Starting next week, we’re switching the roles of our two ceramics studios: Why the change? Because this program isn’t what it was when we started. Under the leadership of Scott McClellan, and with the strength of our outstanding ceramics instructors, more students are sticking with it—coming back quarter after quarter, making bigger pots, more ambitious …

This is the final post in a three-part series on Scott McClellan, head of ceramics at the Seattle Artist League. The first post looked at the grounded physicality of his pots; the second, at the structures—musical, material, and cultural—that shape his thinking. Now we turn to the studio he built: how his quiet pragmatism and …

This is the second in a three-part series on Scott McClellan, head of ceramics at the Seattle Artist League. While the first explored the weighted forms and grounded presence of his pots, this post moves into the logic behind the motion—how McClellan builds structure from chaos, makes space for noise, and turns repetition into a …

This is the first of three posts about Scott McClellan, head of ceramics at the Seattle Artist League—his work, his approach, and the tone he sets in the studio. Scott McClellan’s vessels seem caught mid-motion. They settle into themselves without ever going still. His forms press downward—weighty, bodily. Surfaces remain raw and exposed, with nothing …

Colors have a way of playing off each other, creating energy and movement that grabs your attention. This is called simultaneous contrast—when two or more neighboring colors intensify each other, making them seem more vibrant and alive. I’m looking at paintings for simultaneous contrast examples. Paintings that set colors one right next to the other, …

In art school, our art history course included a section on German Expressionism, featuring some paintings by Ludwig Kirchner. They looked something like this: Ludwig Kirchner, “Street, Berlin” (1913) I remember not liking them at the time. Expressionism? Everyone’s squeezed in like bristling sardines! The darkness behind the colors, the acidic contrasts, the dampening black, …

I never stop being inspired by art and ideas—they’re always there, bouncing around on my desk, waiting to be shared. After a long pause of wishing I were publishing, I’m tentatively restarting. V. Notes will be different this time: smaller, more in-the-moment—little ideas pulled straight from my desk, shared when time and energy allow. A …