Lauren Rouatt
BFA, MAE
Lauren (she/her) is an artist and educator who loves working with her hands. Lauren takes a process-oriented approach to making work - crafting vessels that bring us into conversation with her ongoing inquiries into the natural world. She is interested in growth, decay, branching, cycles, and metamorphosis, as well as the textures and shapes that emerge when we look at the world both up close and from a distance. Lauren has a background in art education, early childhood education, and is currently the Managing Director of Byrdie’s Pottery. You can see her work at www.laurenrouattart.com.
Maisha Joshua
A native New Orleanian, Maisha Joshua (she/her) is an emerging ceramicist who develops intuitive pottery grounded in organic forms and hand carving. After two decades away from pottery, she began taking classes at Byrdies, a local pottery studio in her neighborhood. Her passion for pottery reignited, and she was appointed a member of the studio.
She is currently a member of New Orleans Clay Collective, a pottery studio that she and two other members started in September 2021 after realizing they had similar interests around community access to working with clay.
Ness Kent
Ness Kent (they/them) is an artist and educator who is deeply invested in community collaborations and youth arts programming in New Orleans. Some of their experience includes teaching Ceramics at YAYA, Son of a Saint, and the Academy of Fine Arts, as well as developing and managing youth programs for NOAFA and Mess Arts. Ness currently is the Executive Director and co-creation collaborator of their own community arts non profit, Mess Arts. Aside from their love of youth programming, they are passionately involved in the pottery community and the importance of tactile collaboration in our day to day lives.
Pheebs Sismour
BFA, MAE
Pheebs (they/them) is a potter, figurative sculptor, and educator who has been working with clay for over ten years. Their work primarily focuses on the combination of functional vessels with figurative ceramics. To Pheebs, the process and challenge of working with clay is a deeply personal one, and they feel a strong connection to the transformative quality of ceramics because of its endless ability to express emotion.
Rey Hansen
Rey (they/them) is an artist and educator who creates stories and space with their body, hands, and the endlessly interesting material that is clay. They are interested in the potentiality of embodied art-making with healing processes in mind, believing that the relationship between the maker and the craft has something to say about our shared futures and ability to connect with each other and the world around us. They work with improvisation and responsive processes, finding places of play and joy along the way, to create useful objects for every day. You can see their work at reyhopehansen.com.