Jon De Porter was a finalist for the CAFA 2015 and 2017 Swarovski award for emerging talent in accessory design for his line of pearl jewellery sold at Holt Renfrew Ogilvy, Indigo.ca and other international retailers from New York to Germany. ​Since 2012, pearls have been at the heart of all my jewelry collections. Their natural beauty and timelessness has fascinated me since I discovered them during a trip to China. Every season, I source new materials, new pearl shapes and colours to create pieces that are fresh and easy to wear.

Jordan Scott

Jordan Scott is a London, Ontario-based potter and a graduate of the Sheridan College Ceramics Program.  His work is an amalgamation of curiosities and sensitive material awareness, with strong anthropological connections.  He experiments with how things are discovered, catalogued, restored, curated, put on display, observed, and put into storage, where the process is later repeated from a new perspective. Because of a series of conversations with Harlan House, Jordan decided to make his own clay and glazes from scratch in small studio at the London Clay Art Centre. He has been exploring the not yet popularized temperature range of Cone2. This arrangement encourages thoughtful making and requires clever solutions to new problems he’d yet to anticipate. The move to the lower temperature was a reaction to the realization that his previous higher temperature explorations were an unsustainable way for him to make his work. His recent curiosities are about learning how layering bright colourful materials impact the form and brighten the space around an object.

Julie Moon

Julie Moon is a Toronto-based ceramic artist. Her practice is deeply rooting in the process of making, allowing her to connect with things and ideas which manifest in her work. The results are varied, ranging from figurative and abstract sculpture to functional pottery and accessories. Julie Moon received her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2010.  She has exhibited extensively in Toronto and the US since graduating from the Material Art and Design Program at OCADU in 2005.  Recent exhibition venues include Birch Contemporary in Toronto,  Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, Toronto International Art Fair and The Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana.

Karen Bishop

Karen Bishop was born in Cheltenham, England, and moved to Canada in the winter of 1992. She discovered a passion for painting shortly after her arrival in Canada and later graduated from the University of Alberta's Extension centre with a Fine Arts certificate. She has been a professional artist for more than 15 years. For Karen art is an escape from the everyday, a chance to experience the earth more fully, a chance to breathe and know that all is well. In 1996 Karen moved to Edmonton, Alberta, and still resides there, and has been pursuing their art full time since 2007.

Karin Pavey

Karin Pavey has been a ceramic instructor for many years at the Gardiner Museum. She began her ceramic studies in Sweden and is a graduate of both Sheridan College and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), where she received a BFA. In addition, Karin Pavey has taught at Sheridan College and the ROM, and is currently an art educator for the Toronto District School Board. Through in-class demonstrations and dialogue, she strives to encourage a passion for making objects out of clay. Karin is an established and respected Canadian potter whose colourful tableware has been exhibited in North America and Europe. She creates her work in her Bloor West studio. She has been the recipient of many awards and honours, including grants from the Ontario Arts Council, and her work has been showcased extensively in both public and private collections.

Karla Rivera

Karla Rivera is a ceramic artist born and raised in Mexico City. She listened to her artistic voice and got involved in the world of ceramics, obtaining a Bachelor degree of Craft and Design in Ceramics from Sheridan College in 2021. She currently resides in Hamilton, Ontario where she continues her studio practice. Karla Rivera's work consists of both functional and sculptural ceramics. She is interested in the forms that make the connections between the structures of nature. These include ideas such as the shape of an island and the emotional states of the human mind. From these ideas, she tries to interpret and project them.

Kathy Kranias

Kathy Kranias is a Toronto based artist. Her ceramic sculptures are represented in the Global Affairs Canada Visual Art Collection (AWBZ), and the international exhibition A New Light: Canadian Women Artists at the Canadian Embassy Art Gallery, Washington D.C.  She has also  presented in solo exhibitions.  This includes David Kaye Gallery in Toronto, Canada and the Art Gallery of Peterborough, Canada.  Additionally, Kathy has exhibited in twenty regional and international juried exhibitions with six accompanying catalogue publications. From 1990 to 1998 Kathy was a visual arts teacher with the Toronto District School Board.  In 2004 to 2012 she was a studio faculty in the Craft and Design Program at Sheridan College.  She has lectured and published essays, reviews and articles on Canadian Art and Craft in The Journal of Modern Craft, Studio Magazine, and The Journal of Canadian Art History, among others. She holds a BFA from Concordia University, and a BEd in Visual Arts from University of Toronto.  As well, she holds a MA from York University, where she was awarded the SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship.

Katie Lemieux

Sculptor and illustrator Katie Lemieux was born in Thunder Bay Ontario. Katie began working as an illustrator and graphic designer and after living in Toronto for a short time, transitioned into the Fine Arts at Lakehead University. She received her MFA at UWM Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA and lives in Thunder Bay working as an artist in her home studio. Katie’s work focuses largely on the nuances of kinesics, or nonverbal communication. Her part time work as a Personal Support Worker fuels her interest in authentic exchange and the subtleties of expression that follow. She began her career in fine arts after journeying to Jingdezhen, China. Considered to be the porcelain capital of the world, Katie became fascinated by the nuances of this rare, filtered earth and its similarities to the flesh of our own bodies. Katie Lemieux now makes work that comments on the subtleties of communication.

Katja van den Enden

Katja van den Enden is a German-born, experimental, abstract artist living and working in Newmarket, Ontario. Her practice ranges from mixed media paintings to sculpture. She has worked professionally and exhibited her work in public and private galleries for the past 15 years, including Gallery 1313, Orillia Museum of Art and History, Aurora Cultural Centre, Latcham Art Gallery, the McKay Art Centre, Propeller Gallery, John B. Aird Gallery, and the Art Gallery of Mississauga. Katja van den Enden is a three-time Exhibition Assistance Grant recipient from the Ontario Art Council (2016/ 2017/2018). In 2018, she was awarded a residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point. Katja has received awards from the Orillia Museum of Art and History, the Art Gallery of Mississauga, and the Latcham Gallery.

Kayo O’Young

Since 1971 Kayo O’Young has taught extensively in Toronto, at John Abbott College, Montreal, and held workshops throughout Ontario and in Alberta. He has been involved with numerous shows and exhibitions throughout Ontario, Manitoba, Quebec, British Columbia and New Brunswick. Kayo exhibited in White on White, a touring exhibition of contemporary Canadian ceramics. His commissions include External Affairs, Ottawa (Canada’s gift to visiting Heads of Governments), art galleries and various private and corporate collections. He has been the subject of two films; “The Hand and the Spirit” for T.V. Ontario in 1992 and “Playing with the Fire” for CBC Arts & Entertainment in 1993. Kayo O’Young has had numerous solo shows at the Gardiner Museum Shop and continues to work at his studio. Ceramic. Please handle items with care. Please do not use in microwave and oven.

Keenan O'Toole

Keenan O’Toole is a graduate of Sheridan College Craft and Design program. She also completed her Post Baccuelerate from Alberta University of the Arts. Currently based in Toronto she teaches pottery classes at Clay Art Studios and has opened up her own private studio in the Junction. You can find her taking on commissions for local restaurants and selling her work at a variety of markets in the city. The work of Keenan O'Toole investigates the contemporary decorative object with traditional building methods. Focusing on form and function using familiar objects, like a pot or vessel -- creating a dream vessel that bridges a collaboration of a plan, process and improvisation.

Kerri Jerome

Kerri Jerome’s work is inspired by that which is witnessed in nature and as an artist she translates those messages into pieces that complement the organic properties and materiality of clay. Through the utilization of skilled techniques, including sgraffito, painting and sculpture, Kerri is able to bring her artistic vision and unique designs to life. Motivated by a lifetime of environmental activism and a deep interest in how one relates to all natural elements, her work  encourages the viewer to consider the messages within. In creating each piece, she tells a lighthearted story of the importance of environmental stewardship. Although her introduction to clay began while working in a wholesale slip-cast studio, Kerri’s preference for the medium revealed itself at a young age.  As a youth she received a post-secondary diploma in painting and illustration and continued her studies for several years under the tutelage of other accomplished potters and artists in order to perfect her craft. Further experience has led her to roles as an assistant artist, community arts program teacher, and clay educator. Her work is exhibited at the Gardiner Museum Shop in Toronto and she has been selected to present in several juried shows and festivals throughout the province of Ontario. ​

Kim McCann

Kim McCann is an illustrator currently residing in Oshawa.  After winning her first art contest as a young child she knew she wanted to be an Artist.  She studied at George Brown College in graphic design and advertising. Leading her to work for years as a commercial artist.  This includes being the head artist at The Toronto Stock Exchange creating artworks for exchange and brokerage firms.  Kim eventually started freelancing and over the years has taught group sessions and private art classes to both adults and children in various mediums. Kim's inspiration comes from the talented artists within her family. Distantly related to Lawren Harris from the group of Seven.  Her preferred subjects range from animals, to flowers to buildings.  

