Workshop Studios is dedicated to creating employment and professional development opportunities for artists in Calgary.

Adeline Eldred is a lifelong artist whose practice is inspired by expanding her skills at every point. With a deep passion for sustainability and ethical consumption, she is fascinated by the prospect of making anything and everything by hand from start to finish.

Using her degree in psychology from the University of Calgary, she creates work expanding on her interests in the brain and neurodivergence, creating tactile and sensory-friendly vessels. Constantly inspired by the world around her and her experiences as a queer woman, she is always finding new ways to push herself and her practice forward. Although she is constantly trying new art forms, she always comes back to her love of ceramics and creating functional art meant for everyday use.

@adeline.made.yyc

Cailyn Thistle is a ceramic artist who has been working with clay for over seven years. Her journey began at Workshop Studios where she took her first class, and quickly fell in love with the medium. Since then, she’s been largely community-taught, learning alongside fellow makers.

Over the years, Cailyn has been a student, member and now studio tenant and instructor at Workshop. In addition, she has worked professionally as a production artist, as well as facilitated ceramics programming at the National AccessArts Centre. Cailyn creates functional wares with hand-painted designs, often featuring peonies as her favourite subjects.

@anchoredvesselceramics

Emily is a ceramic artist and educator based in Calgary, Alberta. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Alberta University of the Arts, where she specialized in ceramics and printmaking. Her practice centers on the intersection of surface design, form, and utility—exploring how everyday functional objects can carry meaning and emotional value.

Emily values the physical and reflective process of making, often working across multiple craft disciplines including fibre and print. Her work invites a deeper appreciation of the mundane, revealing the quiet beauty and significance found in the objects we use every day.

@emilyrgoodwin

Josefina Rodriguez is a Canadian-Argentinian artist residing in Calgary, AB (Treaty 7 Territory).

She holds a BFA in Ceramics from The Alberta University of the Arts.

Through her work, she invites the viewer to understand and consider intimacy, sensation and pleasure as part of our humanity and an essential, natural aspect of life.

Her figurative hand-built ceramics and drawings celebrate the strength, resilience, and beauty that lie in the unconventional, the unapologetic, and the rebellious aspects of womanhood.

josefinarv.com

@brujaceramics

Lael Chmelyk is a ceramic and fiber artist living in Calgary, Alberta. Raised in Dawson Creek, Lael began making from an early age. She went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics with Distinction from The Alberta University of Arts in 2020. Her work focuses on themes surrounding identity, agency over our bodies, chronic illness and the legacies we leave behind. She has developed a method of soda firing in oxidation, which is fired to a lower temperature than most, allowing her to lower her carbon footprint compared to traditional firing methods. In 2024, she was awarded the Winifred Shantz Award for Emerging Ceramic Artists.

“Craft objects can act as a conjugate for ideas and concepts, and through their function, those ideas become a part of the everyday domestic experience. My functional soda fired pots have contrasting surfaces that create tension between geometry and organic patterns. Areas of quiet and overwhelm in the decoration invite touch and offer the user a moment of pause and intimate investigation. Referencing botany, I look to understand my place in the world’s classifications. I attempt to catch the user’s attention, to render them in the present through chance or rituals. The intent is to give one the chance to question the place of plants in beauty – but also the place of the environment in one’s values.

By using a soda kiln, I can allow for the kiln and its unexpected nature to share agency over the work. This also echoes the balance between control and chaos that we, as a society, attempt to force on our environment. My work illustrates this balance through moments of chance and instances of control in a duet with the kiln. This balance is central to the work and allows for the ornate surfaces to exist on the forms without overwhelming the experience.

In my fiber practice, I explore ideas of femininity and ideas of otherhood through quilting and natural dyeing. By translating concepts of the female body as a vessel through a matrilineal craft, I can question the status quo of what a woman’s life should look like. Quilting practices are historically centered around familial functions, but within that history, I question whether we motherhood and womanhood are inextricably linked.”

laelchmelyk.com

@laelchmelyk

Leia Guo (she/her) is a glass artist, K-12 teacher, and photographer living in Mohkinstsis (Calgary). She has over 8 years of experience with stained, fused, and blown glass and has exhibited internationally. She holds a BFA in Glass and a BDes in Photography from AUArts, and is currently finishing a BEd at the U of C.

Leia believes in getting hands-on with glass is the best way to learn, and that your only limit is your imagination! When she’s not in the studio, you can find her snuggling her two black kitties at home with a cup of tea and a cozy blanket.

Mindy graduated from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2002 with a degree in Ceramics. Since then, she has been practicing as a professional ceramic artist, teacher and technician. Mindy participated in the Medalta Artists In Residence program and in several competitions in Canada, Australia, South Korea and the USA.

Utilizing porcelain clay, I evoke luminosity and dimensionality in my pieces. Trees, flowers, and birds grace the surfaces of my vessels, delicately painted or silk-screened using an array of slips and underglazes.

