For over thirty-five years, Tom Coleman has been developing his craft as a hand-built potter working with both porcelain and stoneware, each equally refined and well-balanced. His work has gained him numerous awards and notoriety in the field of ceramics.
A graduate of the Northwest College of Art and a resident of Nevada since 1987, Tom continues to grow as an artist and shares his discoveries and enthusiasm through numerous workshops.
Tom Coleman’s work is featured in a number of different galleries, including a 2003 solo exhibition entitled “Desert Landscape” at the Nevada Arts Council Exhibition in Las Vegas, Nevada. He has written much on the subject of ceramics and has himself been the subject of much published review.
Tom Coleman works with wife Elaine out of their studio and gallery in Henderson, Nevada.
Ceramic sculptor, Patti Warashina, was born in Spokane, Washington in l940, as Masae Patricia Warashina. Her father, who emigrated to the U.S. from Japan, married her Mother, a second-generation Japanese American woman. Patti was the youngest of three children. She went to college in Seattle and received her Bachelor ‘s and later her Master’s of Fine Arts degree from the University of Washington in l964. While in college, she studied with sculptors, Robert Sperry, Harold Myers, Rudy Autio, Shoji and Shinsaku Hamada, and Ruth Penington. Her first solo exhibition was in l962 at the Phoenix Art Gallery. Warashina later married fellow student Fred Bauer, and from l964 to l970 exhibited as Patti Bauer
Early influences in Warashina’s art include California Funk, Surrealism, and experimental West Coast ceramic sculpture from the 50′s and 60′s. Her work is best known for satire, humor, and dream state figures, expressed through low fire polychrome ceramic material. Together with fellow artists, Robert Sperry, Howard Kottler and Fred Bauer, she brought national recognition to the department of ceramics at the University of Washington’s School of Art in the late l970′s.
Inge Balch is an artist working in ceramics, design and sculpture. She has a BA and BFA from Kansas State University and an MFA from the University of Kansas. She is currently a professor of art at Baker University. Since 1992, Inge has been the curator of the Orton International Cone Box Show. Her own work is primarily sculptural and utilizes many unconventional and experimental techniques and ideas. She is always open to trying something new!