Kim Ross

Oakville artist Kim Ross is a graduate of ceramics at Sheridan College. She has exhibited in Come Up To My Room (2020), Gladstone Hotel, Fusion’s Breakthrough (2018), and The Elora Sculpture Project (2019). She was awarded honorable mention in ceramics at the 2019 Toronto Outdoor Art Fair. Inspiration for their work comes from many places. The long history of ceramics offers an abundance of knowledge to draw from and lets both Kim and the viewer ponder the greater world in which ceramics is a part of. Landscape and nature have also played muse to their work. The materiality of the clay itself, with its ability to mimic other materials and its intrinsic weaknesses and strengths, can feed the development of certain pieces. The work can be thrown and altered, moulded or hand-crafted, but they are always incorporating tactility and the idea of movement into the piece.

Kirsti Smith

Kirsti Smith is originally from Ontario and has spent a lot of her life moving from city to city. She received her education from Sheridan College and NSCAD majoring in ceramics. Kirsti uses a series of different mediums including paint, ceramics, and textiles to create a compelling combination of textures and colours in her work. She fabricates narratives and characters inspired by her own emotions and the people around her. She is currently based in Peterborough, Ontario and continues to create both sculptural and functional works of art.  

Kormar

Trained at George Brown College, Toronto-based maker Korinna Azreiq is the designer behind Kormar. After graduating from college, Korinna worked predominantly with precious metals and gem stones, using traditional casting techniques. In 2013, she discovered 3D computer modelling and printing, which completely changed her approach to design and choice of materials. Korina Launched in 2015 Kormar, offering affordable and eco friendly alternatives to massed produced jewellry. Korinna’s work explores nature inspired shapes by using 3D modelling software. Computer aided design is a very unique way to sculpt different objects, which helps to materialize mini sculptures out of this world. Most of Korinna’s jewellery is made out of 3D printed nylon, a very light durable material.  The colour is applied after the object is printed with fabric dyes.  The objects are printed with the SLS method, allowing to print interlocked complex shapes in one print.    

Kristin Bjornerud

Kristin Bjornerud holds a BFA from the University of Lethbridge, Alberta as well as an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan. She has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Ontario Arts Council and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. Her work is represented in the collections of the Canada Council Art Bank, the City of Ottawa, Sask Arts and the Brucebo Museum (Sweden). Kristin is a Professional Member of RAAV (Le Regroupement des artistes en arts visuels du Québec) and a member of Montréal’s La Centrale Feminist Artist Run Centre.

Kristina Rose Studios: Kristina Albright

Kristina Albright grew up in Pickering, Ontario  in a family that encouraged her artistic talents. She now lives in Peterborough. Kristina studied at Fleming College, graduating with a Visual and Creative Arts Diploma and a Ceramics Certificate. The unique brushwork on her pottery is a product of her extensive background in painting. In 2015, Kristina went to Icheon City, South Korea for three weeks of workshops with local master potters. This experience influences the surface decoration and forms of her pottery. Kristina Albright finds it meaningful to create functional ceramics that people use in their daily lives. She continues to develop her work by experimenting with glaze chemistry. Creative Directions taught her the value of experimentation in creating new functional forms, which will continue to influence her work in the future.

Krystyne Griffin

Krystyne Romer Griffin worked in the fashion industry including Holt Renfrew and past president of DWS Retail.  Her husband, Scott Griffin, lived and travelled extensively in the Near East, and Africa. During the years they were based in Nairobi, Krystyne rummaged around the souks in Kenya, Egypt, Yemen, Turkey, and further afield. There, she discovered the rare antique black coral beads dating approximately 19th Century that comprise the basis of her collection. Presently based in Toronto, Krystyne Griffin continues to channel her nomadic soul as she creates jewelry by using the highest quality of stones, findings and glass in her pieces.  

L'immaginaria: Lisa Martini-Dunk

Lisa Martini-Dunk is a scratchboard artist and printmaker.  She studied and graduated with Honours at the University of Guelph in the Fine Art program, and the Creative Arts and Graphic Design program at Georgian College.  It was at this stage she moved from acrylic painting towards scratchboard art and printmaking. Lisa’s scratchboard artworks come from her adoration of fairytale books given to her by her grandmother and father.  Gaining a deep appreciation of non-existent worlds where anything impossible was possible.  Her illustrations are satirical using animals to expose human folly.  The intention is to connect with the viewer and tapping into untainted imagination of childhood that lies within. Lisa Martini-Dunk is presently based in Peterborough, Ontario where she continues to illustrate on scratchboard.    

Larch Wood Enterprises Inc

Larch Wood Canada specializes in creating beautiful end grain cutting boards handmade from eastern Canadian larch (Larix laricina). Also known locally as tamarack and juniper, the company sources this renewable resource from sustainably managed local woodlots.

Larry A. Cluchey

Since 1990 Larry has been making finely crafted wood turnings from Southern Ontario hardwoods: heirloom quality one piece salad bowls, unique burl wood bowls, vases and hollow forms, as well as an assortment of small functional kitchen items, decorative tureen and cutting boards. Recipient of numerous awards his work has attracted many patrons far and wide. He lives in a century old fieldstone schoolhouse and works from a small studio on the property.

Lemarsis Design Inc.

Marjan Hassaneini, the founder of Lemarsis Design, has a rich background in the arts. In 1992, she graduated from the Cultural Heritage University of Iran with a degree in Traditional Arts and went on to teach others in the field. Her passion for art led her to explore various forms, eventually forging her own unique style that blends miniature painting, pottery, and ceramics. With 31 years of experience and thousands of pieces created, Marjan decided to establish her own brand, Lemarsis Design Inc., in 2018 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The company is dedicated to promoting the beauty and diversity of traditional arts while also pushing the boundaries with new techniques and styles. Through her work, Marjan hopes to inspire others to appreciate the beauty of traditional art forms and to never stop exploring their own creativity.

Lena Roy

Contemporary techniques meet traditional in Lena Roy’s Jewellery Collections. Her love of travel and ancient civilizations led her to collect jewelry and art objects for decades from all over the world with special emphasis to Circassion, Turkman and Levantine heritage. Her home is Toronto now, yet she maintains her love of travel combining it with new discoveries of art pieces and jewelry constantly. She takes great pleasure sharing these carefully selected and designed pieces that reflect the arts and culture of her ethnic background with her clientele in Toronto.  

Lindsay Gravelle

Lindsay Gravelle is a Toronto based artist and arts educator.  Practicing pottery since 2015, she studied Studio Art at The University of Western Ontario, Ceramics at Sheridan College, and has a MEd in Adult Education and Community Development from OISE. Presently, she teaches with the Toronto Potters Studio, and is the Studio Facilitator at YWCA Toronto’s Inspirations Studio where she runs a member-based ceramics program for women and gender-diverse people who have experienced marginalization.

Lisa Creskey

Lisa’s primary drive as a visual artist has been that of storytelling from a personal connection to the subject. Lisa studied Studio Art/Art History at Concordia University, and painting at Parsons School of Design in New York. In Spring 2017, Lisa was selected to exhibit in Craft Ontario ’17, the Biannual Juried Members Exhibition and was also awarded a Recommendation Prize in the Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennial in South Korea with her piece "Reflection Through Time and Ice – HMS Terror."

Lisa Gabriele

Lisa Gabriele studied pottery for several years in the 1980's.  Back when small town high schools offered this type of extracurriculars courses.  After graduating and moving to Toronto, she lost touch with the craft for 35 years. When the pandemic brought her back to her small town, she picked it up again.  When she she returned to Toronto, she took classes all over the city. She joined the Dexterity Lab in 2022. In the following year in the autumn of 2023, she relocated back to her small town, in order to establish a heartier home practice.

Lisa Gwen Robbins

Lisa Gwen Robbins is a Toronto-based ceramic artist who owns and operates the Q.I. Clay Club, a community studio where she teaches and creates her one-of-a-kind ceramic pieces. Lisa has been working with clay for over 20 years combining her formal education in Craft and Graphic Design with varied hobbies and interests to create work that pushes the boundaries of ceramics through the exploration of materials, techniques, and inspirational focus. Lisa hopes to continue creating work that provokes curiosity and invites interaction.

