Current Residents
Austin Coudriet
Long-Term Resident
Sippy Fellowship Recipient 2022
Austin was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 2019 he earned his BFA with a dual emphasis in sculpture and ceramics from the University of Nebraska- Lincoln. There he focused on fabricating large ceramic sculptures and expanding his skills in the wood shop. Austin most recently was a long-term resident at the Clay Art Center in Port Chester, NY (2019-2021). During the start of the global pandemic, Austin moved back to Nebraska for six months, where he held a fellowship position at the LUX Center for the Arts. In 2019, Austin founded a ceramic collective group called Mud Ties and currently leads both the Social Outreach and the Social Media team.
My work is an ongoing tactile conversation between soft amorphous forms and rigid linear components. The medium of clay offers me elasticity and mutability, capturing my touch like a photograph. When refined clay evokes crispness and rigidity, yielding physical and formal structure. Clay captivates me as it undergoes transformations. Its versatility in form and potential
provides me units upon which I build and can construct.
Instagram: @austincoudriet
Grayson Fair
Wood Fire Resident Artist
Sippy Fellowship Recipient 2022
Grayson attended the University of North Texas and received his Bachelors of Fine Arts in 2016. He studied sculpture, drawing, fibers, and majored in ceramics. In 2018 he spent a year as an Artist in Residence at the Taos Clay Studio in Taos, NM. In the Fall of 2019 he moved to Arizona for a year long residency at The Reitz Ranch, then moved Pomona,CA where he was a Resident Artist at The American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) through summer 2021. His introduction to ceramics was through functional pottery, but now his focus is nonobjective, action-based sculpture.
My art is about capturing moments of action, emotion and intensity.Through a deep-seated connection to the dynamic nature of clay, I work naturally and gesturally to preserve moments I find profound.
I wood fire my work, which is a very thought-intensive and systematic process. Nevertheless, there is a certain spontaneity that fits with how I make. The aesthetic that I achieve is one that accentuates the form through ash build up, atmospheric flashing, and glaze movement. Just as my sculpture preserves an instant, wood firing records the flame, the firing, and even the crew on the finished piece.
instagram: @Grayson_fair
Tessa Hoenig
Long-Term Resident
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.
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.
Matthew O'Reilly
Long-Term Resident
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.
Instagram: @matthewosmiley
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Grace Orwen
Long-Term Resident
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.
Instagram: @graceorwen
Hannah Kautto
University of Montana Summer Resident
Hannah was born and raised in Rochester, Minnesota. She received her Associate in Fine Arts from Rochester Community and Technical College in 2015. Before moving to Missoula, MT, in 2018, she lived in Minneapolis, MN, working at a production pottery studio for two years. She is currently pursuing her BFA in ceramics at the University of Missoula, Montana, and will be graduating in 2024. With her work, she explores her identity pertaining to her past and present self. She explores this avenue through functional and sculptural ceramics.
William Wright
Wood Fire Community Resident - June 2023
Will grew up in Eula, Texas, a rural town outside Abilene. He went to Hardin Simmons University where he started out as a graphic design major but got the mud bug after taking a ceramics class with professor, Brandon Phillips. He earned his BFA in Ceramics in 2012 then went straight into graduate school. He earned his MFA in ceramics in 2015 from the University of North Texas. Since his formal schooling he has taught a range of art subjects at UNT, NCTC, and Weatherford College. He has also taught high school ceramics, sculpture, and drawing.
Will’s personal art practice is all about the clay. He primarily focuses on cone 10 wood and salt atmospheric firing, as well as mid-range terra cotta and stoneware. He built a small crossdraft Wood and Salt fired kiln which he fires at his home studio in Chico, TX.
Outside of art making, Will is a writer and poet. He is also a great cook and occasionally hunts and fishes. He is a world traveler and explorer and is learning French and Spanish. Will’s maternal family line came over from Wales 2 generations ago and still has cousins on Alderney Island in the English Channel. This has formed an important through line in his life and art. He is also a history buff, specifically on Celtic, Middle Eastern, and Central American history.