ARTISTS HIGHLIGHTED IN THE BOOK
RAYMOND GRIMM (1924-2012) was a leader in the vanguard of artists who transformed Portland to a center of ceramics and glass arts. Regarded by some as “the founding father of pottery in Oregon”, he was cited in the authoritative “The History of Ceramics in the Pacific Northwest”, by Lamar Harrington who concluded, “Grimm has been the strongest most sustained influence on formally trained students of the Portland area.” From traditional German Catholic origins in St. Louis, Grimm leapt into a life of action and art. Ranging from his profession as respected artist/master craftsman and inspiring, beloved art professor in his 35-year career at PSU, Grimm initiated and embodied the essence of Portland’s current colorful charm and mystique. Considered eccentric when he began commuting by bicycle in the early ‘60s, and until the age of 81, he cycled a minimum of 50 miles weekly. Grimm’s philosophy was “try everything once.” He built and established the first hot glass studio in Oregon. He joined fellow ceramicists, building an ancient Gilgama kiln in the Sheridan hills. He invented pottery techniques and glazes. Grimm’s teapots attained “perfection” according to peers. His graduate degree work studying with Carlton Ball at Southern Illinois University provided Grimm the foundation for his technical skill in ceramics. His interests, design and fabricating talents extended to sewing up bike gear and tents, a solar-powered country home, exquisite jewelry, hats, chic urban chicken houses and one of his favorite projects, the gracefully whimsical Weather Machine in Pioneer Square. Public and private commissions of Grimm’s works can be seen throughout Oregon in regional resorts, churches, schools, private collections, and in the collections of the Pacific Northwest College of Art and The Sovereign Collection Fine Art Gallery.
GINNY CAMPBELL ADELSHEIM has been working in clay since 1965. She studied ceramics with Ray Grimm at Portland State University receiving a BA in ceramics and sculpture. She and her former husband, bought nineteen acres on the south side of the Chehalem Mountains, where they founded Adelsheim Vineyards. In 1993, she co-founded FONDO Terra cotta, a company that specializes in hand-built terra cotta for exterior use — architectural ornament and tile, fountains, planters, and birdbaths. In 2008, she helped create the group art therapy program “Footsteps to Recovery” at Portland’s VA Hospital. Adelsheim recently built a ceramic studio so she can once again get her hands into clay.
PETE BEEMAN builds sculpture in Portland, Oregon and New York City. Educated at Brown and Stanford Universities in art, engineering, and design, his work is often kinetic and interactive, industrial and playful. He builds useless but functional objects, and thinks a lot about how our culture rates the utility and necessity of an object. Beeman consider the mechanics of a thing as integral to its beauty. petebeeman.com
BRUCE CONKLE declares an affinity for mysterious natural phenomena such as snow, fire, rainbows, crystals, volcanoes, tree burls, and meteorites. He examines contemporary attitudes toward the environment, including deforestation, climate change, and extinction. Conkle’s work often deals with the human place within nature, and frequently examines what he calls the “misfit quotient” at the crossroads. Conkle received a 2010 Hallie Ford Fellowship and an Oregon Arts Commission Artist Fellowship. His 2012 show “Tree Clouds” was awarded a project grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council. bruceconkle.com
VICTORIA CHRISTEN emphasizes the beauty and significance of daily rituals. She intends for her pots to embody her experiences, attitudes, and values. The work is both thrown and constructed, intuitive and patterned, self conscious and flamboyant — references to her seamstress mother’s use of patterns and tucks in her creations, to her father’s work as both a machinist and a maker of folk art. victoriachristen.com
The central image of DANIEL DUFORD’S artistic practice is an enormous tree growing out of a half-buried storage jar. The roots have cracked the walls of the submerged pot and suck up nutrients from deep in mythic and historic earth. Duford uses blunt materials to tell stories. He makes temporary heroic murals, throws pots, draws comics, and builds large-scale, unviable ceramic monuments. The dendritic nature of his practice fans out from American mythology and folklore. Artist, writer, and teacher, Duford is a Visiting Associate Professor of Art at Reed College and a Hallie Ford Fellow. Danielduford.com
DAVID ECKARD’S work includes two-dimensional and three-dimensional installations that often manifest in elaborate public performances and videos all created with the same unerring sense of the crafted object. Eckard is the recipient of the Hallie Ford Fellowship, a Bonnie Bronson award, and a Regional Art & Culture Fellowship. His work has been shown nationally. He is an associate professor of art at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. davideckard.com
TERI GELBER (T. PROJECT) is a small-batch tea company based in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Teri Gelber’s passion for flavor and scents, her vision of beauty, her love of quality craftsmanship and her admiration of the botanical world all meld into one cup of tea and the many lovely things that accompany it. All of her teas, spices, herbs and flowers are carefully sourced to infuse only the very best botanicals. tprojectshop.com
CHRISTA GRIMM brings intuition and fluid movement to her landscape paintings, which have been influenced greatly by her father Ray Grimm. She has created many large-scale public installations in Oregon, including: The Casey Eye Institute, and the Salem Hospital, and most recently a street mural in Portland at SE 30th and Belmont in Portland, Oregon. christagrimm.com
JERE GRIMM has worked in clay for 50 years or more; and in fibers most of her life. She was trained in sculpture in high school and art school at Washington University School of Fine Arts where she met Ray Grimm (they married and collaborated for 55 years). Throughout her life clay, fiber arts, and graphics have been her media of choice for expressing her passion for Earth’s sacred nature and concern for countering what D.H. Lawrence calls “the catastrophe for man when he cut himself off from the rhythms of the earth”. Her work is in many private collections and her public works can be seen at Portland State University Library, Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon and at Skamania Lodge, in Stephenson, Washington. 
