Meet the Team
Our Team
Holly Coley
Bay Area Teaching artist and studio owner. She has exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, England, and the Bay Area. She studied painting and drawing at The San Francisco Art Institute and San Francisco State. Her creative work has led her to work with The Crucible, Root Division, Streetside Stories, SFUSD, The San Francisco Art Education Project and Southern Exposure. Coley also does consulting for visual artists looking to explore clay. Her past clients include Jenny Sharaf.
https://www.hollycoley.com/
Artist She/her
Alex Beck
Living and working in San Francisco, Alex teaches at several local studios as well as running his own ceramics business, ABC Ceramics.
Teaches: Next Steps Wheel
https://alexbeckceramics.com/
Ceramic Artist He/him
A ceramic artist living and working in SF. She has exhibited at San Francisco Art Fair, Glass Rice, and re.riddle. She recently hosted her first solo exhibition, Return to Form, at Marrow Gallery. She teaches intermediate and advanced wheel throwing classes throughout the Bay Area.
https://www.annagracenwosu.com/gallery
Ceramic artist She/herAnna Grace Nwosu
Our favorite hand building teacher and wood worker. Paul has worked for the SF Recology Artist Residence program and lives and works in San Francisco.
Teaches Hand Building
Wood worker and ceramicist He/himPaul Fresia
Aaron Zube
I was born & raised in the Bay Area and have been a Bernal Heights resident for the past 16 years. My art training began at UCLA as a fine art major and continued through the years at various workshops, including painting instruction at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and classical drawing training at Sadie Valerie Atelier.
My paintings are primarily inspired by the way light plays out over urban landscapes, particularly around Bernal Hill which has been my muse for several years. I also paint plein air scenes and portraits.
I’ve had several painting shows at Inclusions Gallery on Cortland over 12 years and most recently was included in the de Young Open where I exhibited a portrait. Aside from painting, I also enjoy making large sidewalk chalk drawings on Bocana street that many Bernal neighbors are familiar with.
Teaches: Painting
https://www.aaronzube.com/
Painter He/him
Amanda has earned a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Central Washington University. Afterward, she pursued Post-Baccalaureate study in Ceramics at the University of Montana. She has been an artist-in-residence at several arts organizations across the country, including The Morean Center for Clay in Saint Petersburg, Florida, and Belger Crane Yard Studios in Kansas City, Missouri.
https://www.aburypottery.com/bio
Teaches: Wheel workshops and advanced classes
Ceramic artist She/herAmanda Bury
Yuki Watanabe
Ceramic Artist she/her
Yuki is a ceramic artist and instructor in San Francisco, CA. Growing up in Japan, Yuki was always fascinated by a sense of genuine, natural beauty that is situated in quietness/serenity. Working with clay gives Yuki that space of peace and a state of “mu (無)” (a quiet emptiness). Yuki's work honors the place Yuki resides, brings out the history and beauty of the geology, and creates a way for viewers and users to connect with the environment. Yuki strives to stop our time to create space for people to experience inner tranquility and transcendence through light, shadow, texture, pigments, and flame.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/EatWithUrEyesPottery
Teaches: Monday Intro Wheel
Katie Thrash
San Francisco based ceramic artist who specializes in the intricate art form of Nerikomi. Katie's work embodies a harmonious blend of colors, patterns, and textures reflecting the vibrant energy of the city she calls home.
Teaches: Nerikomi Classes and workshops
https://www.shadyclay.shop/
Ceramic Artist She/her
Matt Borruso lives and works in San Francisco. He has had solo exhibitions at La Mofeta, Et al.etc., Cloaca Projects, Steven Wolf Fine Arts, and 2nd Floor Projects in San Francisco, and at Black Ball Projects in Brooklyn. He has participated in group exhibitions at Public Access, Anna Kustera, and Derek Eller, New York; Et al. etc., 1599fdt, and House of Seiko, San Francisco; Sister, Los Angeles; Celaya Brothers, Mexico City; and Exile Projects, Berlin. Since 2015 he has published under his imprint Visible Publications, and his books are in the library collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the International Center of Photography. Between 2006 and 2022 he taught at Stanford University, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the California College of the Arts. Borruso received his MFA from Yale University in 2004 and his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2002.
Teaches: Drawing classes
http://www.mattborruso.org/
Artist He/himMatt Borruso
Loretta Haskell
She/her
Assistant Manager she/her
Loretta is a community-minded writer and artist whisperer. Recently, she kept shop at Holly Coley's New Classic Gallery + Shop in Noe Valley. She has a background in studio management from Oakland-based letterpress printmaker People I've Loved and goth candlemaker Burke & Hare Co., as well as marketing experience as a copywriter for global sustainable shoe brand Allbirds. She taught writing classes at CCSF and directed a graduate writing center in Iowa. Outside Speckle, she writes speculative fiction and provides freelance digital design, upkeep, and marketing services for Bay Area artists under the guise Sugar Cookie.