Current Residents
Tessa Hoenig
Long-Term Resident 2022-2024
Sippy Fellowship Recipient 2023
Tessa Hoenig is a ceramic sculptor and illustrator interested in creating objects that feel abundant, textural, and overwhelming, physical dreamscapes of her overactive imagination. Originally from Fort Collins, Colorado, Tessa obtained her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Pottery in 2020 from Colorado State University. After graduating, she moved to Missoula, Montana, working for two years as a Post-Baccalaureate student at The University of Montana.
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I create bodies of work with the intention to translate the energy of quick, casual doodling and writing directly into a physical practice in clay. I make art with an introspective, journalistic sentiment, creating accumulations of odd objects that reflect the language of my sketchbook: scrapbooked and doodled, crossed out and circled, with roaming to-do lists, and hairy doodled creatures who undulate between real and imagined.​
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Kayla Noble
Wood Fire Resident 2023-24
Sippy Fellowship Recipient 2023
Kayla Noble is a woodfire artist born and raised in New York's Hudson Valley. She holds a BFA in ceramics from the State University of New York at New Paltz, completed a long term artist residency at Taos Clay (Taos. NM), and has taught and given workshops at numerous community studios in New York State. Noble's practice is rooted in functional pottery; she crafts vessels in conversation with communal action, rituals of food cultivation, and the relationship of service and containment. She owes much of her exposure to clay and reverence for craftsmanship to her grandfather, Brad Benn, a practicing potter and harpsichord builder.
Through woodfired pottery I suspend time, creating worlds in which I am the observed and observer. The researched and the researcher. I collect and I play. In the work I balance gentle exploratory caresses with guttural and instinctive decisions. Unapologetic femininity reveals raw, emotive displays of longing and loneliness. My processes are unassuming investigations of beauty and destruction. The process of woodfiring shifts my practice from private to communal. I relinquish control and extend trust to my community. The sensuality and tenderness of my making methodology is contrasted by the fierceness of the kiln.The process demands all of me- my body an extension of the objects. My tools, an extension of the hand.
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Instagram: @mud_wench
Matthew O'Reilly
Long-Term Resident 2022-2024
Sippy Fellowship Recipient 2023
Matthew is a Canadian emerging artist interested in the
complexity of a person, catalyzing conversation, and figurative ceramics. He completed his MFA at the Alberta University for the Arts where he advanced a visual vocabulary wielding the grotesque and satire in tandem with public stautary. Following his formal education, Matthew was a year-long artist in residence at the Medalta Clay Center in Medicine Hat, Alberta, where he developed new bodies of work investigating the tension between individuals and collectives. Matthew has been the recipient of notable awards, including the First Place NCECA Graduate Award of Excellence (2021 NCECA Juried Student Exhibition), and most recently, the 2022 Winifred Shantz Award for emerging ceramic artists in Canada.
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Instagram: @matthewosmiley
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Grace Orwen
Long-Term Resident 2022-2024
Sippy Fellowship Recipient 2023
Grace is a ceramic artist from a small community in Nebraska. In 2021, she received her BFA with an emphasis in ceramics and painting from the University of Nebraska- Lincoln. Since then, she worked as an instructor at the Lux Center for the Arts and
completed a year-long residency at the Iowa Ceramics Center and Glass Studio. Her work heavily focuses on surface decoration and illustration. In part a collaged autobiography, it explores the humor in shared cultural values, differences, and struggles.
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Instagram: @graceorwen
Krissy Ramirez
Long-Term Resident 2023-2024
Sippy Fellowship Recipient 2023
Born and raised in the border town of Douglas, AZ, Krissy discovered her enthusiasm for clay at Cochise College. Furthering her education, she received a BFA with an emphasis in ceramics from Western New Mexico University in 2017. Then, after completing a 2 year artist in residence program at WNMU she moved to Montana without visiting the big sky. During her time in Missoula she has been part of; the post-baccalaureate program at the University of Montana, co-founder and resident artist at Wildfire Ceramic Studio, and worked out of a new space called Speakeasy Clay Studio. Alongside with her art, Krissy is also part of a BIPOC art collective called COHESION, and works with the Missoula Art Museum as a teaching artist.
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Originally from a border town neighboring Mexico, Krissy Ramirez utilizes experiences from ‘la frontera’ in her ceramic work. From textured plaster walls and detailed carved bricks these illustrative components compliment each other as inspiration from the Mexican homes she grew up in. Serving as a cathartic vehicle, she incorporates washed out graffiti in spanglish on her wares. With these illegible “tags” she is able to draw thoughts on the life of a Latina woman living so far away from her raza (people) while keeping Mexican roots alive with her ceramics.
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instagram: @rebelwareceramics
Tatum Ernst
University of Montana Summer Residency 2024
Tatum Ernst is a ceramic sculptor born and raised in Dallas Texas. Her passion for clay brought her to Missoula where she received her BFA at the University of Montana in 2024. Tatum is interested in pushing the boundaries of functionality, reimagining how ceramic objects can operate beyond their obvious roles in our daily lives.
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When I create an object, I consider its ability to contribute to our experience within a space. My work is designed to be compatible with its environment, creating an opportunity where a dialogue about clay and what it offers us can exist. I often use ceramic furniture as an avenue to challenge the conventions of functional ceramics. I explore the many ways ceramic objects become what we describe as “functional”.
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Fletcher Henderson
University of Montana Summer Residency 2024
Fletcher Henderson is a ceramic-focused multimedia sculptor born and raised in the outskirts of Missoula who is currently earning his BFA in ceramics from the University of Montana.
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My recent work has been focused primarily on representational forms tied to my early life surroundings. I try to create surreal tokens of appreciation for all the overlooked intricacy and spectacle of the world around us, which after a lifetime of exposure can become expected and mundane. I began this study by referencing stones, antlers, branches, the moon, roots, and fauna through simple yet mindful craftsmanship to create a calming sense of intrigue. I am currently developing a set of personal motifs for use in my sculptural forms and finishes. I plan to continue down this path and further develop my execution and design process. I have recently been heavily focused on ceramics however, I still routinely practice with several other mediums as well. I intend to put more effort into blending my ceramic work with other mediums that hold interest to me such as light, sound, resin, metal, and wood. In addition, many of my pieces (both finished and planned) exist as parts of various wholes, bits, and pieces of their respective ecosystems, which I intend to demonstrate through installation work.
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Avi Farber
Short Term Resident - June 2024
Avi Farber is a multimedia artist working with woodfired ceramics, documentary photography, 3D Printing, and new media/sound, based in New Mexico, U.S.A.
After earning a degree in Philosophy at Bates College, ME, Avi took a job fighting wildfires for the United States Forest Service. This inspired a large body of documentary work as well insights that led him to pursue a Masters degree in Interdisciplinary Design at Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2021).
Working in clay, Avi creates installations, sculptures, and functional wares that explore landscapes and weathering. Working with local clays and firing with wood, his work is raw and refined, subtle and gestural.
Drawn to the moments that break through the distractions of daily life, Avi documents people in environmental frontiers. His photos, video, and sound installations reveal a strong sense of place as seen from a quiet observer. His projects explore human relationships with the natural phenomenon of our changing climate, and alternative modes of production.
Avi's ceramic work has been exhibited internationally, and his documentary photography of wildfires has been recognized by National Geographic magazine.