Sally Brogden studied at the University of Michigan and the New York State College of Ceramics.  Her work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and abroad. Sally was one of fifty artists selected for the exhibition "Taking Measure: American Ceramic Art at the New Millennium", curated for the world ceramics conference in Yeoju, Korea.  Sally has been the recipient of numerous grants and has been an artist in residence at the Ceramic Center Berlin and the Archie Bray Foundation where she now serves on the Board of Directors.  Her work has been included in numerous books and catalogs including:  Ceramics: A Potter's Handbook, The Craft and Art of Clay, A Ceramic Continuum: Fifty Years of the Archie Bray Influence, Taking Measure: American Ceramic Art at the New Millennium and 500 Ceramic Sculptures.

Ignacio Fernández del Amo is a Spanish artist that graduated from the Universidad Complutense of Madrid. He received a degree in Art History and combines the coordination of exhibition catalogs (of many important museums, such as the Museo del Prado, Thyssen or Guggenheim Bilbao) with his artistic career. The result is a wide approach to some of the most influent avant-garde movements of 20th century and a study of the relationships among City, Abstraction and Photography. He has exhibited his works in the Photographic Association of Guadalajara, Ultravioleta Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Madrid, that acquired the complete series of Suprematist City in 2007. He’s also participated in Photographic Fair entreFotos and will be featured in MadridFoto this May 2009.

Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir is an Icelandic visual artist and photographer.  While her work first received attention via the popular photo community site Flickr.com,  her moody and surreal photographs quickly gained recognition in international media, with the Wall Street Journal dubbing her "The Web's Top Photographer" in 2006. Other media mentions include The New York Times, the Observer, BBC, Der Spiegel, Playboy, and she was recently commissioned by Toyota for a major photography campaign.  Her images, frequently portraying the artist herself and the natural landscape of her native Iceland, aim to evoke in the viewer a sense of curiosity, allowing their imagination free reign to create a narrative around the moment she has presented to them with her photographs.

Born and raised in Germany, Maren Kloppmann is a full-time ceramic studio artist in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She received her Journeyman Diploma from the Keramik Handwerkskammer, Germany (1984), attended the Kansas City Art Institute, Missouri (B.F.A. Ceramics 1993), and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (M.F.A. Ceramics 1996). Maren’s repertoire of porcelain pieces, including utilitarian tableware, vessel sculptures and wall works, has been exhibited nationally and internationally with solo exhibitions at Galerie b15 (Munich, Germany), at Harvey Meadows Gallery (Aspen CO) and at Lill Steet Art Center (Chicago IL) among others. Using a range of hand-building techniques, her approach to porcelain is non-traditional and combines modernist ideas with a minimalist esthetic. Working with the means of electric kilns, she devised a distinctive palette of terra sigillatas and glazes that provides the perimeter for her reductive vocabulary to emphasize qualities of line and space. She is recipient of numerous US grants, including two McKnight Fellowships, and has been a presenter at the ‘Clay Modern’ International Ceramic Conference in Gulgong, Australia. Maren’s work is found in numerous private and museum collections including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Minneapolis MN), the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis MN), the ASU Art Museum (Tempe AZ), the Mudgee Art Council (NSW Australia) and the Mingei-Kan (Tokyo, Japan).

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Jill Oberman earned her MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology School for American Crafts in Rochester, New York and her BA from Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. She has been a resident artist at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado; the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, Montana; and the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. While in her studio Jill focuses on creating minimal, architectural ceramic sculptures that have been widely exhibited throughout the United States. Jill Oberman is currently working as a studio artist in Evanston, IL. and teaching classes for adults and children at the Evanston Art Center.  From 2005 until the end of 2007, she worked as the Programs and Administration Director at the Archie Bray Foundation. Prior to working at the Bray, Jill was the studio manager of the ceramics program at the Anderson Ranch from 1999 until 2005.

Marcie Paper makes paintings and stop-animated films that investigate the track and significance of short-term memory. Born and raised in New England, she currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2006. Since then, she has attended a number of residencies and has shown her work nationally. Her interest in memory is fueled by personal experience; her father has been diagnosed with a brain disorder that has left him with no short-term memory. Through this experience, she has gained both an interest and an appreciation for short and long-term memories. Marcie asks herself, "How much of our long-term memory is a sum of small insignificant events? Is this whole greater then the sum of its parts? How do short and long term memories influence each other? If short-term memory is lost, is it only a matter of time before we lose our long-term memory? When do our daily experiences transform into our recollections of the past? And ultimately, what is the impact of memory on our concept of our selves and our placement within the world?" By abstracting and re-presenting these events through paint, she has been able to hold on a little longer, understand a little better, and have more physical evidence of her existence.