Lora Nikolova

Lora Nikolova is a Bulgarian jewelry artist based in Milan. She creates light and vibrant jewelry for elegant personalities. Each piece is an exclusive work of art inspired by an abstract design interpretation. Designed and assembled in Italy.

Loren Kaplan

Loren Kaplan has been a practicing ceramic artist and teacher since the 90s, and has achieved recognition for her work internationally. She was born in South Africa and moved to Canada in 2013. Kaplan's work integrates symbolic, visual, tactile, and spiritual values, blending form, function and meaning. Her pieces resonate with light, sound, pattern, and texture. Kaplan's work can be found in galleries in Canada, South Africa, and the US.

LUprints: Ulla Clark

LUprints principal designer, Ulla Clark, is trained in industrial screen printing by both fine art printers as well as textile printers, in Canada and the USA. Ulla has been printing full-time since 2005 in her screen printing studio, where she began her printing career with a t-shirt printing business, and eventually launched her own line of home textiles, LUprints, in 2006. Ulla was introduced to Scandinavian textiles at a young age through growing up with a Swedish mother. On frequent family visits to Sweden her fondness for table runners and textiles blossomed. She has always been drawn to the pleasing simplicity that nature provides. Trees, birds, flowers and mountains have become a contant theme in her work. Her strong connections to nature, as well as her memories of the beautiful yet functional linens, are a constant inspiration for new products and prints.  

Lydia Panart

I am a Canadian artist with a degree in Architecture from the National University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. My passion for design led me to merge Art and Architecture translated into abstract representations. I find inspiration from human experiences, reflecting on meaningful themes that touch us all. When you wear one of my unique scarves, you are engaging in a visual dialogue with me. You are actually wearing one of my art pieces with all the heartfelt thoughts and emotions embedded in every layer, in each brush stroke, and in each carefully selected colour. Likewise, you are taking with you the memories of recognitions in national and international exhibitions linked to the artwork.

Lynne Bywater

Lynne Bywater grew up on the bluffs of Lake Ontario.  Growing up by the bluffs, this influenced her deep appreciation of sculptural clay formations.  Seeing the beauty inherent in everything touching the earth. Lynne attended OCA now OCAD in the summers of 1970’s where she earned an Art Supervisor’s certification while teaching for The Scarborough Board of Education.  Lynne received an Art Council award for her focus on art and education. Her hand built, ceramic and raku work has been shown and sold in juried shows at Cedar Ridge Creative Centre and sold by Cobalt Gallery in Toronto. Lynne also sells her work from her own studio: LBClayworks.

Maison 203

The green rolling hills of Valdobbiadene, Italy is the background of Maison 203 brand. Created in 2011 as a result of the encounter of Orlando Fernandez Flores, of Venezuelan origin and with a solid design experience in Foscarini, with Lucia De Conti, a cosmopolitan graphic designer and great fashion enthusiast. The synthesis of their multicultural backgrounds generates Maison 203. The brand is an unprecedented point of view on contemporary jewellery, conceptual and decorative at the same time. Where thought, through technology, is transformed into concrete matter. All of Orlando and Lucia’s jewels and fashion accessories are recognizable by their strong personality and strong aesthetic impact. Inspired by suggestions from time to time geometric, natural, or linked to the languages of architecture and contemporary graphics. Voluminous and decorative shapes, or elegant and minimal shapes which, thanks to the realization through 3D printing, are extremely light and flexible. Pieces are able to interact harmoniously with the body. The collections of the brand are the result of the continuous contamination of ideas between Orlando, Lucia and the designers called upon to collaborate: emerging studios, or established professionals in the panorama of Italian design, employed in very different design fields and for this reason able to donate to jewels and to the accessories of Maison 203 always new formulas of beauty and meanings.

Makiko Hicher

Makiko Hicher is a Japanese ceramic artist who trained in Japan. Her ceramics are simple and elegant, highlighting the shape, harmony and nature. The decorations on the ceramics inspired by the landscapes she sees. Her research focuses on the contact of ceramics, the pleasure of feeling the object. Hicher is inspired by the idea of an artwork, perhaps after a shipwreck, that sunk to the bottom of the seas. It would have waited for centuries, alone, gradually covered by algae and shellfish. Thus taking on the colours of the waters surrounding it. It is a work of both sadness and poetry. The poetry and sadness of lost objects forsaken by all, on which time, slowly, leaves its marks. The work also hovers around the idea of the deep seas, marine depths, underwater chasm, which have always frightened the artist, but are tinged with romanticism. All works by Makiko Hicher are produced in stoneware, food and microwave safe. The work is fired in an electric kiln, on which she used a glazing technique, applying natural sponges, the way one would paint a painting.

Maria Moldovan

Maria Moldovan was born and raised in Romania. She holds a BFA in ceramics from the University of Visual Arts and Design, Cluj Napoca, Romania. For Maria, ceramic art is the perfect medium to explore colors and sculptural forms at the same time. After graduating from University, she worked as an art teacher and as a children's book illustrator for many years. Throughout this time, she has continued to create ceramic art for personal and group exhibitions. Maria moved with her family in Canada in 2013 and currently she is a full time studio artist living in Arnprior, Ontario. She is also teaching ceramics at the Ottawa School of Art.

Mariana Bolaños

Mariana Bolaños is a Mexican sculptor based in Toronto. She has been working with ceramics for over four years and exhibits her work regularly. She has been part of several shows in Canada, Mexico and The United States. Focusing on art with a social purpose, she works as a facilitator in community programs with children, women and newcomers around Toronto and the GTA. Mariana studied visual arts in Mexico and obtained a Diploma in Fine Arts when she moved to Canada. She is currently in her fourth year of the Ceramics program at Sheridan College.

Marie Levine

Early in her career, Marie Levine worked in theatre, radio and television in New York, Toronto and Ottawa. Whether she was producing, directing or promoting other people’s ideas, Marie used these outlets to release her inner creativity. Marie later managed a local Judaic Gift Shop in Ottawa and focused on featuring beautiful handcrafted inventory. A year after working with a local fused glass artist who made menorahs for her gift shop, Marie took up this craft with the artist and began making fused glass menorahs herself.

Mariel Waddell Hunter

Mariel Waddell Hunter grew up in Trinidad and the Caribbean Islands.  With this upbringing, she was inspired and influenced by the nature surrounding her.  In turn, this became her main foundation in her artistic vision in her practice in glass. Mariel is a graduate of the Crafts and Design Program at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario.  Following her education training, Mariel was offered a partnership at the Kingston Glass Studio and Gallery.  She works alongside her husband Mischka Alexi Hunter where both work on individual and collaborative works of art.    

Marta Mouka

Marta Mouka is a textile artist who creates textile collages and wearables such as silk scarves. Marta studied graphic design and visual arts at the College of Applied Arts in Brno, Czech Republic. She ran a graphic design studio in Toronto for 14 years specializing in magazine art direction. Her extensive design experience brings a strong sense of composition to her work. Creating art for over 30 years, since 2008 she has been a fulltime textile artist, living and working in Tweed, Ontario. She has held solo shows, participated in juried group exhibitions and has received numerous awards. Her art is in private collections across Canada. My work relates to Canadian nature in a very physical and literal way. The organic evidence captured on silk, documents the beauty, mystery, and healing properties of native plant material.

Mary Louise White

Mary Louise communicates through the languages of art, including music, drama, literature, dance, and the visual arts. She concentrates primarily on cast glass. Her designs are focused on composition, rhythm, movement, form, line, harmony, colour, balance, and the silence or stillness of the stories she tries to convey. Having studied glass at Corning Studio, USA, Northlands Creative, Scotland, Evelyn Dunstan Glass Studio, New Zealand, Karl Harron Glass Studio, and Ireland. She earned a Masters Certificate in Glass from the Australian National University School of Art and Design in 2017 and continues to practice in St. Thomas, Ontario.

Mary McKenzie

Toronto-based artist Mary McKenzie graduated from the Ceramics Program at Sheridan College, where she received the Gardiner Museum Award. She has participated in numerous exhibitions including Boxed In at The Rooms, Newfoundland; Hot Mud: Emerging Canadian Ceramic Artists at the Burlington Art Centre; and War: Light Within / After Darkness at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo. Mary McKenzie's functional pieces are food and dishwasher safe, unless otherwise stated in the case of some of her decorative bowls. McKenzie's drawings are vessel specific, making each unique, especially in her Landscape and Maple Leaf Series. She likes to change it up using a variety of cone six white to red clays, depending on the piece. She may use one or more throwing or hand-building techniques or a combination of these. For example, when throwing a simple cylinder for her tea bowls, she squeezes and pinches to emulate the undulating aspect of landscape.

