Sawtooth School for Visual Art is proud to present A Year in the Making: Sawtooth’s 2024-2025 Artists-in-Residence, an exhibition celebrating the school’s four Artists-in-Residence and showcasing the work they completed during their time in this program.
The school’s Ceramic Artists-in-Residence are A.C. Bell (Asheville, NC), Casper Clifford (Woodbury, NY), and Eamon Rogers (Star, NC). The Gondring Resident in Woodworking is Ella Coyne (Winston-Salem, NC).
An opening reception will be held on Friday, September 5, 4 – 6 pm. This event is free and open to the public. Learn more about these artists and their work below!
A.C. Bell
2024-2025 Ceramics Artist-in-Residence
A.C. Bell (she/her) is a North Carolina potter originally from Chicago, IL. After a short dalliance with the sciences, she discovered pottery and never looked back. In 2021, after going as far as she could by taking classes at art centers and craft schools, she moved to North Carolina for the Professional Craft Program at Haywood Community College, where she began wood and salt firing with various potters around the Asheville area.
Domestic Dialogues
Pinched clay retains the impressions of fingerprints, wheel-thrown clay remembers the rotation of the potter’s wheel, glazes melt and are guided by gravity across surfaces, and a beautiful pot is one which fits in the hand of the user as naturally and organically as it formed in the hand of the maker. It is important that the creation processes I employ in my practice can be seen and felt by the user. When people pick up my pieces, there is always an echo of the process present in the experience. These are objects for contemplating, for being present, for inhabiting a moment in time.
Casper Clifford
2024-2025 Ceramics Artist-in-Residence
Casper Clifford (they/them) was born on Long Island, New York. They began studying drawing and illustration at Montserrat College of Art, then transferred to Salisbury University in 2019 and switched concentrations to ceramics. Casper graduated in the Spring of 2023 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and moved to Clearwater, Florida, where they spent time as a studio member at MCS Clay Studios and The Clay Co-Op. In September of 2024, Casper became a Resident Artist at Sawtooth School for Visual Art, where they taught three sessions of classes in both beginner and advanced ceramic hand building while creating a new body of work seen in this exhibition. Starting in the Fall of 2025, Casper will begin studying at Syracuse University for a Master of Fine Arts.
Devoured
Devoured: To be destroyed, eaten away, consumed by fear, anger, guilt, shame, love. To devour and to be devoured as a means to an end and for the sake of the act itself. Blood as a metaphor for life, closeness, intimacy, destruction, violation, and death. The concepts of obsession, destruction, and overwhelming emotion imbue each sculpture with the desperate reality of survival through the depths of consciousness. This exhibition blurs the boundaries between life and death, love and pain, hate and acceptance. My art aims to provide a space for viewers to form their own interpretations, creating a unique personal perspective and experience for this visceral imagery to unfold.
Eamon Rogers
2024-2025 Ceramics Artist-in-Residence
Eamon Rogers (he/him) is a potter in central North Carolina. He studied ceramics at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. Connections between local materials, the landscape, and historical pottery guided his work in college. He came to North Carolina in 2019 to study its pottery traditions and methods while apprenticing with Joseph Sand. Since completing his apprenticeship in 2021, he has worked as a clay factory intern at STARworks. As an intern, Eamon researched new, personal ways of using North Carolina materials, developing a body of work using terra sigillata made from wild clay sources. As a resident of Sawtooth, he’s been exploring the playful relationships between words, verses, pots, and people, deepening a personal approach to materials and the woodfiring process.
Be Specific!
I am inspired by simple utilitarian pottery throughout history. I adapt form, process, and content from incongruous sources in the American pottery tradition. I am a student of traditional craft practice, and I make pots using methods and tools adapted from my mentor during my time as a potter’s apprentice.
My craftsmanship is how I honor the potters who came before me. Paying careful attention to the details of their work and the personal histories of their production is how I develop my own pieces. I use structural elements in my pots to frame my decoration, and decoration to highlight the fine details in their construction. I use words and verses across my pots––I am interested in the humor and tension in the relationships between pots, people, and the community.
I decorate with a glazing technique called terra sigillata. I am interested in the unpredictable actions of gravity and accumulation. Features and surfaces in my pots are enhanced by the way they encourage the layers of terra sigillata to accumulate on fine details or flow across them, a parallel to the geologic formation of these humble materials. I fire in wood burning kilns, compelled by continuity of received knowledge in this process, and the alchemical reaction of clay, atmosphere, and ash. The ecology of burnt wood becomes regionally specific. I am fascinated by the relationships between the landscapes of the natural world, and the shapes, colors, and textures of wood-fired pottery surfaces.
Ella Coyne
2024-2025 Gondring Resident in Woodworking
Ella Coyne (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, whose work is rooted in material exploration and sculptural form. She holds a BFA in Sculpture and Ceramics with a minor in Art History from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and studied Craft and Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University with a focus in woodworking. A native of the Winston-Salem arts community, Ella is an alumna of the Visual Arts program at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Ella’s artistic practice spans woodworking, ceramics, metalwork, and printmaking, often combining traditional techniques with an experimental approach. This artistic variety has led her to participate in residencies and fellowships in recognized facilities such as Penland School of Craft, Salem Art Works, and currently Sawtooth School for Visual Art. Her current work frequently draws on object history and personal collections—what she lovingly refers to as “bip-n-bops”—ranging from animal specimens to found ephemera. These intimate objects serve as both inspiration and material, highlighting memory, sentimentality, and the impulse to preserve.
She is currently the Gallery and Artist Services Fellow at the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County and the Gondring Resident in Woodworking at Sawtooth School for Visual Art. Through her work as an educator, preparator, and practicing artist, Ella continues to foster connections within her community while pursuing her passion for storytelling through materials.
Contemporary Curiosities
My work is an evolving dialogue between material, memory, and form. I am drawn to the tactile and narrative qualities of objects—those kept in drawers, on shelves, or in pockets for no practical reason other than their emotional weight. Whether it’s a fragment of bone found on a hike, a cork from a celebratory wine, or a crumpled ticket stub from a first date, these pieces become entry points into broader themes of personal history and nurturing preservation. Working across woodworking, metal, and collage, I use traditional techniques rooted in the history of craft, such as Japanese joinery and pine needle basket weaving, to create sculptural works that feel both archival and intuitive. I expand upon these traditions with contemporary forms and concepts. I often draw from my own collection of found and sentimental objects—what I call “bip-n-bops”—to explore how we assign value to the things we keep. These objects, arranged and transformed, become vessels for storytelling and markers of time.
My recent research has focused on the aesthetics and philosophies of Wunderkammer, museum collections, and domestic display. I’m fascinated by the ways we choose to exhibit and interpret the things we treasure. This curiosity drives both my studio practice and my professional work in gallery and exhibition design. At its core, my art is about honoring materials, elevating the overlooked, and creating spaces—both physical and emotional—where objects can speak.
