Alice changed careers in 1995, going in to the medical field and took an eight year hiatus from pottery. In 2003 she started teaching and making pots again at Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation. Alice recently retired from the medical field as a nurse practitioner in 2011, and is currently building her fifth studio, still in Oconee County.

After graduation, and an “exhilarating day job in the fascinating world of enterprise software applications”, Haagensen shifted his principal focus to clay in 2001, and began to chase the dream of creating a large community art studio dedicated to clay with his partner and sweetie, Luba Sharapan. They now share a space at MudFire Clayworks with 150 artists and students, teach daily, produce monthly gallery exhibits, and host artists from around the world for workshops.

The large public studio environment provides a constant stream of new influences for Haagensen, as well as an incredibly wide range of equipment, clay and firings to continue his experimentation. His clay works reflect the diversity of this environment, and he currently makes functional ware, abstract and figurative sculpture, and paintings on clay, while continuing to explore other media.

Of working in clay, Haagensen says:
“To make things by hand from clay is an act of rebellion, of intentional inefficiency, of retro and reflection, of refusing to cede it all to the machines. I want to make things that make people laugh or be amused or playfully confused or quietly delighted. I want to make things that make people slow down and appreciate the everyday, to reflect on their surroundings, and to think about where we are heading.”

It was natural for Rheetah to take to the high wire in her hometown of Sarasota, Florida. Home of the Ringling Brothers, many families in the area would often have jugglers, tightrope walkers, trapeze artists, and daredevils starting at a young age. Rheetah! never became a professional trapeze artist, but she has certainly had a full life.

Rheetah! had two career goals as a youngster: to be an artist or a vet. She certainly has experience at both! She won the Ringling Art Scholarship through the Ringling Museum as a high school senior, and was able to spend time in an artist colony as a result, studying batique with Martha Hyams and sculpture with Jack Cartlidge.

Between then and now, she spent a couple of years working in a zoo rehabilitating exotic birds. She points to the scars on her arms and hands, showing how you can tell ‘bird people’ from the toe marks the birds left on her arms. She showed me scars on her other hand where a tiger sank his teeth into her; she acted quickly to keep the cat from attempting to kill the vet, and the tiger stopped short on his attack with one of his regular handlers. Back surgery removed her from future work at the zoo—she said you can’t second guess yourself when reacting to a wild animal.

After that, she spent many years managing restaurants in the restaurant industry. As a result, she cooks much of her food from scratch on her farm in Wrightsville today. She started ceramics in the 70’s, and sold artwork throughout much of her life. She taught senior citizens introductory art, and spent a year doing frame work so she could perfect framing her own pieces. She works in a variety of materials, from blacksmithing, decorative painting, masks, to her well known ceramics. She has won many awards, including a coveted blue ribbon at the Fall Line Cultural Arts Festival in 2005, an exclusive arts and crafts festival sponsored by Sandersville Technical College.

Macon Arts Alliances’ involvement with Rheetah! Flanagan began about seven years ago, when a staff member saw her work in the Museum of Arts and Sciences gift shop. She was invited to bring her work to the gallery on Cherry Street, and, when Fired Works started the following year, invited to participate in the event. She is a returning artist to each Fired Works, and endeavors to live a fulfilling life according to her motto: “Whatever you do, do the very best you can.”

Evans’ foremost creative goal is to honor the female. Says Evans’ of her work “My human-animal hybrids signify that we are but one of many animal species, related to the others both physically and emotionally. They offer an imaginative leap to our connectedness and to the spirit world.” She is currently working on a series of vanitas iconography, incorporating animal bones bleached by the Texas sun.

All of her pieces are hand built with stoneware or earthenware clay and fired several times with oxide washes, underglazes and glazes. Evans leaves surfaces rough and textured for layered, variegated colors and to add depth and complexity to the surface.

Appropriate for daily use, her stoneware pottery is wheel thrown, with hand pulled and extruded additions. The glazes are non-toxic and lead free. Triny formulates her own glazes and uses multiple and overlapping glaze applications of blue, brown, and green to suggest a surreal landscape. Pieces are fired in an electric kiln to cone 7.

After leaving school, Buff traveled around the country in a 1971 Pinto with extended stays in New York, Virginia, Wisconsin and Birmingham. She eventually settled in Atlanta, GA where she tried for 27 years to live the life expected of her, working corporate jobs and such.

Buff has finally returned to the wheel and to the career that has been calling to her to get “back down to Earth.” She now throws at her studio in East Atlanta Village. Her award-winning works have been shown in juried shows in the New York and Atlanta Metro areas including the Inman Park Festival and the Telephone Factory Lofts Art Show.

Although pottery and sculptural ceramics are a more recent passion, she has always been an avid painter.  Says Bausch of ceramics; “Ever since I drank coffee from the first cup I ever made, I was hooked on pottery.”  After years of ceramics explorations, Bausch has developed a style that reflects the rugged character of traditional Georgia folk pottery with the refinement of fine art training.