Mary Philpott

Mary Philpott studied Ceramics and Design at the School of Craft and Design at Sheridan College. She also has a BFA in Art History and Archeology at the University of Guelph. Further studies have included Anthropology and Archeology at McMaster University, and Ceramics Intensives at Alfred University, New York. She explores the dreams of lands further afield where beasts live out their stories. The Spirit of the polar bear and wild boar. As well as domestic animals such as wolfhounds of mythic heritage and sheep.  The animals are inspired by Victorian and nineteenth century children's book illustrations and painting.  It is the narrative of the creatures who are not so different from us, who live out the stories that affect and inform our lives.

Meg Greenlay

Meg Greenlay's love of clay began six years ago while taking classes at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.  Months into learning the craft, she took the plunge and purchased a wheel.  In her short time Meg has created an extensive body of work through heavy experimentation and several techniques.  This has resulted into creating new collections for each season.  Where you can mix and match colours and patterns to a maximalism effect.  Resulting to her modern approach to ceramics that are admirable and useful. Meg's bright and colourful works have been popularized early on with local pop ups and events in well known store such as West Elm and Urban Outfitters.  Since then, her works have been featured all across Canada in stores, galleries, print, and magazines. Presently, Meg works out of her home studio in Winnipeg Manitoba.

Michael Sbrocca

Self-taught, Michael displays a natural talent for woodturning. His instinct for recognizing and exposing the innate beauty of wood is clearly evident in every piece.  A salad bowl, smooth and enduring, a vase intricately carved from natural woods. Every piece celebrates the exquisite beauty of nature. Working mainly with the native woods of Ontario, Michael sells through fine Art shows and selected galleries.

Michal Lando

Michal Lando is a jewelry artist living in Brooklyn, New York, who makes work out of nylon mesh. Her work has been selected for exhibitions across the country including Materials Hard + Soft exhibition at the Denton Arts Center in Denton, TX, Kaleidoscope exhibition at Reinstein/Ross in New York City, and Touchy Feely at the Baltimore Jewelry Center. Her work is included in Artistry in Fiber, Vol. 3 Wearable Art, published by Schiffer Publishing.  Her work can be found at galleries and museum stores across the country.

Micheline Montgomery

Micheline has always created. She cannot separate art from life. Painting everywhere and on almost every-thing she embraces life and expresses it through her work of art. She incorporates various mediums in her artwork including paint, pieces of newspaper, magazines, tea bags, milk cartons, and coffee filters.  Finding happiness in creating messages through these materials.

Michelle Mendlowitz

Michelle Mendlowitz is a Toronto based ceramic artist who studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design where she achieved a Bachelor of Design. Though her work consists of both functional and sculptural objects, it often plays in the space between these opposite sides of the ceramic spectrum. The forms created are derived from landscape, borrowing elements from nature, architecture and the human form. Since entering the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) in 2000, Michelle has exhibited in several art shows and galleries throughout Toronto and Waterloo. She is also the recipient of many awards, only more of which are sure to come as she continues to immerse herself in the local art community.

Michelle Ross

Toronto-born designer Michelle Ross fuses original design with a nostalgic sensibility to create her collection of contemporary jewellery. Adorning a faithful following since 2003, Ross uses semi-precious stones and metals juxtaposed with glass, ceramics, and vintage findings to produce each unique piece. Michelle’s study of textiles at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University honed her innate eye for detail and keen sense of style. In 2007, Michelle moved to London, England where her studies at the prestigious London College of Fashion brought her to intern for luxury fashion label, Erdem. Bringing her diverse background and experience into her own work, Michelle launched her debut womenswear collection in London, effortlessly blurring the line between clothing and jewellery. Michelle returned to Toronto in 2010 to pursue her love of crafting handmade jewellery that reflects her truly distinct perspective. Michelle Ross Jewellery is the fine balance of elegance and unpredictability.

Monika Minnis

Monika Minnis is a visual artist and trained at Sheridan College.  While working as a commercial illustrator, the desire for other dimensions led her to the craft of ceramics She created a line of illustrated clay pots and from then on she has been practicing her craft for 17 years.  She finds joy with the interactive aspect of pottery, the touching, the holding, and the use.  The timeless connection between humans and clay continues to inspire her each day.    

MPro: Monica Protacio

MPro ceramics was founded by Monica Protacio, a Filipino-Canadian ceramic artist who creates functional work marked by her language of gestural marks that articulate her experiences living with ADHD. The company produces functional pottery with tactile surfaces that invite the user to interact with during use. Monica’s experience as a cook influences the forms by designing them with ergonomics and the user experience in mind. The culmination of these experiences is embodied in her work through mindful designs and interesting tactile surfaces.

Nadira Narine

Nadira Narine was raised in Panama City, Panama and moved to Toronto, ON to pursue her post-secondary school. Along the way she discovered glass blowing and decided to give it a try. Since then Nadira has become an award winning artist who focuses on making work that reminds her of home. Her Woven Series is inspired by traditional Panamenian body adornments and crafts. Her home and barware is directly influenced by her childhood memories. Nadira uses her making process as a means of self-discovery and connection to home.

Nancy Solway

Nancy Solway studied ceramics with Robin Hopper at Georgian College from 1971 to 1973. She followed with a study in Fine Arts at the University of Guelph and eventually opened a studio in Terra Cotta, Ontario. After moving back to Toronto she co-founded Clay Design Studio Gallery in 1980, a artist-run urban landmark.  Leading her to eventually build a home studio in 1996. In subsequent years she has taught ceramics at George Brown College, and served on the Board of Directors of the Ontario Crafts Council.  She is also one of the five Canadians represented in the book, ”The New Ceramics”, by Peter Dormer.  Her solo shows include her raku work in 2004 at the Gardiner Museum.

Natalie Czerwinski Illustration

Natalie Czerwinski is a self-taught artist whose illustrations capture the city’s landmarks, storefronts, and other special quirks in ink, watercolour and coloured pencil. She has lived in Toronto for over a decade and began illustrating its streetscapes as a visual love letter back in 2015.

Natalie Waddell

Natalie Waddell is a Toronto based ceramic artist. She studied at Sheridan College Ceramic Craft and Design program in 2003, and upon completion established her own studio.  Teaching classes and conducting workshops specializing in both functional and sculptural ware. Natalie is active in the clay community, and is a member of numerous groups.  This includes: Akin Artist Collective, the Toronto Potters Association, the Potters Guild of Hamilton and Region, FUSION: Ontario Clay and Glass Association and NCECA - the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and Craft Ontario. She is presently based in Toronto, Ontario and continues her practice.

Nicnac

Mads Brimble is an artist and designer with a background in digital art and acrylic sculpture. Nicnac, a Toronto-based studio, began as a way to use sculptural exploration of dimension and space and infuse it into a wearable design. Nicnac’s social presence has also been an effort to view the earring as a gender-neutral accessory. Inclusivity is a pivotal part of both the design process and social media presence of Nicnac, and focusing on inclusivity has allowed the artist to establish a beautifully diverse community. Through these efforts, Nicnac pieces have been sold in boutiques across Canada and featured on OutTV’s Shine True.

Nikola Wojewoda

Nikola Wojewoda is a multi-disciplinary artist of second-generation Polish and Russian descent. A graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, she has exhibited in a variety of mediums. In addition to drawing, painting and printmaking, she has shown sculptural work in clay, bronze, stone, plaster, mixed media assemblage and installation. She’s made experimental short films shown in North America and Europe, and has designed sets for dance and theatre in Toronto and Hamilton. Her current practice includes mixed media painting and drawing, illustrated ceramics, and clay sculptures that incorporate found objects. She combines two and three-dimensional work to tell a story. Her collages using discarded and vintage wallpapers makes use of passing tastes and relentless consumption. Nikola lives in Hamilton Ontario; situated upon the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas.

