Saltstone Ceramics

“I am a non-binary potter living, working, and teaching in Chicago. My work is framed by curiosity, play, and nostalgia. I am a late bloomer and came out as q***r in my mid-twenties, so much of my work is about looking back at my younger life with a q***r lens. There’s a tenderness and vulnerability in looking back this way that allows me to have compassion for my youngerself, and for all of us.“

“I am a ceramic artist and educator working in West Seattle. I often go by my last name, Hanson! My passions are spending time with loved ones in the forests of Washington, crafting with clay or other mediums, and sharing my love of clay with youth and adults. As an instructor, I encourage emerging artists to take creative risks, learn through failure, and find joy in the act of self-expression.
I grew up in Auburn, Washington, spending time exploring the outdoors in the greater Puget Sound. Some of my earliest memories are from camping trips and hikes with my family near Mount Tahoma.
My first experiences with clay were in community studio classes in 2022. I am the Studio Manager at Rat City Studios, where I also do my personal studio work. I’m the Outreach Coordinator at Rain City Clay and an instructor of youth and adult classes.

My work delivers the user to the serenity of a lush forest. I create functional items like vases and trinket trays that bring tranquility into daily life. My work carries an invitation to pick flowers and collect items that bring you joy. I create trays to hold treasures from special adventures or gifts from beloveds. These are places to keep memories you want to hold dear. 

The shapes of daisies, tulips, ferns, poppy seed pods, and trailing leaves are seen in the forms and surfaces of my work. Carved plant motifs follow the organic shapes of vases and speak to the tenderness I see in myself that is reflected in the delicate world of flowers and ferns.

The acceptance of my own tenderness began in my role as a preschool teacher where I was taught to affirm and empathize with the feelings of young children. As a sensitive child shamed into hiding my own sad and upset feelings, it was incredibly meaningful for me as an adult to encourage children to express themselves fully.”

Faydell Park is a second-generation Korean multidisciplinary artist. They teach wheel-throwing classes at Rain City Clay in West Seattle while making pots from their home studio in Tacoma. Faydell’s work focuses primarily on function and form, carefully considering how each piece will be used and how it might add to the everyday life, needs, and rituals of its
user.

Outside of the studio, Park can be found bouldering, playing video games, crafting with their nesting partner, and basking in the PNW’s natural landscapes.

“This batch of work was born out of a deep love for my q***r community, intended to honor how we feed each other as an expression of care. Cooking for loved ones is, to me, a precious act. I am grateful to have shared in countless moments of personal and cultural connection through the acts of cooking and communing. Enjoying meals together, keeping each other not only fed but well-fed, pitching in for a hungry community member – these are small yet powerful resistances in a world that strives to keep us individualistic, malnourished, and impoverished.
I have seen this expression of care manifest within our community in so many beautiful ways: bringing comfort food to a friend, cooking with loved ones at home, dropping off groceries for a stranger in need, organizing a meal train for surgery recovery. Through these acts, and endless others, we contribute to a network of q***r care that extends far beyond our own circles.

While creating these pots, I envisioned a meal of homemade soup, crusty bread, and warm drinks at a table with all of my q***r loved ones. My hope is for these dishes to be used in the home, at the table, and with your community. Like us, these bowls and plates function while apart, but they thrive when used together.”

“My name is Jem Tong. Pottery is my home medium but I enjoy dabbling in just about everything else. My personal work is mainly in clay instruments and moving, dynamic carvings. I have taught since 2022 in CA and WA, and been touching clay since 2014: I love sharing the grounding nature of shaping things with your own hands and meeting so many cool people that pottery attracts

As a little neurodivergent q***r asian kid, I was shaped by my environment to be small, don’t rock the boat, and put consideration of others above yourself. I spent a lot of frustrating years trying to fit myself into spaces that were very clearly designed for someone else. I’ve been on a journey to rediscover tenderness on my own terms, and not as a concession to the colonial/assimilatory mindset I grew up with.

This body of work explores forms that are more wild and unrestrained with pops of vibrant colors. The shapes are unconventional and sometimes abrasive to the touch, but they were sculpted with love: and best of all, they are unapologetically my own.”

Gay 4 Clay: Radically Tender is live June 3rd!! Be sure to mark your calendars and come join us for the Gallery Party on June 6th from 5-8pm!!

