About Us

Hiromi Iyoda makes figurative and narrative clay sculptures, basing her work mostly on her past and current life experiences.  Born in a small town in Japan, she grew up with a modest background, finding that a sketchbook and coloring pencils were the best materials to play with. But soon she became inventive and fashioned her own toys from mundane materials.  Eventually, Hiromi traveled to America to further her education, earning an associate degree in art and a fashion design certificate from the Saddleback Community College. Later, she studied ceramics, receiving her BFA in 2011 from the California State University of Long Beach and her MFA in 2015 from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Prior to joining HCCC’s residency program, Hiromi was an artist-in-residence at Red Star Studio in Kansas City. To learn more about her work, visit https://www.hiromi-iyoda.com/.

Liz Robb’s art practice focuses on soft sculpture.  Based in San Francisco, she works sculpturally to create textured surfaces and forms with natural materials such as wool, cotton, jute, and indigo. Currently, she is creating a new collection of work inspired by the colors, textures, history, and life in desert landscapes.  After spending time in Joshua Tree, California, and Oaxaca de Juárez, México, she is looking forward to exploring and creating work influenced by the Chihuahuan Desert in Texas. This new collection will break the two-dimensional grid in favor of more fluid, three-dimensional concepts that consider negative space and light. She will be pulling from the extraordinary natural environment of the desert, layering ideas, imagery, sound, and traditional textile techniques such as weaving, wrapping, and dying. For more information on Liz’s work, please visit https://www.lizrobb.com/.

Angel Oloshove studied painting at California College of the Arts and later worked in graphic design and toy development in Tokyo.  In 2009, she turned her focus to developing her studio practice in ceramic sculpture. Her work often experiments with painterly glazes to express feelings of transcendental experiences through form and color.  She has balanced a fine-art practice of sculptural ceramics with having her own line of functional design pottery, which is stocked in design boutiques throughout the United States. Her exhibition, Floating Worlds, was selected as a “Critic’s Pick” for the April, 2015 issue of Artforum.  In 2015, she was named one of “Ten Modern Ceramists Shaping the Future” by AnOther Magazine. Angel’s ceramic designs and artworks were shown at the inaugural Texas Design Fair at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.  She has also exhibited at Gallery Hanahou (New York), Front St. Gallery (Oakland, CA), and several arts institutions across Japan. For more information on Angel’s work, please visit  https://www.angeloloshove.com/.

Hannah Oatman was born in Austin, Texas, but grew up primarily in Colorado. After attending Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and falling in love with jewelry making, she transferred to SUNY New Paltz, where she received a BFA in metal in 2017. She has exhibited in national and international shows and worked as a studio assistant for esteemed metalsmith, Myra Mimlitsch-Gray. Hannah’s current work explores the power of color and form using enameled copper, steel, and silver. Her colorfully enameled components, combined with stark black armatures, encourage an exploration of the surface and of the piece as a whole. She makes objects that are playful and curious, urging the viewer to handle and consider them as objects first and then as engaging adornments. During her nine-month residency, Hannah intends to continue her work in enamel, while experimenting with new techniques, in order to create a diverse body of work that appeals to a wide audience. For more information on Hannah’s work, please visit https://www.hannahoatman.com.

Molly Koehn is an environmental artist from southwest Kansas. She received an MFA with an emphasis in fibers from Arizona State University (2017), and her current bodies of work carry on the delicate, expressive qualities of her background and BFA in drawing from Fort Hays State University (2013). Melding a practice of drawing, weaving, and sculptural installation, Molly’s work examines idealizations of nature. She responds to city landscaping and structure through material and construction, exploring why we choose to seemingly improve the aesthetic appearance of our surroundings by eradicating the “natural” in favor of the artificial. While at HCCC, Molly will explore Houston’s natural and built environments, creating works to better understand a place. Molly’s work has been published in Surface Design Association Journal; Expose; Shuttle, Spindle, and Dyepot; and many others. She has shown her work extensively in Arizona and Kansas and several other locations nationally.  For more information on Molly’s work, please visit https://www.mollykoehn.com/

Jenna Wright graduated from Millersville University of Pennsylvania with a BFA focusing on ceramics and a BSE in art education. She received her MFA from The University of Texas at San Antonio. Primarily a ceramic sculptor, she often incorporates mixed media into her works.

Jenna says her work starts with the home and the dense suburban environment of her native New Jersey.  “The essence of intimacy and abstraction of the sociological home is what I debate. The molding of an individual, the formation (interior/exterior) of a home, and the shaping of a landscape all have common ideals in our society. I am exploring how conventional social pressures impact our understanding of home, domestic comforts, and objects, as well as introducing personal subject matter.”

