About Us

www.texasturner.com

John Van Domelen was introduced to the lathe by his grandfather many years ago, John rediscovered the joy of handcrafting wood items. He uses the lathe as his primary tool, but his work is sometimes done off the lathe. John carves, burns, textures and dyes some pieces in order to further bring forth the beauty in the wood. He is a member of Gulf Coast Woodturners Association, American Association of Woodturners and the Wood Turning Center and has won numerous awards through the GCWA contests. He feels that his residency at HCCC will provide learning opportunities and the framework and structure to explore new ideas and push the envelope on what is considered woodturning.

Jay Calder is a native Southern Californian and second-generation potter. For many years, his family operated Calder Pottery, a “one-of-a-kind” stoneware shop within Universal Studio Tours in Universal City, California. Jay was heavily influenced by his father, a commercial photographer by day and potter by night. His formal art training began at Brigham Young University and continued with a MFA at the University of Puget Sound in Washington. His work has been exhibited in juried shows in California, Utah, Washington, Louisiana, New York and Texas. Of his life’s work, Jay says, “My ceramic experiences are a pivotal focal point in my life and reflective metaphor of my life’s journey towards refinement.”

Charlotte Jean Hatch received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Oklahoma State University and continued her education in printmaking and ceramics at the University of Houston Clear Lake. She owned and operated a framing business in Clear Lake until 2003, when she retired to focus on her enamel work full time.

Barbara Kile is an artist who has had a love of fabric, textiles and jewelry for most of her life. Originally a professional librarian, she received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science degrees from the University of Illinois. She also studied jewelry for many years at the Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In 1997, she began taking felting workshops with local and internationally known instructors. Over the years, living and traveling in different parts of the world have influenced the style, colors and textures in her work.

Hyo-In Kim was born and raised in Korea and received her Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea. She moved to the United States in 2001 to earn a Master of Fine Arts in ceramics from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work focuses on expressing her cultural identity within the context of a larger globalized culture. Hyo-in represents the cultural clash between Western modernization and traditional Korean fashion by including porcelain casts of mass-produced objects on her industrial metal-screen representations of clothing. Hyo-in’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions across the United States and Korea.

www.kimritter.com

Stylized women with a cheeky look, inspired by comic books, anime and political cartoons, reflect a wicked sense of humor in Kim Ritter’s art quilts. Using innuendo to explore human emotions and social issues, her allegorical imagery is both narrative and conceptual, inviting multiple levels of interpretation. Kim holds City and Guild Certificates in Patchwork, Quilting, and Design from the London Institute of the Arts. She has art quilts in collections worldwide and her work has appeared in FiberArts Magazine, American Craft Magazine, Quilting Arts Magazine and FiberArts Design Book Six. Kim was also recently chosen one of 40 craft artists given the designation of “A Texas Original Artist” by the Texas Commission on the Arts. Kim lost her studio in Hurricane Ike in September, and HCCC was pleased to offer her a short-term residency through August 2009.

Laura Viada began weaving in 1996 and is primarily a self-taught weaver. She was introduced to weaving by the wife of a law-school classmate in the early 1980s. Years later, while on a break from practicing law, Laura rediscovered weaving and never looked back. She now works half time as a human resources consultant, and devotes the rest of her energy to weaving and the fiber arts. Laura’s work is focused on geometric form and color theory, and she dyes most of her own yarns. Her work has been exhibited nationally and has won a number of awards, including two Handweavers Guild of America Awards. Laura lives, weaves and dyes in Houston, Texas.

Lynn Williams has always had a passion for working with her hands and creating things. Over time, this interest led her to explore hand-weaving and hand-spinning, as well as dyeing and various forms of surface design. After many years of using yarn to create fabric and functional/wearable items, Lynn learned to make un-spun silk fiber, which can be cut and sewn like traditional cloth or sculpted into three-dimensional forms. Lynn is currently exploring two types of work inspired by the natural world and traditional textiles. One is a type of fabric mosaic, created with large sheets of paper, which are then cut into small units and embellished with machine stitching. The other involves using single sheets of paper to create images by block printing and hand stitching