Noriko Masuda

Born in Japan, Noriko Masuda has lived in Canada since the age of one. Her path to ceramics has had a few detours. She earned a BA in Classics (Latin and Ancient Greek) from the University of Calgary and held a career as a Registered Dental Technologist for nearly ten years, until she chose to make a career change and travelled to Stoke-on-Trent, UK. There she received an MA in Ceramic Design from Staffordshire University in 2013. Her work is in public and private collections, including the Canadian Museum of History. In 2016, she was featured in Ceramics Monthly. Noriko is currently the Residency Coordinator for the Medalta International Artists in Residence Program in Medicine Hat. Her aesthetics are heavily influenced by her Japanese-Canadian upbringing, with a touch of English influences from her time in the UK. She aims to create aesthetically clean, unobtrusive objects that blend perfectly into their function and can be used almost without thinking. This is not to say that she doesn't have a sense of humour when it comes to her work. She likes to break up the simplicity with quirky pieces that she hopes can bring a smile to the user.

Osmose Bijoux

Inspired by nature’s textures and movements, Sonia Ferland chose her hometown, Quebec City to give free rein to her passion for metals and to her creative talent. Every year her jewellery is presented in numerous handcraft fairs in Quebec and Canada. She has also won many awards for her originality and quality from places such as the Quebec Art Craft Council. She has presented her collection in Italy, France, the United States and the Caribbean. Sonia has a well-established workshop in Quebec City’s historical Petit Champlain neighborhood. The Osmose workshop is a warm place full of character that reveals the beauty of her pewter pieces.

Oz & Ella Design: Kelly Kan

Kelly Kan is, very literally, born to be in the jewellery business. A proud Hong Konger , she is a third generation pearler and second generation jewellery designer. Kelly is a Gemmologist (FCGmA) certified with The Canadian Gemmological Association and an Accredited Jewelery Professional (AJP) with the Gemmological Institute of America, with a specialization in Pearls. Oz & Ella was founded in 2017 with the original intention of exploring what is possible in the realm of silicone- based designs. As Oz & Ella's reputation grew as a company that produces pieces that are both fashion forward and infinitely wearable, the line expanded to include other alternative jewellery materials like cotton and fabric. By combining these materials with pearls and other minerals, Oz & Ella are truly creating works of art that are visually beautiful and wonderfully tactile. The inspiration evolves from collection to collection. The current selection with the Gardiner Museum is an homage to Oz & Ella's roots in the jewellery business - Pearls and Knots.

Patricia Lazar

Patricia Lazar discovered her passion for self-expression through visual mediums at a young age. After studying at the School of Art & Design at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art and a four-year stint at the Artist Colony of Safed in Israel, she found her niche in ceramic art and floorcloth mat-making. Over the past two decades, she has developed a playful and abstract style that is partly realistic but has an underlying emotional impact, influenced by Expressionism.

Paula Cooley

Born and raised in Ontario, Paula moved to the Prairies in 1989 where she was introduced to clay. Fascinated by clay’s endless possibilities, she proceeded to complete her Diploma in Ceramics at SIAST (Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology) and then her B.F.A at the University of Saskatchewan. Paula has continued learning and exploring through residencies at the Banff Centre and the Medalta Artists in Residence Programme as well as participating in four international artist collaborations. Paula is an active educator, serving as mentor three times with the Carfac Saskatchewan Mentorship Programme as well as teaching community pottery classes since 2011. Her ceramics pieces have been juried into international and national exhibitions and she has work in the public collections of Global Affairs Canada, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Mann Art Gallery and the Town of Battleford.

Pearl Chan

Pearl Chan is a designer and artist working in Toronto, Ontario. She studied architecture at Dalhousie University’s School of Architecture and Planning, where she received her professional degree.   She further developed her passion for the creative arts at Nova Scotia College of Arts and Design (NSCADU)’s ceramics department.

Peidi Wang

Peidi Wang graduated from OCAD University with a bachelor degree in Industrial design in 2020. With experience of working with several materials, including wood, metal, ceramic and plastic. Peidi finds clay to be the most comfortable material to work with and the most ideal material to capture and express the form of beauty in her perspective. Peidi has been an sculptor and ceramic artist in Toronto and she continues to explore the limitless possibility of ceramic material and the world of sculptures with intricate details Peidi’s work has been inspired and driven by her striking and bizarre dreams. Which built upon seemingly uncorrelated elements but interconnected into an absurd yet fascinating imagery. Through the delicacy yet permanence of porcelain, Peidi embodies those fleeting dreams into her work. With profound focus to the details, she weaves sense of logic into each piece. This makes her work weird but cute at the same time. The narrative through out her work is driven by a burst of imagination triggered by the sense of unreality.

Petits Mots

A practicing architect in Montreal, Debra Brown was asked to make note cards for a wedding. Printed with her delicate line drawings, they were well received, so she later decided to pursue her own product line of ware including tea towels and greeting cards. Handmade, Petits Mots drawings evoke special memories and remind us of the small details that surround us in our lives.

Pursuits: Vanassa Chan

Vanassa Chan, owner / designer behind Pursuits, draws her artistry inspirations from design, architecture and fashion. She has earned her bachelor degree in interior design at University of Central England in Birmingham (United Kingdom). Her background in interior architecture is prevalent in her jewelry designs with composition and form that are visually playful and appealing. Her passion and desire to create led to her experimentation with materials and techniques. Since its launch in 2014, Pursuits has released several micro-collections with the focus on minimalistic designs. Each piece is created in her studio based in Toronto, Canada.

Queenie Xu

Queenie (Kun Xu) is a ceramics designer and maker currently based in Toronto, Ontario. Raised in China, Queenie received her BFA from the Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute of Industrial Design in 2012. While studying in Jingdezhen, she learned the history and skills of ceramics from her surroundings. In 2013, she was a volunteer at The Pottery Workshop where she fell in love with clay. In 2014, moved to Canada where she graduated from the Craft and Design program at Sheridan College. She creates functional objects that can arranged to form sculptural installations.

Rachael Kroeker

Rachael Kroeker is a ceramic artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba, where she continues to live and work. She was introduced to ceramics while completing her BFA at the University of Manitoba. Since graduating in 2009, Kroeker has been active in the Winnipeg arts community, participating in numerous shows and sales, as well as a long-running pottery collective.

Rhonda Uppington

Rhonda grew up on a farm north of Lakefield where she enjoyed art classes in high school but opted to study science at the University of Guelph. Upon graduating, she worked as a biochemist in pharmaceutical research for 4 years before becoming a stay-at-home mom. Taking courses at the Haliburton School of the Arts during week-long vacations with her family, Rhonda learned the basics of relief and collagraph printmaking, mosaics, ceramic tile making and wheel-throwing. Combining printmaking techniques with ceramics allows her to enjoy both mediums simultaneously. The natural world influences her work, and leaves, flowers, birds and butterflies are recurring subjects. Rhonda became a studio member of the Pine Pine Tree Potters’ Guild (Aurora) in the fall of 2014 and enjoys the camaraderie and inspiration that the shared studio experience provides.  

Rochelle Handelman

Rochelle is an accomplished, award-winning fibre artist, teacher, and speaker. For more than 50 years, she has produced personal  fibre art pieces  in  crewelwork, cross-stitch, canvas work, hardanger, huck embroidery, beadwork, and plastic canvas.    In 2007, she discovered a new technique called  embroidery-on-paper  to create frameable pieces of fibreart. When Rochelle retired in 2010, she wanted to find something to do with her extra time to be creative. Since this  embroidery-on-paper technique  produces  finished  pieces relatively quickly, she decided to start her own small business to sell these items.   She is especially proud of  the  personalized/customized  card requests she receives  for retirements, births, birthdays, weddings and anniversaries.   In particular, in 2012,  Rochelle was asked to make a special  Queen's Diamond Jubilee card that was  presented to the wife of the British High Commissioner.

Roses Without Thorns

Roses Without Thorns is a Toronto based craft business that is specialized in Paper Crafts. The Owner/Artist, Link Tong, graduated from Algonquin College (Ottawa) as a Floral Designer in 2008 and has been working as a freelance artist since then. With the help of his family & friends, Link started Roses Without Thorns – a professional craft business, which was always his teenage dream - in 2014.

Sami Tsang

Sami Tsang is a Toronto-based ceramic artist whose work explores domestic encounters and private narratives borne out of the flux amidst two cultures – Chinese and Western. She studied traditional Chinese painting for 7 years in Hong Kong, which profoundly affected her pursuit of an art career. Earning her BA in Craft & Design from Sheridan College (2019) and her MFA in Ceramics from Alfred University, NY (2021). Sami has presented solo, and group exhibitions and art fairs in the United States and Canada.  This includes: Sculpture Space, NYC, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, the Gardiner Museum, Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto, ON, Toronto Art Fair, and NADA Miami. Tsang’s work is included in private collections and Collection Majudia. Sami is presently an Artist-in-Residence (Ceramics) at Harbourfront Centre (Toronto, Canada).

