Marin Art Directory
ceramics
Alice Sturges Steinman is esteemed for her figural, ceramic sculptures, that celebrate the qualities of the clay. She also creates clay vessels, collages, and figure paintings.
Barbara Andino-Stevenson, artist and owner of Sweet Spirit Ceramics Center in San Rafael, creates abstract, mixed media sculpture and ceramic art, and teaches ceramics at the center. She has a masters degree in fine art from San Francisco State with an emphasis in ceramics, and has taught art and ceramics at the de Young Museum Art School, San Francisco State, North Peralta Community College, San Francisco City College, and College of Marin.
Barbara Sebastian creates porcelain jars, ceramic birds and teapots, clay wallworks, and other ceramic art, and also paints abstract, interior murals.
Bette Golden Lamb creates abstract and functional ceramic art. She was born and raised in New York City before settling in Marin County, California.
ceramic art and sculpture
Claudio Cohen is an artist of ceramic and bronze sculptures with a studio in Sausalito, California. Her works are often figurative.
Darcy J. Sears specializes in ceramic and bronze sculpture, in a style that ranges from realistic and figurative to whimsical. Born in Southern California, she received a B.A. degree at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Eric Norstad (1924-2013) was an award-winning potter and architect. Norstad was born in Valhalla, New York. He moved his family to Marin County, California in 1959. He built a kiln in the basement of their new home and began selling pots at street fairs and at word of mouth home pottery sales.
In 1960-1962 Eric Norstad worked as an architect in Tiburon, California, before he opened Norstad Pottery, building a larger kiln on their property. Norstad credits much of his success to the right time and place. The 1960s American craft movement was taking off and individual artists were able to make a living. With business booming Norstad hired other potters to help with production, including Toru Hasegawa, Jack Sears, and Michael Campbell to help with production. (source: image from Wikipedia.org)
ceramic art and sculpture, with a naturalistic style
Icka Cayard specializes in abstract and functional ceramic art. She was born in Sweden and resides in Marin County, California. She works with clay in a whimsical style, experimenting with textures and glazes.
Jamim Zegart is a ceramic artist of Mill Valley, and teaches ceramics for the San Francisco Unified School District.
Jean Yanko Varda (1893-1971) was a Sausalito artist known for his abstract painting and collages. He came from Smyrna (now İzmir, Turkey). At 19, Varda moved to Paris where he met Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque and took up abstract and avant garde art styles, mosaics, and later collages. He lived in Cassis, France and London, England before World War II. At the onset of World War II, Varda emigrated to Monterey, California. Circa 1948, Varda and the British-born artist, Gordon Onslow Ford acquired an old ferryboat called the Vallejo and permanently moored it on a dock in Sausalito, California. They remodeled it into a houseboat, art studio, and artist salon. Varda lived on the docks the remainder of his life. A major exhibit of works by Jean Varda took place at the Bay Model Visitors Center in Sausalito in 2015. See slideshow
Books: The book The Art and Life of Jean Varda by Elizabeth Leavy Stroman, published in 2015, is the first full-length biography of this important artist.
Jessica Green creates ceramic sculpture, urns and plaques. A quote from the artist: “Nature has always entranced me and so I love to capture it as best I can as it brings me closer to it: Landscapes, flowers, animals etc.” Jessica grew up in Greenwich Village in New York City, worked as a painter, and is settled now in Marin County, and part time in Mexico.
Kevin Scheer is a potter and ceramic artist of Marin County, who creates handmade and functional pottery: tea bowls, lidded vessels, split rim bowls, vases, bottles, and jugs.
ceramic art and sculpture
Marcia S. Dalva is a Marin County ceramic artist who creates symbolic figures with fired and glazed clay.
Mark Jaeger is a ceramic artist with a studio in San Anselmo. His portfolio includes clay sculptures series of Superheroes, San Francisco Founders, and other heads and figures. He studied ceramics at the University of California, Davis.
ceramics and pottery
Mary Tuthill Lindheim (1912-2004), born Mary Barbara Tuthill, and also known professionally as Mary Tuthill or Mary Lindheim, was an American sculptor and studio potter. She trained as a sculptor with Ralph Stackpole and Alexander Archipenko, working in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco between 1930 and 1945. Widowed in World War II, she turned to ceramics, studying with Antonio Prieto at California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts), and was an active studio artist and leader in pottersÄô and craftsmen circles in the Bay Area from 1946 to 1969.
In 1969, Mart moved to Bolinas, California, and in 1994, she was given a retrospective at the small but respected Bolinas Museum, which revived her reputation. (sources: Wikipedia.org. Image of ÄúThe MothersÄù artwork by Mary Tuthill Lindheim, photo by Will Taylor. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.)
Melissa Woodburn is a fiber and ceramic artist and a weaver of little baskets and treasure keepers. A quote from the artist: “I am inspired by using a variety of media to express statements about the rhythms and cycles of living.”
ceramics and pottery
Nadia Tarzi-Saccardi is a programs manager and instructor at the Mill Valley Potter’s Studio. Nadia was born in Strasbourg, France, and studied ceramics and sculpture in Europe. She masters in low fire ceramics, sculpture, and high fire pottery. She is also an esteemed executive director of the Association for the Protection of Afghan Archaeology.
Natalie Ann Morris creates ceramic pottery and wall hangings. A quote from the artist: “There is balance between form and surface, beauty and harmony, tension and contrast, vitality and imagination as if a story is woven around each individual piece with artistic ability and flow of ideas.”
Nini Lion creates sculpture, ceramic art, and abstract paintings and drawings in mixed media.
Sarah Silverstein creates figurative sculptures in clay.
Shoshana Parry is a ceramics artist who makes both hand-built functional work and site specific installations. Shoshana Parry teaches ceramic classes and workshops from her studio in Fairfax, California. She writes about her craft and inspiration: I love texture. I love all the bumps, spikes, ridges, scratches, swirly grooves, twisting branches, and overlapping scales that make my pieces so much more interesting.
Suzanne Riley creates ceramic animals, figures, platters and vessels with natural details. She has an extensive background in design, watercolor, acrylics, encaustics, papermaking, pastels, printmaking, and sculpture.
Tebby George creates clay sculptures and cold cast bronzes. Her artworks are in clay, wax, plaster, cast paper, forton and coldcast bronze, and Tebby often adds color with oxides, underglazes, glazes and oils.
Peggy Ann Lindstrom specializes in mosaic art and jewelry. She has a background in oil painting and watercolor and ceramics. Peggy uses found jewelry, gems, stained glass, and polymer clay in her creations.