Mark Zellers and Kaity Gmitter Artist Talks
December 16, 5:30pm
Artist talks are free and open to all ages. Open Mic Night in the STARworks Café & Taproom following talks. Coffees, smoothies, beer, wine, snacks and sandwiches are available in the cafe.
Mark Zellers
Growing up in northern Minnesota, Mark Zellers was always interested in the world around him and the things in it. Exploring the world of objects and how they work is a habit that he has never outgrown. After several years of working jobs and shoveling snow he attended the University of Wisconsin-Superior where he learned to make and understand ceramics. Mark ‘got the call’ there for making art, learning about art and watching how faculty teach art in the academic environment. While learning about clay and art there he sought out artists in the region, visiting many, and learning about opinions and values and aesthetics within an art community he had never known was in his own backyard. Many influences had common threads: hard work, self-sufficiency, making good things well, humility and risk. Knowing that ultimately he wanted to make art and teach it, he earned an MFA in Artisanry-Ceramics from the University of Massachussetts-Dartmouth. Immediately after finishing the degree he began teaching at the Community College of Rhode Island. He made tenure, became department chair and then went back to teaching and making art. He shows work regionally and nationally, and occasionally curates ceramics exhibitions. Mark currently lives and makes work in Pascoag, Rhode Island with his wife and very good dog.
Kaity Gmitter
Kaity Gmitter is a wood fire potter based in Baltimore, Maryland. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts and a minor in Art History in 2018 at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Kaity was the recipient of the 2016 Joseph & Harvey Meyerhof Internship fellowship. and the the 2018 NCECA Regina Brown Undergraduate Student Fellowship. After graduating, Kaity was a resident artist at Stone Bowl Farm in Vermont, during the summer of 2018. She then apprenticed for Emma Smith, a wood fire potter in southern Ontario from the remainder of 2018 to 2019. Kaity currently makes pottery out of her home studio and fires kilns with friends on the east coast.