Travis David Smith is an artist currently living in southwestern New Mexico. He graduated from the University of Montana in 2007 and went to South Korea to teach, travel, and work on a small series of graphite drawings. He returned to the states in 2008 to live and work in near isolation in the mountains of northern New Mexico. His work examines the balances and stresses of human interactions. Smith’s work is defined by subtlety and separations, which convey a feeling of tension, isolation or distress similar to that which we feel in everyday environments. It serves as a description of the ways in which opposing forces have influenced human contact throughout history. In his work, restrained lines paired with a discriminate use of bold colors represent the delicate yet severe strain that takes place within common associations. Travis is currently represented by Gallery Ima in Seattle, Washington.

Leigh Suggs (b. 1981) spent her childhood surrounded by art and craft, learning techniques and thoughts mostly from her mother who is also a fiber artist.  Leigh received her BFA in studio art from UNC-CH, but also equates her art education with time spent at Penland School of Crafts and at Dieu Donne. She currently resides in Carrboro, North Carolina.  Leigh’s art is often described as an “experience” or an intense thought rather than a specific image.  Her work brings up a conversation about process versus final product.  For her, the art seems to become less obtainable when it is defined. If the artist or viewer separates the image from its process – the image seems to no longer have the same meaning. Her use of one material (typically paper) keeps the work minimal, yet open to an endless array of systems or methods for obsessive repetition.

John Utgaard grew up in Carbondale, Illinois and became interested in Ceramics while in high school.  In the summers his father taught at a field geology camp near Red Lodge, Montana, and from an early age John was influenced by the scope and solitude of the western landscape.  He studied ceramics at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, the Kansas City Art Institute, and at Alfred Univeristy, where he received his MFA in 1999.  In addition to having been an artist in residence at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana, John has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, Penn State University, and currently teaches in the ceramics area of Murray State’s department of Art and Design.

Originally from India,  Neha Vedpathak has been a resident artist at Skopelos Foundation for the Arts in Greece and Graphics Studio, in India.  Currently she is a resident artist at Spiro Arts in Park City, Utah. She has had featured exhibitions in the Czech Republic, India, United States, Canada and Greece.  Her works are made on canvas, vellum & paper using pigments, graphite, ink, wax, acrylic, fresh flowers and other organic materials. Neha's forms are minimalist and simple, but she continuously experiments with techniques to reinvent herself. She uses painting as a means of expression and interaction to reach spirituality. For Neha the abstraction of the natural world is a vehicle for dialogue with herself.

Cherlyn Wilcox received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from The University of Montana in 2002. Her studio is located in Bozeman, Montana and her work is featured in various regional galleries and exhibitions. Growing up in Hawaii and Montana has inspired Cherlyn and her artwork. Natures beauty, the obvious, the veiled and the mundane captivate her and her paintbrush. Rather than replicating standard representational elements, Cherlyn attempts to capture a sense of place. Her abstract oil paintings are bold interpretations of natural forms and colors, exploring emotional relationships between people and environment.

SuttonBeresCuller met at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA while pursuing degrees in sculpture. Their first collaboration was the “Drive-Through Gallery” in 1999.  Since then, the three artists have shown in many venues in the Northwest, including the Henry Art Gallery, The SAM, The TAM, On the Boards, Crawl Space, Lawrimore Project, CoCA, Suyama Space, Consolidated Works as well as many public performances and mobile projects throughout King County. They were awarded a residency at the Bemis Center in Omaha, NE in the winter of 2004.  They have received grants for special projects from Creative Capital, Artist Trust, 4Culture, and One Reel and in 2005 received a Stranger “Genius Award” for outstanding artistic accomplishment. Having been active in the public realm for the past ten years, they were recently awarded two commissions for permanent public art pieces in Seattle.  The Seattle Department of Transportation commissioned them to develop and integrate artwork into city sidewalks in numerous locations in Seattle and the new Seattle Streetcar has commissioned a public sculpture for the Westlake Hub downtown.  For their project Mini-Mart City Park, they are repurposing a former 1930’s-era gas station into a public sculpture, green space and alternative arts space. Beth Sellars of Suyama Space compares their work to the “happenings” of a previous generation. While Regina Hackett of the Seattle PI writes:  “Not since Merce Cunnigham, John Cage and Morris Graves confounded admirers in the 1930’s has Seattle seen a trio of artists such as Ben Beres, Zac Culler, and John Sutton.”