Dougherty Arts Center 2023 Visual Artists In Residence at their exhibit reception for Process and ReProcess
Dougherty Arts Center 2024 Visual Artists In Residence Chance Ramirez discuses ceramics, art therapy, and hand building with clay on episode 16 of In The Parks.
Visual Artist Residency
Applications for the Fall 2024 Visual Artist Residency Program closed on September 15, 2024.
The Visual Artist Residency Program provides visual artists with the space, facilities, time and professional interaction that will foster and further develop their ideas, skills, abilities, and focus as practicing artists. This is a work exchange program where resident artists are invited to create outreach opportunities within our community such as teaching workshops, giving public presentations, critiques and monitoring our independent study program and open studio hours.
Residencies are six months, renewable up to a total of two years, and available for emerging and established artists in ceramics.
Residency is open to visual artists who live in the Austin area; within Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, or Williamson counties.
For questions about the Visual Artist Residency, email DACInfo@austintexas.gov
Current Dougherty Visual Artist Residents
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Chelsea Biggerstaff, Emerging Ceramic Artist Chelsea discovered her love of working with clay at age 8 when she walked into her first ceramic teacher's backyard studio. Inspired by her teacher she created a backyard studio and started creating small colorful functional pieces of pottery and creative experiences that spark queer joy and bring people back to that imaginative childhood space. When she is not in her studio or at the Dougherty Arts Center, she manages the Faculty Development Office at Austin Community College where she uses her creativity, educational development background, and positive spirit to inspire and learn from the hardworking faculty at ACC. |
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Anna Gadzhikurbanova, Emerging Ceramic Artist Born and raised in Moscow, Russia Anna received a clinical psychology education from Moscow State University. After working as a psychological counsellor for several years she found herself drawn to artistic self-expression. This journey began with dance and movement practices, evolved into photography, and eventually led to ceramic art. In 2018 she relocated to Japan where she was inspired by Japanese culture, aesthetics and ceramic art. Despite language barriers, she immersed herself in pottery, learning from various Japanese ceramic artists at different art schools. At the same time, she studied composition, color theory, and ceramic techniques through Russian online art courses, making connections with Russian artists both online and during visits to her home country. Gadzhikurbanova began creating and selling her ceramic works, fulfilling commissions, and participating in shows. In early 2022 she gave birth to her son, and later that year her family moved to Austin, TX. In 2023, she set up a small ceramic studio in her garage, allowing her to resume her creative journey and to continue exploring the world of ceramics. |
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Jamie Lerman, Emerging Ceramic Artist Jamie Lerman is an artist, ceramicist, and facilitator based in Austin, Texas. She earned her BFA at Pratt Institute for Fine Arts in 2020 studying printmaking and ceramics. Her work is a romancing of adaptation, transformation, and sentimentalism that leads to sculpture, pottery, mosaics, and dinner parties. She also operates Double Cradle, a pottery project designed to celebrate the sentimental; a creation of objects that we can't help but hold with both hands. All pieces are hand-built and home-made-glazed with love and attention by the artist. You can find more of her work on IG @double_cradle |
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Chance Ramirez, Emerging Ceramic Artist Chance Ramirez (they/them/she/her) has a background in studio art, craft, and art therapy. Inspired by a career in mental health, they make hand built works about pleasure, pain, and joyful resistance for people who like getting lost in the details. Using an abundance of textures and colors, Chance invites the audience to reach outward and inward with curiosity. Their work attempts to answer the question, “What does it mean to be human?” |
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Gargi Sharma, Emerging Ceramic Artist Gargi Sharma is an Austin-based architect-turned-ceramic and glass designer passionate about showcasing the creative potential of clay. Her design journey led her to discover a love for education, where she spent a few years teaching and developing curricula focused on ceramics, design, creativity, and the arts. Driven to fully commit to her artistic path, she began honing her skills and exploring her unique voice in ceramics while teaching part-time at various institutions. Drawing inspiration from her upbringing in the culturally vibrant Indian city of Haridwar, her work blends traditional influences with contemporary perspectives, exploring layers of meaning in everyday objects. |
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Diane Sung, Emerging Ceramic Artist Diane Sung is a ceramic artist currently based in Austin, TX. She earned her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, MO. Her work is driven by the complexities of the human experience with language and she seeks to explore these narratives in her sculptures. Though her practice is primarily based in ceramic sculpture, she also works through drawing, printmaking, and claymation. Having grown up in a bilingual environment, learning about other languages is her greatest passion outside of the visual arts. |
Past Dougherty Visual Artist Residents
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Shannon Hogarty, Emerging Ceramic Artist Shannon is a ceramic artist with eight years of experience, originally from Long Island, New York. Her work combines traditional pottery techniques with contemporary designs, using unique surface decorations, vibrant glaze combinations, and atmospheric firing techniques. Shannon's creations blend ancient and modern aesthetics, capturing the timeless magic of clay. |
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Veronica Christianson, Established Ceramic Artist Veronica Christianson is a ceramic artist living in Austin, Texas. Christianson has always loved dirt. Growing up she dreamt of becoming both a paleontologist and archeologist. She spent |
