Austin Riddle’s pots are made as companions for you and your home. A vase for your table, full of freshly picked flowers as you and your partner eat breakfast and plan your day’s activities. Large platters and compartment trays to present home-cooked meals with friends on a warm summer evening. Whiskey sippers that nestle in warm hands, topped off as needed from a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels.

Austin Riddle recently received his MFA in ceramics at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. He received his BFA in ceramics at the University of Utah in 2016. He has been an Artist-in-Residence at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, The Bright Angle in Asheville. North Carolina, and at Art Center West in Roswell, Georgia. He was awarded emerging artist by Ceramics Monthly in 2019 and has exhibited his work all over the United States.

As an artist, Megan Thomas seeks to tell stories about how people and animals respond to biological and emotional scarcity. Vessels are inspired by anthropomorphic pottery that appears in the early ceramics records of many cultures. While very old pottery may not divulge all secrets to modern viewers, many of these pots seem to be prayers for bounty or attempts at understanding. She finds interest in how environmental and personal collapse might mirror each other. As cycles of ecological boom and bust manifest themselves in the archaeological records of past cultures, so might the cycles of emotional dearth and plenty manifest themselves in the archaeological record of one human’s soul.

Megan Thomas grew up in Hamilton, Ohio. She studied ceramic sculpture and painting at Bowling Green State University as an undergraduate student and graduated with an MFA in ceramics from Utah State University in 2020. She is an enthusiastic birdwatcher.