“My creations reflect my profound affection for the landscapes that have shaped me – from the rugged beauty of Northwestern Canada, to my current home in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and the inspiring destinations I’ve recently explored.”

mayviewstudio.ca

bramblestudio.ca

@mindyaandrews

Hi! My name is Portia, and I am an interdisciplinary artist who is currently relearning my love for warm glass, but you may also find me blowing glass, sewing, drawing, and printing. I completed my degree at the Alberta University of the Arts, graduated with a BFA in Glass as well as received the Queens Platinum Jubilee Scholarship for Visual Arts. Currently, I am practicing in Mohkinstsis/Calgary.

My studio work is driven by a desire for movement and connection to the world around me which has led my practice to a place of collaboration rather than one of use. Conceptually, I am interested in non-hierarchical ways of functioning and the dualities of rhizomatic communities; specifically, fragility/strength. In both my practice and my daily life, I strive to embody themes of reconnection and growth while staying in tune with my body and the earth.

When I am not in the studio making, you can find me teaching classes at Workshop Studios, running the safety program at my day job, reading, going on walks or spending time with my partner and our cat babies!

@pjsdraws

@soulbloomarts

Shelby Charlesworth is an interdisciplinary artist and educator, currently located in Mohkinstsis (Calgary). Shelby began her career attending Alberta University of the Arts (formerly Alberta College of Art and Design) where she participated in an exchange program at PNCA in Portland, Oregon in 2015 – graduating in 2017 with a BFA in Painting. Shelby then received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut in 2021, where she later taught and was awarded as Instructor of Record for Sculpture. Following her MFA, she relocated to Los Angeles where she worked as a studio assistant, sculptor and ceramicist before returning to Alberta in 2022 to be the Sculpture Technician at the University of Lethbridge. She is now a Sessional Instructor in sculpture at the University of Calgary and the Community Partnerships Coordinator at the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre.

In 2023, Shelby received an Individual Project Grant from Calgary Arts Development to research the impacts of the opioid epidemic on Canada, working closely with researchers in public health and harm reduction. She also received an Artist Development Microgrant through CADA, and was an Artist in Residence through International Avenue Arts and Culture Centre at Fuse33 Makerspace in Calgary. Through her residency at Casa in August of 2022, the Allied Arts Council of Lethbridge presented her with the Artist in Residence Award and she was the recipient of the Pilot Art Award for 2022-23.

Shelby serves as a Board member for CARFAC Alberta as well as the Creative Aging Society, and sat on the Arts Acquisition and Program Committee for the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre from 2023-24. She was a speaker at the University of Lethbridge for their Art NOW series in 2023, Visiting Artist at the National accessArts Centre, as well as at Club 36 located at the Alzheimer’s Society, creating new art processes for seniors with dementia. Her primary focus both through education and personal practice is community engagement and arts accessibility through visual language. Shelby has two upcoming solo exhibitions in 2024-2025 at Casa in Lethbridge. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally.

@shelbykcharlesworth

www.shelbycharlesworth.com

Tory combines conceptual training with deep craft knowledge, holding a Philosophy degree from the University of Calgary and an intensive ceramic and fibre education from the Kootenay School of the Arts. Their practice explores body, queerness, and human-altered landscapes — through large-scale, atmospheric-fired vessels that blur sculpture and function.

A wheel-throwing and atmospheric kiln specialist, Tory spent a year in residency at Medalta, where they developed new surface and colour research in salt and wood kilns across a series of queered, body-based vessels.

“Before I found clay, I split my time between academic writing and the reforestation camps of northern BC. I used to dream of a path that could hold both of my passions together. My ceramic and firing practice has turned out to be exactly that. In each studio session I ask: how can I communicate in a way my writing could not?”

Ceramic Artist | Educator | Materials Nerd | Occasional TV Kiln Guy

Based in Calgary, Vin Arora is a ceramic artist and educator with over two decades of experience in the studio and classroom. His work spans from humble tableware to large-scale sculptural pieces, all grounded in a deep curiosity about materials and their role in everyday life, community, and culture.

Vin co-founded MudLab, a pottery studio in Vancouver known for its welcoming, community-driven ethos. He has taught and teched at Emily Carr University, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and numerous art centers, sharing his passion for clay, glaze chemistry, and the magic that happens in kilns (and sometimes in life).

In 2024, Vin took his kiln expertise to national TV as the technician on *CBC’s *Great Canadian Pottery Throw Down**. He’s also designed custom stoneware for some of Canada’s top chefs, but is equally happy making bowls that just feel good in your hands.

Influenced by time spent in Canada, India, and the UK, Vin’s practice is rooted in both tradition and experimentation. He continues to explore ceramics not just as functional art, but as a tool for connection, reflection, and a bit of good old-fashioned mud play.

@vin_arora

@techtonic_plates

www.vinarora.com