Scott Barnim

Scott Barnim graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Ceramics from the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. His degree work involved the development of colour and surface in soda and salt glazed stoneware and porcelain. Scott established Barnim Pottery in 1978. His early work in salt glaze is now highly collectable. His current work includes limited ranges of lustreware and porcelain, in addition to his studio line of decorated stoneware. His work is available at his studio/showroom, located in an 1850 stone house and stable in the town of Dundas, Ontario, as well as select galleries. Scott has been part-time faculty at Sheridan College and has led workshops and lectures across Canada.

Sean Robinson

Sean predominantly explores the making of vessels. Driven by the process of sitting down at the wheel to form a piece of clay into an object that consumes and contains space. Vessels that ambiguously contain objects and materials for display, storage and consumption. Many of the bowls Sean makes are based on traditional forms with an emphasis on the images contained within and the without the bowl. The decoration in and under the bowl are often equally important.  

Shay Salehi

Shay is a Toronto based artist working with glass. She attended Sheridan College to explore her desire to face new challenges by choosing to work with a medium she had no experience with, glass. After a couple years of exploring the different qualities and processes of the material she began to find comfort in particular methods, such as kiln casting and the pate de verre technique.

Shayne Berlin

Shayne Berlin is a ceramic artist and pottery teacher living in Toronto, Ontario.  She was raised in Mexico City, Copenhagen, and Tel Aviv.  After completing an undergraduate degree in psychology, she followed her passion and enrolled in the full-time ceramics program at George Brown College. After graduating, she discovered that teaching ceramics engaged her natural people skills and artistic talent in equal measure. In the past 30 years, she has taught at schools, camps, pottery studios, and community centers.  Presently, she has shifted her focus to creating her own art using innovative techniques, while continuing to teach.

Shiralee Pottery: Danielle Skentzos

Danielle Skentzos lives in the fields of Oro-Medonte, Ontario. Her first career was in education, earning degrees from the University of Western Ontario and Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. It was when she returned to Canada that she first experienced the feeling of clay smoothly turning through her hands on a pottery wheel. It unearthed a feeling of home—of early years spent watching animals and acres grow, and a youth of tending local gardens with friends. Danielle learned about ceramics from a variety of generous artists and time spent at the Haliburton School of Art. She founded Shiralee Pottery to share her work, inspired by the beauty found near her home. Creative Directions has planted seeds of inspiration for new designs and built a community with others who appreciate the wonder of clay.

Shu-Chen Cheng

Shu-Chen is a full time ceramic artist, originally from Taiwan. She lives and works from her home and studio in Hamilton, Ontario. Her award winning Raku vessels has been exhibited in galleries and juried shows, including the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. Her work has been collected by collectors in Canada and abroad. Her timeless ceramic work is also in the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Burlington, Burlington Potter's Guild and Waterloo Potters' Workshop. In 2008, her Raku work was purchased by Hamilton Airport and is on display at the International Arrival Hall.

Silvana Michetti

Silvana Michetti lives in Toronto, Ontario. She studied Visual Arts at York University (BFA Honours Specialist) concurrently with Education (B.Ed.), and has taught visual arts in diverse settings and schools in Ontario. Travel and work in Europe has enhanced her appreciation for art, design, and architecture. Throughout her teaching career, Silvana has participated in workshops and taken courses whenever possible, exploring the potential of clay with functional, decorative, and sculptural investigations. Her recent work is focused on abstract sculptural forms that involve light and shade as an important element, combined with embossed textile patterns. The Creative Directions strengthened her commitment to her process and has allowed her to focus on a concept and explore it in depth, under the mentorship of Angelo di Petta and with the support of her peers.

Soffi (formerly Tsunami Glassworks)

In 2004 Kris Gene and Eva Milinkovic founded the glass firm Tsunami Glassworks with the goal to deliver the best for interior designers and architects in glass sculpture and décor. Incorporating glass metal and design fabrication Soffi was born. The company is located in Windsor, Ontario and work with a team of designers and fabricators to create for commercial, hospitality, and residential projects.

Sonja Chamberlain

Sonja Chamberlain is a Toronto-based artist who first gained national recognition as an accomplished folk art painter, designer and instructor. Today, clay is her creative canvas. Sonja first turned to clay as a respite from juggling the demands of raising a family while pursuing a career in the hectic financial services industry. Working with clay started as a hobby but quickly became a passion. As a novice, Sonja found a supportive and welcoming community of ceramic artists at Cedar Ridge Creative Center in Toronto. There, she attended classes for many years, grateful to learn from both instructors and fellow students alike. Sonja’s body of ceramic work ranges from figurative sculpture as social commentary, to functional ware intended for daily use.

Stephen Hawes

Stephen Hawes took his first class in clay at the Waterloo Potters’ Workshop. He was hooked. Subsequently he took courses at Sheridan College, Sir Sanford Fleming College and has attended many workshops. Since 1987, he has been making wheel-thrown and hand-built functional pottery. Through the use of color and design, the pots Stephen makes are visually appealing. Influences from his earlier career as a microbiologist are evident. He makes pots that he hopes will make us slow down and enjoy the food or drink that they contain. He is a four-time recipient of the Craft Ontario Design Award. He is a member of the Waterloo Potters’ Workshop, A Mess of Potters and the Mary Allen Studio Tour.

Studio Ada: Berna Kilic

Berna Kilic is a glass artist.  She specializes in making beads, jewellery, and figurines.  Learning from various glass artists, attending workshops, and through self-practice. Making each bead one by one, she uses the lampworking technique.  This ancient type of glass work uses a gas fueled torch to melt clear and coloured glass rods. Once the glass rod is in a molten state, it is then formed by blowing and shaping, using a variety of tools and hand movements.  The lampwork bead is then placed in a kiln held at 950F degrees to anneal.  This toughens the glass and reduces brittleness thereby making the glass bead stable. Berna Kilic glass works is seen in her studio and showroom at the Williams Mill Creative Art Centre in Glen Williams, her website Studio Ada Glass, and Etsy shop. She is a proud member of Stratford Art in the Park Association and showcases her work every summer in Stratford.

Studio Minéral: Alexandra Gélinas

Studio Minéral by Alexandra Gélinas aims to bring together the worlds of design and ceramics. Doing things differently with an approach focused on technical expertise and the use of innovative and cutting- edge technologies (modelization, 3D digitizing and printing), combined with industrial processes and traditional know-how. Studio Minéral optimizes certain production methods and explores multiple scopes of application that remain unexplored in the field of ceramic design. Studio Minéral is based in Montreal, QC.

Subtle Details: Karen Pasieka

Karen Pasieka is a self-taught polymer clay artist with an academic and professional background in architecture.  While her combined interests in art, craft, and math lead her to pursue and obtain her B.Arch from the University of Toronto, working for several years in her field of study left her desiring more creative control and fulfillment, prompting her return to clay with the launch of her business Subtle Details in 2007.

Susan Card

Susan Card established a studio in 1989 Toronto, Ontario while studying ceramic design at Sheridan College, after completing degrees at University of Manitoba (B. H. Ec.-textiles, B.F.A. – painting). Card has participated in, curated or acted as a juror for over 150 exhibitions and published many articles about ceramics in local and international publications such as Ceramic Art and Perception (Australia), Ceramic Review (Britain) and Neue Keramik (Germany) and FUSION Magazine (Canada). Card worked as part-time faculty in the School of Crafts and Design, Sheridan College, Oakville, Ontario; concurrently, she taught pottery classes for the City of Toronto. Commissions include adaptations of Japanese Edo period pottery for the Royal Ontario Museum and objects for two episodes of Museum Secrets (History Channel, 2011) and the Hollywood movie "The End of Summer" starring Jacqueline Bissett (1995). Card volunteers for the Collections Committee, Art Gallery of Burlington, Toronto Potters and Burlington Potters organizing speakers’ programs. She is a past Board member for Toronto Outdoor Art Fair and FUSION: The Ontario Clay and Glass Association. In 2006, she opened DISH GALLERY + Studio in Toronto Distillery District to make and exhibit her work, as well as works by other Canadian ceramists.