So excited for you to see this work!

Art + Craft processes are a place of deep listening for me. As a mental health professional - turned - artist, I currently find myself in a chapter of coming home to the language of craft in such a way that makes space for not only my own voice, but the voices of the materials I am working with. When crafting with my hands, I am also creating a space for continued self- growth while simultaneously developing relationships with the community of collaborative mediums I’ve come to know in this work, including clay, fiber, fire, and warp tension, among others. 

The combination of ceramics and fiber arts is one that evokes a sense of tension for both me and the viewer. Simultaneously engaging in ceramics and fibers processes constantly reminds me to balance & rebalance support and tension with the ultimate goal of radical acceptance for the outcome of these processes. These creative processes show me through-lines to the larger work at hand in the world, including unearthing hidden strengths in others, taking time to be with the process instead of focusing on the product, the value of slow making/building, appreciating what nature has to offer and say, and the power of community when each collaborator can contribute something unique and precious in the larger network.
 
In a time where those of us who live in the United States find ourselves faced with aggressive oppression, political violence, ethnic cleansing, and ultimately the day-to-day experience of living under power-hungry capitalist tyrants that leads to all of these atrocities, the essential nature of building connection and trust with each other becomes more and more necessary. For me, this work asks us several questions: who are you bound to? How is that connection supportive or tense? How is there beauty and pain present in both the support and tension? How do you make those connections sustainable despite the pain, and how do you hold space for both the grief/loss and hope we are faced with?

Kyle Jordan is a q***r Oregon based artist who recently relocated from Florida. They have worked in community studios as a studio technician for the past six years. Their experience teaching and fostering studio members’ ceramic journeys is the catalyst of their own practice.

Kyle’s personal work is imbued with their identity as a q***r person raised religiously in the south, with themes surrounding ritual, kink, and sexuality. Finding a way to practice ritual and devotion through creation divorced from the white christian nationalist framework in which they were raised fuels that process. 

For the past couple years Kyle has been making work predominately to facilitate trades with other artists. They believe fostering a community minded approach to skill sharing and bartering is important and that it is vital to creating connection between like minded artists, who traditionally might not be able to afford the work that they make and to decenter capitalistic barriers surrounding craft and fine art.

“Featured here are ceramic matches I have made during the first year of match burns. I use the ashes from my daily match burns depicted in my match illustrations to create a glaze that I use to glaze the handles of my ceramic matches. This is a nod to the indigenous practice of using every part of an animal once it has been killed. Also displayed are several of my 30 match illustrations. I have also been developing a font using different common burnt match shapes I have become familiar with during my study of burnt matches. I believe displaying this work on a larger scale, instead of how it is currently fragmented, is why I have been documenting it; In order to share the language with a wider audience and connect with those who understand it. I believe it is valuable to document the languages we create in the counter culture because they clearly depict the way q***r folks communicate amongst one another.”

Lacie & Mikey Warden of Queen Bee Ceramics make pottery as a dynamic duo - Lacie makes the pots and Mikey glazes them. While Lacie first started working with clay in 2004, it took until the two met in 2016 for Mikey to see what this is all about. Ever since then, inspired by nature and imaginary characters, they enjoy sparking joy and inspiring whimsy with their work. You can catch them at the Ren Faires, PNW Witches Markets, and occasionally back in their own studio covered in clay and glaze.

For their 2026 Gay 4 Clay submissions, they focused on translating into clay two beautifully intimate moments in their relationship via interactive pieces that will inspire viewers to be vulnerable and radically tender. The smaller companion pieces are meant to remind you of the way you felt during the interaction when reflecting on the pieces in the future.

Maddie creates tiny ceramic vessels, about 1 inch tall. Each one will hold something for you. Physically, that might be a dried flower, or your cat’s whiskers. Emotionally, it could be a secret, or a hope. Each amulet is infinite: when they are filled with what nourishes you, they will never run out. And when they are filled with what depletes you, they will never run over.

Statement: “Whatever Shape We’re In, We’re In It Together” is a collection of tiny wheel-thrown vases with unique contours. Some are more traditionally revered shapes, some playful, some deliberately off-kilter or harder to define. Each vase boasts the same pride flag surface design. The collection embodies the radical support we give each other, no matter what we’re going through. Whatever shape we’re in, we’re in it together.