About Angela

I have long been a maker of things but I began my journey with ceramics in 2020. I am a community and self-taught ceramicist that focuses on hand thrown, functional pottery with an emphasis on surface design. I typically throw my forms on a pottery wheel and then finish them with hand painting, carving, and inlay. My work conveys imagery of nature from my own backyard through the lens of my imagination. I have been known to carve the poppies with eyeballs, paint smoking frogs and render rabbits with more expression than nature bestows them.

I am located in Bellingham, Washington where I typically work from a small shed behind my house (pictured above!) that affords me a view of my messy garden, muddy dog, darling husband and two perfectly wild little boys.

Artist Statement

I love to imagine the mundane chores of our daily lives can be transformed to blissful rituals just by including a treasured vessel into our routines. Born into an industrious family, I find the careful balance of functionality and beauty a longstanding tradition of ceramics that I am honored to be part of. From the window of my backyard studio I draw inspiration from watching the gradual changing of the seasons. I see the rabbits that sneak under the garden fence, the bright flowers of summer and dried seed pods bending in the fall winds. Through the painting and carving of clay, the nuanced joys of my surroundings are what lives on the surface of my work and holds the tea or toast of our everyday rituals.

Every part of my process grants its own version of satisfaction. I love the circular nature of reclaiming my own clay and collecting the dregs of my glazes so that one day I will make something new from them. I delight in the slow monotonous nature of throwing on a pottery wheel and trimming the excess away to reveal the perfect foot on a bowl. But mostly, I live for surface design. Carving, sgraffito, inlay, hand painted transfers and underglaze painting provide me the means to share the textures, colors and imagery that emote the joyful space that they were made in.

For me, pottery inspires endless curiosity, boundless community and the structure to slowly unlearn the capitalist culture that I have been steeped in. It is a long slow practice of failure, patience and imperfection. I crave the process and delight in knowing the end result will seep into the fabric of other’s lives. When my hands are not covered in mud they are sketching and when my body is performing the mundane rituals of domesticity my mind is imagining the endless possibilities of capturing the magic of this world and translating it to surface, color and texture for my next piece and the one after that and after that. For it is the infinite opportunity for growth and knowledge that truly draws me to working with clay.

Education

Community throwing classes at Burnish Clay Studio in Bellingham, WA 2020-2023

In person workshops with Brian Chen, Deb Schartzkopf, Linda Christianson and Carole Epp

2025 Cohorts.art mentorship with Carole Epp

2026 Cohorts.art mentorship with Martha Grover

Exhibitions

Solo show

"The Night Garden" at Good Earth Pottery October 2024