Meet Our Instructors

Ariella is a local Tucson artist born and raised in the city. With over 10 years of ceramic experience and 3 years teaching at the Tucson Clay Coop I am grateful for the opportunity to connect with my community and get people engaged with clay.

Creativity is power!!!  I am endlessly inspired by my desert surroundings. Nature has incredible features including textures, colors and ever changing depth depending on the seasons and even time of day. If you need me I’m either in the studio, on my bike or hanging with my good cat Goob. Come take a class and let’s get our hands dirty!

Clare Benson is an interdisciplinary artist based in Tucson. She holds an MFA in Studio Art from University of Arizona. As an artist, her practice embraces materials and processes that are tactile, natural, repetitious, embodied, and slowed-down. She has taught for six years as a university professor in the arts; spent a year in Arctic Scandinavia, working alongside space physicists and indigenous reindeer herders; and in 2019 began working as a funeral professional. Her current research and teaching interests find reverence in the shared space of creative and grief practices, ritual, and the power we have to build meaning through loss and change.

Eva Stoneburner has been teaching at the Tucson Clay Co-op since 2021. She first got into pottery in high school and honed her skills in several years of ceramics classes at Foothill Community College in California. They have a BFA in Anthropology and archaeology from UCLA, so her ties to playing in the dirt run deep. Eva’s favorite clay body is B3 Brown, and favorite glaze is Ragnar’s black. Eva loves to throw, sculpt, and draw skulls on their pottery, and is always happy to answer questions. 

 Eva loves clay because it has taught them how to be more understanding of themself and others, to slow down and take life one step at a time, and how to let go and be okay with not being perfect. Clay has so much to offer, and since it comes from the earth, it can be recycled and reused, and isn’t that relieving? 

You can reach Eva here: evastoneburner@gmail.com

Shortly after moving to Tucson from Pennsylvania with a BFA in Fine Art, I began teaching pottery in 2005. Even after 25 years of focused study in ceramics I remain a student myself, constantly learning—from my own exploration, my teachers, my colleagues and my students. My teaching philosophy emphasizes a strong foundation in the "how and why," a priority on the fundamentals paired with encouragement for creativity and self-expression.  

In my own work, I focus on the harmony between beauty, individuality, form, and function. Lately, I have been deeply inspired by atmospheric firings, especially wood-fired ceramics. In such firings, there is beauty in the loss of control, the high level of risk, and knowledge that I may never be able to attain the same results. 

I started making pots in 2007 when I moved to North Carolina and immediately fell for the medium.  Upon graduating I went to Guilford College and received a BA in art with a concentration in Ceramics, deepening my love and understanding of clay and process.

 I moved to Tucson to begin working at an art center that served as a day program for adults with disabilities. During this time (6 years) I didn’t really touch clay for myself, but greatly enjoyed being there for others as they ventured into their own clay and art adventures.

 I finally started coming to the Tucson Clay Co op in 2019 and became an instructor during 2020.  I continue making pots in my home closet studio and sharing my work with everyone.

 While I love teaching how to make things, my favorite part is when I can help people deepen their connection with clay as a living and responsive medium.

Maxine Krasnow, has been making pots for over 30 years.  She has studied with Makoto Yabe, Jim Makins, Ken Fergusen, Clary Ilian, Rob Forbes, and her beloved mentor, Byron Temple.  Her passion is to make pots which transcend themselves, which remind us of the smell of fresh rain, a forgotten melody, the colour of twilight.  To make pots which become more than themselves.  And when she creates such a pot, she bowls to the kiln and say "thank you."

Her newest body of work is wood/soda firing and altering thrown forms. 

She founded the Tucson Clay Co-op as well as Supermud Pottery on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

She has been teaching wheel and hand building since 1978. 

Mallory is a nomadic potter based out of Tucson in the winter months. She specializes in wheel thrown pottery and enjoys creating fun, spirited, functional artwork. Mallory has gleaned techniques and ideas from workshops and studios across the country, and loves to get others excited about the world of working with clay. 

Francisco “Pancho” Gonzales was born in the Arizona copper mining town of Old Morenci. After graduating from his town’s one high school Pancho worked in the smelter of the Phelps Dodge copper mine. Working with these high-fire furnaces he learned about the chemical processes of vulcanized metals—knowledge he later applied to his pottery. “Working in the smelter changed how I saw the rest of the world.The process is dirty and dangerous, and the scale of the furnace is huge. The furnace was 3000 degrees and it was my job to maintain the temperature inside—I wore three layers of clothing and a fire suit with a respirator.”

He attend the University of Arizona and studied clay under Maurice Grossman.

Pancho infuses his pottery with the southwest and the feel of the desert mountains around him; it is a process that includes late night Raku firing and close observation of the natural wonders of the desert.

I have traveled full circle creating and teaching art for the past 34 years in the Southwest and New England.

Currently I am living in Tucson and teaching part time at Desert Sage High School, Tucson Clay Co-op, and The Drawing Studio. I enjoy exploring the arts in many different media but absolutely love printmaking, drawing with my sharpie, creating soft and oil pastel paintings and working with ceramics, both wheel throwing and hand building. My philosophy of art education is that everybody can express themselves through the arts, no matter what age or background. I enjoy facilitating my students through the processes of the creative arts and help them realize that their voice and risk taking is the most important thing about the arts. Once you have your original idea, forging ahead with that idea is paramount, especially if you think it might be a mistake, .....Mistakes are awesome, below is what Neil Gaiman says about mistakes...

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.