PEKKA PAIKKARI

Pekka Paikkari is known for his versatile utility ware, his unique works, and his monumental public sculptures. Paikkari views the clay as a unifier between his artwork and the viewer, both presenting and keeping a history within itself. Offering a story through his works is his goal, whether through a building’s façade, a dynamic installation, or his large object sculptures, like his Bottles. Paikkari has made a thorough study of the technical properties of clay.

He is internationally recognized and his works are found in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Ceramics Museum of Barcelona and the Shigaraki Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art in Japan. In 1989 he was awarded the III prize at the Helsinki Fair Ground Art Competition and in 1993 he was awarded the International Biennial of Ceramics in Faenza, Italy.

SHELLEY MUZYLOWSKI ALLEN

Shelley Muzylowski Allen has been working with the medium of hot glass and other artist materials for over 30 years. Born in Manitoba, Canada, and she holds a B.F.A. in Painting and Intaglio from the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design.

Shelley has been awarded Provincial and Canada Council grants, and her work is held nationally and internationally in public institutions and private collections. In 2008, Shelley had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner, Washington, titled Modern Menagerie. Other selected shows include The San Juan Museum of Art, Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe and Scottsdale; Habatat Galleries, Michigan; Traver Gallery, Seattle; and Schantz Galleries, Massachusetts. In 2012 and again in 2016, Shelley was a guest artist at Studio Salvadore in Murano, Italy, where she collaborated with Davide Salvadore on a series of large-scale sculptures. 

In 2005, Rik established a glass and sculpture studio with his wife, artist Shelley Muzylowski Allen at their property in Skagit County, Washington. In addition to being an artists, Rik and Shelley have taught internationally at the Toyama Institute of Glass in Toyama, Japan, and the International Glass Festival in Stourbridge, England. They have also taught nationally, including the Penland School of Craft, Pittsburgh Glass Center, and at Pilchuck.

Rik has had solo exhibitions of his sculptural work and installations throughout the country, including Seeker at the Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, Washington, Innersphere at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, and at Blue Rain Gallery, Traver Gallery, and Thomas Riley Galleries. His current series of work has been in the form of spacecraft, rockets, and scientific apparatus. While many of Rik’s pieces have a reference to his curiosity for science, they also convey humor, simple narratives, and a lightheartedness that is embodied in much of science fiction’s antiquated vision of the future.

Michael Waller

Michael Waller is a Kinston, North Carolina native and has been working as a professional sculptor for over 20 years.  He received his Bachelor in Fine Arts from East Carolina University in 1997, and subsequently worked as a foundryman at Carolina Bronze Foundry, then as a metalsmith at Vega Metals while pursuing sculpture as personal expression.  In 2003, he became involved in the Durham non-profit sculpture studio and foundry Liberty Arts and began working as a full-time professional sculptor, creating Durham’s iconic bronze bull “Major” with fellow sculptor Leah Foushee Waller. His most recent series of works centers on the process of casting iron directly in wooden molds.

Leah Foushee Waller

Leah Foushee Waller is a visual artist and art educator living and working in Hillsborough, North Carolina.  She received her Bachelor in Fine Arts from East Carolina University in 2002, and studied under Master figurative sculptor Martine Vaugel in the Loire Valley of France. Drawing from the realms of personal experience, mid-life existence, as well as the worlds of the natural and metaphysical, her work embraces the notion of realism as metaphor.  Using the cast metals of bronze, aluminum, and iron, her pieces exert a playfulness with scale and color while exploring themes of motherhood, self-discovery, and awareness of the intangible.

Guest Artist Jing Huang

Born and raised in Guilin, China, Jing Huang is a ceramic artist currently living and working in Charlotte, North Carolina. She received degrees from Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in China (BA, Ceramic Art, 2012), Sheridan College in Canada (Diploma, Crafts and Design - Ceramics, 2015), and Alfred University in the US (MFA, Ceramic Art, 2020). 

Jing has lectured, curated exhibitions, conducted workshops and exhibited extensively throughout the US, Canada, China and the UK. The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, and Ceramics Monthly Magazine featured Jing as an Emerging Artist in 2023.

Guest Artist Kimberly Thomas

Kimberly Thomas is a prolific sculptor and flameworker. A self-taught glass artist, Thomas earned a BFA in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design and spent six years as a special effects make-up artist before she began flameworking in 2009. In addition to working in her studio in Detroit, Thomas exhibits her work in museums and galleries across the United States. She is a former professor of glass at Salem Community College in New Jersey and a guest instructor at various craft schools and studios, including Penland School of Craft and Pilchuck School of Glass. Most recently, she was selected for Pilchuck’s Emerging Artists in Residence Program where she plans to continue to evolve and expand her body of work and her artistic vision.

Guest Artist Ian Thomsen

Ian Thomsen is an artist metalsmith working in Asheboro NC. He got his beginnings in blacksmithing through colonial reenacting as a child and has pursued the forging arts ever since.  He produces everything from early American tools, to art nouveau and modern gates and railings. His hope is to honor the heritage, while embracing the future of American artisanal forging and ironwork.