This is a time of honing in and a time of flux.

As each studio assistant chooses what their next step is, there are churning thoughts, applications to the next hopeful move, decisions to stay on, and a deepening of ideas within their artwork. 

Below they share their thoughts and recent artworks.

Rickie Barnett:

My work has always been an internal dialogue. A way of being honest with myself about how I’m affected by the things around me. As I went from program to program, I started to question how honest I was being with myself, in the work. I was starting to put the work before everything else in my life, including my health. I began questioning my involvement and direction in the medium. My time here at Ceramistas has given me the space and opportunity to focus my attention on my craft and my studio practice as well as given me the insight of two practicing artist and how they balance their own lives. I am excited to have found a place that has reassured my love for this material again and given me the supportI need to stay focused on my path ahead. As I move forward in my career I plan to focus my efforts on better balancing my studio practice with living a healthy and happy life. Finding that medium between being a studio artist as well as a fulling functioning human being.

Website Link

Tilly Troelstrup

Influenced by anxiety and loss, I make

Small scale sculptures and installations that are abstractions of challenging memories or observations of oneself. My time at Ceramistas has provided me with the chance to dive deeper into my concepts and to challenge my trusted modes of making. Post Ceramistas I look forward to a summer of solo hiking and travel to reflect on the things I have learned before settling into my own studio.

Website Link

Ash Atterberry:

I saw a quote in my youth that often returns at times of transition, I consider it to be a great descriptor of my current state and that is “being stuck between two worlds, one living and the other dying to be born”. My work has been driven simply by people, places, and things and the memories attached to them. Collecting objects and further exploring the significance in what has been collected to create a vignette of a time or place through sculpture and installation. I am not sure where I am going next but I suppose I will know when I get there.

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Jake-

This last year has been an amazing opportunity for me to focus in ceramics and build my skills to a point where I can start a studio of my own. With it being time to move on, and having come to Ceramistas Seattle straight from school, I am excited to find a balanced lifestyle in conjunction with my studio practice, without the school or residency environment. In the next year I plan on renovating a carriage barn in Bellingham WA where I can build a portfolio for graduate school and further develop my sewing and screen-printing skills. I hope to start a line of messenger bags, and backpacks that I been thinking of since high school. Thanks Ceramistas Seattle and to all the people I have met here- it's been real.

Website Link