A Handful of Potters
Julian Erickson-Watson
Meet Handful Studios’ owner! After growing up on the rocky coast of Northern California, Julian moved to Massachusetts for school and eventually settled in Maine. In an effort to share his immense love of pottery with as many people as possible, he set about opening Handful Studios! Julian specializes in wheel-throwing classes, teaching intro and open classes.
Devin McDonald
Devin McDonald is a ceramic artist in Maine teaching handbuilding classes at Handful Studios. Previously residing in Fort Collins, Colorado, she taught and was a resident artist at the community ceramic studio Smokestack Pottery. She studied at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL where she was awarded a BA in Fine Arts in 2010. She returned to study ceramics at the University of Missouri in Columbia, and in 2019 received her MFA.
Jeffrey Lipton
Jeffrey Lipton is a wheel throwing instructor at Handful Studios. Jeffrey is a studio potter who makes finely crafted utilitarian objects. He earned his BFA in Ceramics from the University of Southern Maine in 2008 and then spent 3 years as an apprentice at Stonepool Pottery in Western, Mass. Jeffrey is currently building a wood kiln with the hope that it can be a way of building community and bringing clay lovers together. What better bonding experience is there than playing with fire!?
@jeffreyliptonpottery
Stevie McKean
Stevie is a wheel throwing instructor at Handful. Stevie is a multidisciplinary artist based in Portland, Maine, originally hailing from Philadelphia, where she earned her bachelor's degree in printmaking from Tyler School of Art. Her current artistic practice centers on functional ceramic-ware and sculpture.
Central to Stevie's artistic exploration are themes and imagery surrounding human-made objects discarded into nature and the subsequent cycle of their return. Drawing inspiration from both natural elements and industrial landscapes, Stevie employs texture, pattern, and color to reflect and subvert the relationship between humans and their surroundings. @newtalkstudio
Monique Cornett
Monique is a wheel-throwing instructor at Handful Studios who has been working with clay since 2018. She was a long-time student at a community studio in Portland and feels fortunate to have had many generous mentors over the years. These days, Monique primarily works with porcelain, focusing on everyday wares that you want to reach for and are built to last.
Bea Willemsen
Bea Willemsen is a handbuilding instructor at Handful Studios. Bea is a queer ceramic artist working in handbuilding and large-scale sculpture.
Bea is self-taught and primarily utilizes porcelain in their studio practice. Their work explores ideas of joy, play, silliness, and healing. Their process is grounded in deep self-exploration, with each work functioning to bring lived experiences out of the body and into the world. Bea’s studio practice is based in Maine and their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
Jenny Ibsen
Jenny Ibsen is a Maine-based artist, restaurant worker, and organizer with a community-centered art practice. She is a resident artist at Handful Studios.
Jenny’s ceramic works are often colorful, hand-built terracotta vessels that intend to facilitate connection to food. Jenny moved to Maine in 2014 to pursue her BA at Bowdoin College. She was born in China and raised by her Scandinavian parents in Connecticut. She is a co-organizer for Tender Table and lives in Portland, Maine.
Robby Lewis-Nash
Robby is a resident artist at Handful. Robby uses clay to make pots, sculpture, and things in-between. For him, the boundary that separates utilitarian pottery from Art is pretty darn blurry. Robby’s work may poke fun at this relationship with whimsical forms and images, while at other times he’s more focused on making a real nice pot.
Ben Babcock
Ben Babcock is wheel throwing instructor at Handful. Ben is also a sculptor interested in the poetics of clay and heat. He also is leading our glaze program.
Growing up in southwest Montana, Ben spent his teenage years loitering around the local college kiln yard, eventually enrolling at Montana State University where he completed a BFA in 2015. He has participated in residencies in Maine and South Korea, assisted numerous workshop artists and conducted research with the International Wild Clay Research Project. His work with clay is rooted in a desire to understand people, time and material through the embodied act of making. Ben now lives and works in Portland Maine. Ben is directing Handful’s glazing program.
Daisy Clennon
Daisy Clennon is a wheel throwing teacher at Handful Studios who recently moved to Maine. She has previously worked as a production potter in Oregon and as a pottery teacher in Los Angeles. Daisy makes pots that display technical and traditional ideas of craft while investigating the place of the handmade vessel in the present. @daisyclennon
Lark Wicinas
Lark is Handful’s Creative Director. She also runs her own business doing graphic design and illustration called Seabird Studio. As Julian’s partner, she was excited to lend her skills to the studio and design Handful’s logos among other things. In an effort to be courteous to Julian, Lark offered to give pottery a try and accidentally fell in love with it herself! While still a newbie at the wheel, she is finding joy in learning. Mainly, Lark focuses on 2D work, painting in oils and egg tempera. Her personal fine art website can be found here.