Cali Almy

Artist Statement:

After years of teaching art in Providence, RI I decided to recommit to my own artistic practice in clay, and I am currently in my second year as an Artist in Residence at the Worcester Center for Crafts. Like many artists my work is inspired by nature. Time walking in the woods, along the shore, or through the marsh provide me time and space for growth and insight. I am especially drawn to the patterns, colors, forms and contrasts in the landscape. My collection of work is an homage to place and my deep connection and love of being with nature. All my pieces are wheel thrown, hand decorated and glazed, and whether you hold a piece in your hand or see one on a shelf, meant to share that love of place.

BIO:

Cali holds a BA in Studio Art from the University of Vermont and an MFA from UMass, Amherst. She has been teaching in high school and community art spaces for over 2 decades, and most recently completed a first year as an Artist in Residence at the Worcester Center for Crafts. She has exhibited her ceramics at a variety of arts festivals and galleries and her work has been collected around the world. She has also worked in and supported a number of arts, educational, and social justice organizations over the years and brings a lens of community and connection to her work.

Online Work

Website | Instagram

Kristen Angelos (she/her/hers) is a ceramic artist, public educator, and Honk! musician located in the Providence area. She served as a special education paraprofessional, tutor and education coach for close to a decade and focuses on creating a positive, inclusive and accessible classroom. She obtained a BS in Music at Northeastern University, but spent much of her free time at the MFA, ICA and Boston Open Studios. She is very excited to be an Artist-in-Residence for the Worcester Center for Crafts for the 2021-22 year!

Her work considers the practical functionality and user experience and centers around meditative interaction, like slowly sipping tea or caring for plants. Her work urges the users to engage with the work in a way that they feel wonder, calm, contemplation and joy; encouraged to admire the tiny details. Her great fondness for tea drinking, organic textures and shapes, antique finds, houseplants, and color interaction all heavily influence her delicate, wheel-thrown tea bowls, mugs, and planters. She studies glaze recipes and chemistry to create unique glaze colors and textures that when layered create interactions and motion in both electric and gas kilns.

Kristen has studied ceramics under Mazin Adam and Mark Zellers at the Community College of Rhode Island. She has been invited to exhibit work in the staff show at Providence CityArts for Youth, the Fall 2020 Student Exhibition at CCRI, 119 Gallery, and at the Rhode Island Realtors Association. She has previously worked with the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of MA, the Fitchburg Art Museum, 119 Gallery and  Providence CityArts for Youth. Follow her work on IG @rainbowhomestudios.

Artist Bio

Julian De La Garza was born in New York, and raised in Rhode Island. He received his BA in Jewelry/Metals from Rhode Island College and then went on to work in the industry. During this period he was a diamond setter for Tiffany & Co. and then a model maker for C & J Jewelry working on high-end jewelry brands such as David Yurman, Haverhill Leech, and Tiffany & Co. All while also continuing his personal studio practice and jewelry business.

Realizing he had always wanted to teach at the college level, he left the stagnancy of the industry and decided to go back to school to obtain his MFA at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in Artisanry with a focus on Jewelry/Metals. During his stay at the university he has received high awards for his jewelry design skills through juried competitions and has also had opportunities to teach as well as assist advanced classes.

Check our Julian's website here and his Instagram page here!

"A decade changes mountains and streams might be the right saying for my transition from functional ceramics to sculpture. I paint, draw and hand-build dark branches, wavy coil structures, flames out of shadows, shrubs, and silhouettes.

The objects that I create cast shadows out of which subdued hues of rainbow emerge in the sunlight. Air flows through the forms. The time is passing by, and we are changing with it."

Check out Miryana's Instagram page here.

Tom O'Malley began studying ceramics in high school and received his BFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1985. He received his MFA, with honors, from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994. O'Malley has exhibited nationally and internationally, winning numerous awards. He received an LCC Grant in 1998 and his pottery was the recipient of the People's Choice Award at the 2002 Strictly Functional Pottery National.

His work has appeared in a number of publications, including Lark Books 500 Tiles, and is slated to appear in the forthcoming publication 21st Century Ceramics. He has taught at RISD, Rhode Island College, Becker College, Worcester State University and the Worcester Center for Crafts, and has presented a variety of workshops and lectures throughout New England. He has been a board member of The Studio Potter since 2005 and currently is the Studio Liaison and Program Director of the Worcester Center for Crafts.

View Tom's Latest Work and Profile: Tom O'Malley Ceramics

• 2010 21st Century Jewelry, The Best of the 500 Series, Marthe Le Van, Larks Crafts
• 2008 Compendium of Contemporary Jewelers, Andy Lim, Darling Publications, Germany
• 2007 Lark Books, 500 Pendants and Lockets
• Her production jewelry has been featured in several local magazines including Preview Massachusetts and Worcester Living Magazine.
  

Elizabeth enjoys teaching the craft of metal smithing to students of all ages and her favorite techniques include hand-piercing (often with a tiny sawblade), hand fabrication and soldering.

Online Work
Website | Facebook