Jenna was an artist-In-residence at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, Maryland. Most recently, she had a solo show at VisArts Center in Rockville, Maryland, showcasing work incorporating a variety of materials.  She has also participated in juried group exhibitions such as Women’s XXChange in Baltimore, Maryland, and Emulsion in Washington, D.C.

Jenna will be with HCCC for the month of July, 2017.  For more information, please visit https://www.jennawrightart.com/about/

Vivian Chiu was born in Los Angeles and emigrated to Hong Kong at the age of three. Her interests in creating objects and the visual arts led her to attend the Rhode Island School of Design, where she graduated with a BFA in furniture design. With an aptitude for problem solving and a sensitivity towards materials, Vivian creates sculptures that attempt to formalize coincidental happenings in repetitive processes. Using the conflicts and commonalities between Eastern and Western culture, Vivian channels her physical energy into labor-intensive methods to not only create visually dynamic work but also to pay conscious homage to her family’s history in factory work.

Vivian has completed residencies with Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Sculpture Space, Haystack Mountain School, and Anderson Ranch Arts Center.  She most recently lived and worked in Brooklyn, NY.

Vivian will be with HCCC from June – August, 2017.  For more information, visit www.vivianchiudesigns.com.

Jessica Andersen was born in the small farming community of Audubon, Iowa. She received a BFA in jewelry and metal arts in 2009 from the University of Iowa. In 2011, Jessica started a new chapter, leaving the Midwest for the West Coast, to attend graduate school at San Diego State University, where she received her MFA in jewelry and metalwork. Jessica recently finished a six-month residency at Craft Alliance in St. Louis, Missouri, where she had time to experiment and develop her work as a studio artist. More importantly, perhaps, she was able to teach in the Mural Arts and Crafting a Future program, learning just how deeply individuals can be affected by close mentorship.

Jessica’s work addresses the affect of objects and defined notions of waste in relation to ideas of collection. In her work, she attempts to showcase the form and appeal of detritus in the construction and presentation of jewelry. She hopes to generate new interactions between the wearer and object and between viewer and cultural predispositions.

Jessica will be with HCCC through August, 2017. During her six-month residency, she plans to continue developing work and grow new ideas concerning the relationships between objects and the value and memory instilled upon them. For more information, please visit www.jessicanandersen.com.

Rebecca Lynn Hewitt was born in Appleton, Wisconsin. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, with a bachelor of fine arts in jewelry and metalsmithing, in 2016. She was recently named the Ethical Metalsmith Student Committee’s “2016 Emerging Artist.”

Rebecca’s work investigates environmental issues through wearable and handheld objects, as well as community engagement. Creating wearable work allows overwhelming issues to be presented in an intimate but approachable manner. She views her work as a platform to seek self-education and improvement, while also encouraging others to educate themselves.

During her residency, Rebecca will continue to research environmental issues through wearable work and community workshops. She will also continue to expand her jewelry line, Flora and Grain. Primarily working with sustainable materials, such as dried and pressed flora, wood, and silver, Rebecca will explore how to best merge traditional metalsmithing techniques with technology.

Rebecca will be at HCCC through August, 2017. To learn more about her work, please visit rebeccalynnhewitt.com.

Eric Stearns was born near North Platte, Nebraska. He earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 2003 from Doane College in Crete, Nebraska, and then opened his first studio, Stearns Ceramics, in North Platte. After a couple of years teaching full time, working in his studio, and assisting his family on the ranch, he re-committed to his art and received a Master of Fine Arts in 2008, studying under Linda Ganstrom at Fort Hays State University.  Eric then returned to Doane College and is now associate professor and chair of the Art Department.

When not teaching, Eric spends time in the studio creating sculptural, pierced raku art. Through his work, he hopes to strike a chord with the viewer that conveys a fragile and fleeting existence.  He uses the raku process to accentuate the intersecting fragility of life, passionate connections, and the pain of betrayal, using the matrix of the objects to allude to those concepts.  With his interest in mathematics, he creates patterns and explores the relationships between those patterns, as well as the effects of the color and texture of the glazes he uses to elicit emotional responses.  He says, “Each piece created is an attempt at a reflection of who I am as a person and as an artist at the moment my hands touch the clay and then continues through the glazing and firing processes.  In this reflection, my hope is that a viewer can find a connection to their own experiences on this journey of life.”

Eric will be at HCCC through June, 2017.  To learn more about his work, visit https://stearnsceramics.com/.