CHELSEA HEFFNER is the founder of WildCraft Studio School, a creative center offering workshops in traditional skills, studio arts, plant medicine, and sustainable practices. Through this integrated curriculum, she hopes to dissolve the divisions that exist between art and everyday life. wildcraftstudioschool.com
AUTUMN HIGGINS was born into a family of artists, her mother Christa Grimm is a painter and her grandparents Ray and Jere Grimm are artists who worked in ceramics for over 50 years, so she understand the importance of art objects in one’s life. Her serious interest in ceramics began at Southern Oregon University. In the summer of 2006 she apprenticed with the French potter Jean-Nicolas Gerard in Valensole, France. In 2011 she studied at University of Florida and then enrolled in the Masters of Fine Arts program at Lousiana State University. Recently she was awarded the Fogelberg Studio Fellowship at Northern clay Center. Her work is shown in several galleries. autumnhigginsceramics.wordpress.com 
CYNTHIA LAHTI creates works of art that resonate with honesty and reflect the beauty and chaos of the world. Her art is influenced by human artifacts from ancient times to the present, as well as by personal experiences and emotions. She works in various media, including drawing, collage, and sculpture. Currently she is focusing on ceramic sculpture based on expressive images of the figure she finds in a variety of source materials. Each sculpture expresses an intense inner psychological state, its surface effecting a fluctuating quality, part beautiful, part grotesque. Lahti is a 2013 Hallie Ford Fellow. cynthialahti.blogspot.com
DANA LYNN LOUIS maintains a rigorous studio practice that engages architectural space, glass, light, and shadow. The results fluctuate between intimate domestic-scaled pieces, to interdisciplinary performance collaborations, and large-scale public works that energize and alter the experience of an environment. Louis is inspired by the timeless and fascinating systems of the body, the natural and constructed worlds, and their interconnection. She shows at Laura Russo in Portland, Oregon. danalynnlouis.com
WHITNEY NYE is a visual artist based in Portland, Oregon. Her work is deeply affected by the texture, hues and sensations of the world that surrounds her. Working in different mediums, Nye’s thematic approach consistently examines patterns of repetition. She explores the rhythms and pauses of our natural world, becoming a conduit for their character. Travel of all kinds is a key influence and source of inspiration. Nye is a graduate of the University of Oregon. She shows at Laura Russo in Portland. Whitneynye.com
THOMAS ORR took ceramics as a required art class during his studies in Oceanography over forty years ago. For a decade he lived in the foothills of northern California where he dug clay and wood fired pots formed on the potter’s wheel he created from the axle of an abandoned car. He worked as a studio potter while performing the duties of a ceramic technician in the local state college. At the end of the 1980’s, Thomas attended the Claremont Graduate School to earn an MFA. The next few years he traveled the country teaching sabbatical replacement jobs and building his studio practice. In 1995 he came to Portland to head the ceramics program at the Oregon College of Art & Craft — from which he recently retired. Along with continuing an active studio practice he is collaborating with his wife, Joanna, to establish the Ash Street Project Emerging Artist Mentorship Program at their Portland studio. Thomas’s work is at Museum of Contemporary Craft. ashstreetproject.com
DALE RAWLS was Ray Grimm’s studio assistant for several years. He received his BS from PSU in Ceramics, and his MA from Lewis & Clark College. Dale coordinated the Ceramics program and developed the Northwest Artists Clay Workshops at the Multnomah Arts Center from 1977-1983. He has taught Visual Arts and Ceramics at the Catlin Gabel School for 28 years and shared The Riverhouse Studio with the visual artist, Barbara Rawls for the last 41 years. dalerawls.com
LILITH ROCKETT, a studio potter residing in Portland, Oregon, works primarily in porcelain. Her work, created by hand on the potter’s wheel, reveals a deep interest in the subtle qualities of the material: translucency, fluidity, density, and the velvety softness of an unglazed polished surface. With clean lines and unadorned surfaces, Rockett’s forms are grouped in social arrangements. The groupings use both containers and pedestals and endeavor to create a ceremonial tone. The conversation continues as the objects gain purpose in use. All of the work is intended for use in a domestic setting. lilithrockett.com
TRACY SCHLAPP is the founder of Cumbersome Multiples, a print collective that collaborates with artists and writers to create limited-edition multiples. The 1928 C&P clamshell press and a Line-O-Scribe proofing press, a cabinet of movable type and block prints are at the heart of these collaborative projects. The history of the printing press begins with the dissemination of ideas. Presses have been the hub of a community. Using antiquated printing technology invites human-scale making and energizes the Cumbersome studio. Collaboration begins in the studio with the role of lead artist switching based on the particular needs of the project. From there it radiates and evolves to other platforms. cumbersomemultiples.com
KRISTIN MITSU SHIGA feels there are many ways to tell a story. Sometimes words will suffice. Often, though, the right ones are hard to find. Shiga finds storytelling to be easier when she uses her hands to create an object. The result may be a wearable haiku, or some length of prose from which to pour tea, but each piece tells a story that can only be retold by the viewer. Her passion for the studio arts is matched only by her love of introducing them to others, and she has been teaching around the United States and abroad since 1996. Kristinmitsushiga.com
CORY SCHREIBER is a fourth generation Portlander and grew up working in Old Town in his family’s oyster bar. When he opened Wildwood restaurant in Portland, he rapidly became a leading figure in the region’s bustling culinary scene — winning the James Beard Award in 1998 for Best Chef: Pacific Northwest. Schreiber cuisine emphasizes organic produce prepared in ways that allow the natural beauty and flavors of the ingredients to shine forth, unobstructed by fussy embellishments.