Susan Low-Beer

Susan Low-Beer received her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at Mount Allison University and her Masters of Fine Arts in the United States at the Cranbrook Academy of Art with a major in painting. She has exhibited internationally in Europe, United States, Japan and Korea, as well as nationally in both juried and invitational exhibitions and has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards. Susan Low-Beer is represented among others, in the collections of the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the National Museum of Modern Art in Japan, and the Mint Museum of Craft and Design in North Carolina. In 1999 she received the Saidye Bronfman Award for Excellence in the Crafts and in 2000 was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In 2017 a retrospective called Embodiment; 30 Years of Sculpture by Susan Low-Beer  was shown in three venues, the Art Gallery of Algoma, in Sault Ste Marie, the Norfolk Art Centre, in the town of Simcoe, and the Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo, Ontario.

Suzanne Morrissette

Dr. Suzanne Morrissette (she/her) is an artist, curator, and scholar who is currently based out of Toronto. She is guided in this work by her roles as a daughter, partner, mama, sister, niece, aunt, granddaughter, friend, and colleague. Her father’s parents were Michif- and Cree-speaking Metis with family histories tied to the Interlake and Red River regions and Scrip in the area now known as Manitoba. Her mother’s parents came from Canadian-born farming families descended from United Empire loyalists and Mennonites from Russia. Morrissette was born and raised in Winnipeg and is a citizen of the Manitoba Metis Federation. As an artistic researcher Morrissette’s interests include: family and community knowledge, methods of translation, the telling of in-between histories, and practices of making that support and sustain life. Morrissette holds a PhD from York University in Social and Political Thought. Her forthcoming book But Have We Arrived? is based on this research and argues for the need to evaluate the spaces of inclusion that have been made for Indigenous people within a previously exclusionary centre of artistic representation. She currently holds the position of Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director for two programs at OCAD University: Criticism and Curatorial Practices (MFA) and Contemporary Art, Design, and New Media Art Histories (MA).

Sydni Weatherson

Sydni Weatherson is an emerging artist from Oakville, Ontario. Growing up, her focus was on watercolour painting and fine art, but an open house at Sheridan College pushed Sydni to pursue glass instead, where she graduated from in 2022. In May of 2022 she was accepted into Harbourfront Centre as a full time Artist in Residence. Outside of the studio she maintains her fine art practice, as well as being a hobbyist film photographer.

Talia Silva

Talia Silva is a Toronto-based ceramic artist and designer who creates hand-built and slip-cast functional and sculptural pieces. She studied environmental design at the Ontario College of Art and Design where she was introduced to the process of slip casting. Finding solace in the tranquil and awe-inspiring wilderness, she consistently seeks moments of immersion to draw inspiration for her art. Talia’s work has been commissioned for hospitality, residential, and retail environments in Canada, the United States, China, and the United Arab Emirates.

Tank Jewelry and Beads: Jill Cribbin

Jill Cribbin of Tank Jewelry and Beads launched herself into the world of glass flame working over ten years ago at an intensive workshop at Urban Glass in Brooklyn, NY. Since then she has studied with numerous recognized bead makers and jewelry designers. Jill created one of the only open to the public flame working studios with a retail shop in Canada. The experience allowed visitors to see first-hand how many of the pieces were made. After having established her career in Toronto, Jill currently continues to practice her craft from her studio in Stratford, Ontario. Jill finds inspiration from urban shapes and forms, with a nod to the timeless work of Venetian glass artists. Jill focuses on creating modern wearable jewelry that allows the colour of the glass to be the star. All glass jewelry created with glass rods and accented with sterling silver pieces.  All beaded pieces designed with the highest quality Japanese seed beads. Using a propane and oxygen-run torch, glass rods melted and manipulated in the flame where individual beads made with the aid of heat, gravity and creativity! Finished beads paired with sterling silver findings to create contemporary, wearable jewelry. Jill finds inspiration from urban shapes and forms, with a nod to the timeless work of Venetian glass artists. Jill focuses on creating modern wearable jewelry that allows the colour of the glass to be the star. All glass jewelry created with glass rods and accented with sterling silver pieces.  All beaded pieces designed with the highest quality Japanese seed beads. Using a propane and oxygen-run torch, glass rods melted and manipulated in the flame where individual beads made with the aid of heat, gravity and creativity! Finished beads paired with sterling silver findings to create contemporary, wearable jewelry.

Tanya Atkinson

Tanya Atkinson is a ceramic/mixed media artist based in Toronto working from her studio which she established in 2011. Her formal education in Geography/Environment influences her artwork reflecting a love and passion for nature resulting in wildlife sculpture as well as in organic forms of her abstracts. She specializes in ceramic sculpture using the Raku as well as traditional oxidation firing techniques. She works in stoneware, porcelain and paper clay often leaving sculpture unglazed to preserve clay texture and use glaze for highlights only.

Tasci Designs: Nadia Tasci

Nadia Tasci is an established Canadian glass artist and has a full-time studio practice with glass flame-working and silver jewellery fabrication.  Over the course of her career, she has used the medium of glass to express various artistic narratives. Her design approach begins with a tremendous devotion to her material. Always aiming to push traditional glass bead-making boundaries, Nadia uses unique methods of design to explore the visual dialogue between colour, form and pattern, creating dynamic and engaging contemporary jewellery. Nadia studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design University's Drawing and Painting program and Sheridan College's Craft and Design (Glass) program. She has also participated in several creative development workshops over the years in the USA, Mexico and Central America. Her works have been published internationally and she has received recognition for detailed and high quality craftsmanship. A recipient of the Ontario Arts Council’s exhibition assistance, she received a travel grant from Craft Ontario, to support her creative development. Over the last 15 years she has been invited to exhibit her work across Canada, USA, UK and Japan. Presently, she works full-time at her studio in Toronto, Canada.

Tatjana Blinja

Tatjana Blinja is Croatian-Canadian artist residing in Toronto. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Textile and Clothing Design from University of Zagreb, as well as a degree from the Zagreb School of Applied Arts. Tatjana has exhibited her work in fine galleries throughout Toronto, USA, South America and Europe. She finds working in variety of mediums rewarding, especially drawn towards clay, as the material lends itself so beautifully to the creation of sculptures. She describes the process of mounding and shaping the clay with her hands as tactile experience that expresses her vision and breathes life into her art.

Taylor Chan

Born and raised in London Ontario, Taylor Chan is a functional ceramic artist that has graduated from Sheridan College in 2022. Taylor first found ceramics in 2013 when she attended H.B Beal Secondary School. Taylor’s current work explores the concepts of maximalism and extravagant function.

Teresa Dunlop

Teresa Dunlop is a maker of finely crafted ceramic objects intended for daily use and contemplation. Teresa is a graduate of Sheridan College’s Craft and Design program. She then launched her ceramic career by completing a residency in ceramics at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto from 2014- 2017. Teresa has continued to seek opportunities to develop her work through mentorships with fine artists such as Susan Low-Beer and Tony Clennell. In 2017, Teresa established her own studio in Newmarket, ON.

Tetyana Lypka

Tetyana Lypka  from Studio Tiny Loft Jewelry finds balance between the primitive and refined. It is a mixture of contradictions and complements. The selection of unusual material reflects the designer's passion for sustainability and originality. Using by-products or commonly discarded waste materials such as animal bones, horns, scraps of leather, driftwood, and seashells. The inspirational aspect of the up-cycling reveals the diversity and potential of raw materials. Inspired by the bustle of the cosmopolitan urban city of Toronto, Tetyana mixes modern and classic techniques.  Creating her own innovating methodology. Most of the designer's creations are limited edition only. They are her own interpretations of classic bohemian jewelry in a new and modern way.  

This Ilk: Tamara Bavdek

Tamara Bavdek is a jewelry artist with a degree in Industrial Design at University of Montreal.  In late 2008, after a life of long hair she got a short haircut “à la garçonne.”  Needing a touch of femininity she started to experiment with vintage textile or lace turning them into high quality statement pieces. Her inspiration came from pop culture including movies such as Factory Girl and Andy Warhol’s muse Edie Sedgwick whose style she was drawn to. Attempting to recreate a particular pair of earrings, brought Tamara to a fabric shop.  There she stumbled upon magnificent thick lace which harboured beautiful Art Deco shapes. The lace itself was too ornate for her taste but the shapes within became an endless source of inspiration. Tamara Bavdek founded This Ilk (meaning ''of a same type, or kind”) and aims to innovate and intrigue.  Additionally preserving sustainable practices through artisanal production and limited available quantities.

