Visiting Artist Workshop: Matt Kelleher - Active Hands, Active Mind
Adult Class | Registration opens 11/4/2026 10:00 AM MDT
Active Hands, Active Mind
Join Matt Kelleher in this demonstration workshop of thrown and hand built pottery, where we will consider the potential of forms to hold, reveal, and refute ideas. Let us agree that pottery embodies our ideas and helps explain what it is to be alive today. Where do these ideas come from? What decisions are we negotiating when we are making pottery? Can those decisions lead to new forms? Is this a path forward to create an individual voice? Join the conversation with Matt Kelleher as he explores form finding exercises, bisque mold systems, and wheel-throwing. Our goal is to better understand the thinking/making of pottery, disclose techniques and finish a few pieces.
Matt Kelleher is an assistant professor at Alfred University. He brings ten years experience as a studio potter to this position that includes a three-year residency at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. Matt studied ceramics at the Kansas City Art Institute under Ken Ferguson and Victor Babu from 1993-1995. He received his MFA in 1999 from University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he studied with Gail Kendall, Peter Pinnell, and Eddie Dominguez. Matt was also an Artist in Residence at the Archie Bray Foundation and Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Shigaraki, Japan.
- This visiting artist workshop will be hands off, so no need to bring any tools or clay. However, please do come with questions for Matt!
- This is a hands off workshop. See the following list for suggested items to bring:
- Notebook and writing device
- Waterbottle
- Lunch / snacks