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Ali Rex, Emerging Ceramic Artist Ali is an architectural designer and educator originally from San Antonio, Texas. Her work straddles the line between playful and rigorous. She believes in the therapeutic power of clay and loves to share in the joys and struggles of it with any ceramic enthusiast she meets. |
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Gabriella Blasquez, Emerging Ceramic Artist Gabriella Blasquez is a multimedia sculptor, fabricator, and artist assistant whose work focuses on memory, place, materiality, and heritage signifiers. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions in galleries such as Fancy Fancy in Austin, TX. Since 2015, Gabriella has been honing her fabrication skills such as welding, digital and analogue videography, woodworking, ceramics, and printmaking. Her fabrication work has been featured in Austin City Limits offshoot Chill Phases, Erik Siador’s Sun Portal, Ender Martos’ Paradigm Shift, and Steef Cromach’s One Bad Monkey. Gabriella received her BA at Saint Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. |
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Mellissa Tong, Emerging Ceramic Artist Mellissa Tong is an international artist developing her style of functional art creations using time and space as sources of inspiration. She began her journey with clay over fifteen ebbing and flowing years ago in Vancouver, Canada to the Pacific Northwest then Minneapolis, Minnesota and finally to Austin, Texas molding differing times and places to become an evolving expression of diverse forms. She discovered clay as a means to calm her nervous system, to self-soothe, to play! and desires to bring that to others through her pieces. |
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Katie Lehn, Emerging Ceramic Artist Katie found her love for clay at the Tucson Clay Co-Op in Arizona. She immediately felt grounded while working on the wheel and found it to be a much needed creative outlet. What began as a casual hobby soon became a true passion she hopes to continue to develop and share. Katie is excited to devote more time and energy into her work and is grateful to be joining the Austin ceramic community through Dougherty Art Center. |
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Bonnie Brushwood, Established Ceramic Artist Bonnie earned her BFA at Texas State University. She toured all over Texas with an illusionist, then all over the country with a fire eater. Her serious side makes ceramics. Her ridiculous side makes comedy. She tours her ceramics. Also, she guested on Billboard Number One comedy albums. Check out her hit single, “The Most Expensive Guacamole” wherever you listen to music. |
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Regina McIlvain, Emerging Darkroom Photography Artist Regina McIlvain studied photography at Manhattanville College, UC Berkeley and privately in NYC, Tokyo and Toulouse (France). Over time she has concentrated her focus on fine art photographs of portraits and landscapes, either unembellished or mixed media. She has made the effort to capture endangered buildings, signs, landscapes before progress has overtaken them. |
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Adam Stratton, Established Ceramic Artist Adam began working with ceramics in 2002 at Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado and went on to the University of Hawaii to graduate with an M.F.A in 2010. Participating in the education, exhibition and practice of the visual arts has been a consistent part of his exploration in the medium of clay and visual arts. In Texas, he has continued to explore artistic research and is currently working as an art educator at the community college level. |
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Traci Ward, Emerging Ceramic Artist Traci Ward is an emerging ceramist who creates artistic kitchenware and statement jewelry that is made with vegan-friendly practices. Each piece is an expression of color and form through clay and mixed media, and can be found at local Austin shops. When Traci is not elbow-deep in clay, she practicing yoga or spending an afternoon in an art museum. |
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Scott Paxton, Emerging Darkroom Photography Artist Scott Paxton is a photographic artist currently living in Austin, Texas. He gave up a hectic international engineering career to slow down and re-visualize the world around him. His photographs reflect his consistent attention to detail while observing the importance of the surroundings. He creates photographs that are deliberately distorted during the taking of the photograph or during the printing process. By intentionally blurring parts of his images he moves away from the idea that everything is precise and perfect. The effects create an unspoken tension and may be created by ND filters, darkroom processing or even Photoshop manipulation. It is not unusual for Scott to mount or display images in an unorthodox manner by cutting and distorting the print. When shooting landscape & architectural subjects his preference is to use an Infra-Red digital camera resulting in Black and White prints with extreme contrast from which he creates digital negatives for darkroom or alternative processes. |
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Katy David, Emerging Ceramic Artist Proud Austin native Katy David is known for working with clay, gouache and eggshells, creating abstract images and sculptural forms that evoke coral reefs, geological formations, and colorful landscapes. “I love creating work that invites touch” she says.“I want the viewer to participate in the work, to imagine themselves fully sensate in a fantastical landscape of color, line and texture.” She is currently represented by Troy Campa of Camiba Art Gallery. |
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Scott Simons, Emerging Ceramic Artist A fifth-generation Texan and 12-year Austin resident, Scott Simons works in large-scale oil paintings and hand-built porcelain. In his work, subtle architectural elements play against energetic, natural scratches and marks. The interplay and tension between man-made and natural has always been a source of inspiration for Scott. He’s been included in a number of one-and-two person gallery shows and juried exhibitions, and is currently represented by Craighead Green Gallery in Dallas and Guthrie Contemporary Gallery in New Orleans. |