Thomas Aitken

Thomas Aitken’s BFA is from Nova Scotia College Art and Design (NSCAD) and his MFA is from the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. In addition to maintaining his studio, he has curated exhibitions, designed and constructed both low-fire and high-fire kilns and, since 1998, taught in the education department of the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art. The practicality of his Maritime roots is evident in the simplicity of his forms, while his daring use of color has been influenced by his long sojourn in the Canadian West. Thomas’s work has been exhibited across North America, in the United Kingdom and in Continental Europe.  

Trio Design Glassware: Renato Foti

Renato Foti studied both Engineering and Fine Arts, beginning his career as a painter.  After an introduction to glass, he began casting glass pieces and started a Glass company called Trio Design Glassware.  Combining both technical expertise and craftsmanship into making art, Renato's glassware focuses on structure, balance, colour, and simplicity.  His contemporary designs with use of bold colours creates a balance which is of critical importance and is a reflection of his personal philosophy in life and in his art.  

Valentine Rouge

Jenna Iannelli is the jewellery designer behind Valentine Rouge Jewellery. She is of Italian heritage and resides in Toronto.  Her Neo Baroque style imbues the luxury and decadence of a golden age with a modern feminine vibe. She learned her craft at the renowned Gemological Institute of America and through Gemology Programs and Workshops at the Sotheby’s Institution of Art in New York and in Toronto. Additionally, she studied interior design at the International Academy of Design and Technology in Toronto.  With the interior background she is not afraid to play with colours and use contrasting materials including precious stones, Swarovski crystyal, and natural pearls. Valentine Rouge can be spotted on celebrities on the red carpet including TIFF 2014 trunk show at Toronto’s prestigious Four Seasons Hotel.

Victoria Guy

Victoria Guy is the glassblower behind Lady Glass who has a passion for sculpting; she enjoys making vibrantly hued, tactile work that is inviting to touch. She is a graduate from the Sheridan College's Bachelors of Craft and Design specializing in glass making, and a resident artist at Toronto Harbourfront Center.

Wanda Shum

Wanda Shum is a B.C. grown artist who was formally trained in Electronic Communication Design at the Emily Carr College of Art and Design; she's been an independent artist for over 18 years with a variety of works to her name. All her work has embodied an attention to detail in form and function. Wanda's works are recognized for their bright and whimsical qualities.

Wayne Cardinalli

Wayne Cardinalli has been making pots full time for over 50 years ever since graduating from Tyler School of Art with an MFA in Ceramics. His undergraduate degree is a B.S. in Art Education. Wayne is a founding member of Fusion, The Ontario Clay & Glass Association and Artspace. He has exhibited his work widely and been featured in various publications including Fusion, Ceramics Monthly and Ceramics Art and Perception. Wayne has also conducted over 150 workshops, lectures, demonstrations and critiques across Canada and in the USA.

Wendy Lisa Nichol

Wendy Lisa Nichol is a ceramic artist based in Toronto. She received a BFA in Drawing & Painting with a minor in Material Arts & Design from OCAD University in 2014. She has exhibited work at the Gardiner Museum and various group shows in Toronto, Ottawa, New York and a solo show in Vernon BC. She continues to experiment with sculptural forms and functional wares utilizing different methods of hand-building and surface design treatment.

William Lee

William Lee moved to Scarborough Ontario from Hong Kong at 7 years old with his family. He’s always had an interest in crafts and began learning wheel throwing in May of 2013. William wishes to create dinnerware that pushes the boundaries of traditional designs by creating work with a variety of glazes and forms.

Yellow Bird Paper Greetings

In 2017, Zoe Chicoine and Rob Wilson were handed the reigns of Yellow Bird Paper Greetings from OG creative dynamo Charmaine Carlson who launched the business in 2004.  Their take on nature, style and whimsy was a good fit for Yellow Bird and didn’t stray to far from its’ beginnings. All of the products continue to be manufactured as locally as possible and using only the highest quality recycled papers. Believing the best to manufacture high-quality greeting cards and stationery products that benefit friends, neighbours and the earth. In short, they strive to offer great products, great designs and great price points, all while still being mindful of the environment.  

Yumiko Katsuya

Born in Japan, Yumiko Katsuya became a Canadian resident in 1971.  She started pottery in 1983 when she joined the Hill Potters Guild in Richmond Hill, Ontario where many of her works continue to be displayed in their permanent collection today.  A past member of the Toronto Potters from 2005 to 2015, she moved to Ottawa joining the Ottawa Guild of Potters in 2016 where she is presently based. Yumiko has several awards including the Juror’s Choice Awards at the Hill Potters Guild Show in Richmond Hill, People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Potters Show and the Karen Latorre Award at the Toronto Potters Biennial Exhibition at the Gardiner Museum, Toronto. Her work is at the Gardiner Museum Gift Shop, the Dish Gallery in the Distillery District, Toronto, and The Ottawa Guild of Potters show in Ottawa. Yumiko covers a variety of styles. Her fans have described them all as having a peaceful quality.  Seen through the exquisite beauty of her signature crystalline pieces and the inviting cheerfulness of her sweet “Wildflower” collection. She has a passion for creating functional art, utilizing special techniques and glazes such as Fretwork, Neriage (swirled colored clay), and Crystalline glaze, to materialize her ideas.  Captivated by its ethereal quality, Yumiko has been focusing on further developing her use of crystalline glazes in recent years.

Zara Gardner

Zara Gardner is a Barbados-born ceramic artist currently living and working in Toronto, Ontario. She received her BA (Honours) in Fine Art from the University of Guelph in 2010 and a Certificate in Ceramics from the Haliburton School of Art and Design, Fleming College, where she received the 2017 Ceramics Certificate Award. In 2018, she was awarded the Craft Ontario Affiliate Award at FUSION’s Inaugural Breakthrough Exhibition. Zara creates objects in clay that range from functional to sculptural and which spark concern, curiosity, and appreciation for the natural world.

Zima Artworks: Hassan Ghanati

Hassan Ghanati of Zima Artworks is a wood artist based in St. Catharine’s, Ontario, Canada. He studied Craft and Design at the Art University of Kashan, Iran and founded Zima in 2012. In the last decade he has been dedicated to perfecting his craft. He believes each piece of wood has a unique identity based on its color, shape, and pattern. The wood itself chooses what becomes. All of his works are hand-carved and one-of-a-kind.  He sand all the pieces from 120 to 1200 so that handling and touching them would be a very tactile, satisfying experience for the audience and can strengthen this connection to nature. All the dishes are finished with food-safe mineral oil and natural beeswax. After each use, you can wipe it. If you need to wash it, wash it just with water and dry it immediately. Fold up one of your clean cotton clothes and dip the end of it in the olive oil, rub the oil on the wood till you may see the wood absorb the oil. Non-Dishwasher Safe. Artist Statement: Ghanati has always felt deeply connected to nature and as such, it is his greatest inspiration.  He strongly believe that the pursuit of art and beauty is not an excuse to cause harm.  As such, not a single living tree is used in his craft. All of his wood pieces are sourced and milled from distressed or fallen trees, right here in Ontario, Canada. Such as Canadian Walnut, Cherry, Honey Locust, etc.

Zoë Pinnell

Zoë Pinnell is an AiR at Harbourfront Centre and a recent graduate of Sheridan College. Originally from London, Ontario, she was exposed to ceramics in her high school art program. Fresh from high school, she attended NSCAD University, but returned to Ontario to attend Sheridan. Zoë  has been awarded Best in Show at the Gardiner Museum, Medalta Residency award and the Pottery Supply House award. Zoë Pinnell work consists of sculpture and functional hand-built objects that are decorated with colourful glazes, slips, and illustrations. As an Artist she is  influenced by historical patterns, Victorian symbolism, tchotchke objects, and floral motifs. The cycle of life and death taking place in the garden offers inspiration for the ways in which plants and animals grow and interact with her work. At the end of their life cycle, garden creatures are held within these beautiful beds of flowers and earth, only to grow once again on my pieces.  

Zsuzsa Monostory

Zsuzsa Monostory was born and raised in Hungary.  She received her diploma in biology at ELTE University in Budapest.  She moved to Canada with her family in 1989 and worked at Mount Sinai Hospital Research Institute.  However, her passion for ceramics took over and in 1997 became a full time ceramicist. Zsuzsa is self taught and draws inspiration from architecture, nature and all living things. Her background in biology expresses her environmental issues and concerns.  Through the medium of clay, Zsuzsa captures the human form, gesture, nature, and behaviour.  She meticulously hand builds each vessel or sculpture and raku fires creating different surface effects.    

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