About Us

Matthew and Ashtonn both started their journeys with clay early on in community studios.

Ashtonn’s journey began at age thirteen at The Art Center, learning under her mentor, Terry

Shepherd. Matt started an apprenticeship with Damien Radice at his home studio in his early

twenties. When we met our freshman year of college at Colorado Mesa University, we instantly

connected over a shared dream: opening our own pottery studio. We dated all throughout

college, spending most of our weekends together in the CMU ceramic studio and got married in

a backyard summer wedding in 2016 one month after graduating with our BFAs in Studio Art.

From that moment on, we have been dedicated to developing our ceramic artwork,

participating in exhibitions, teaching classes, and traveling for workshops, all while gradually

collecting the studio equipment we knew we would need one day.

In 2022, we heard about Alleghany Meadows and Gavin Brooke starting the FARM project in

Fruita and we knew we had to check out the space. With the growing art community in Fruita, it

was the perfect place for our dream to become a reality. With sleepless nights, sweat, tears,

and generous help from wonderful friends and fellow artists, we built the studio space from the

ground up in #117 at FARM. We opened in December of 2022 in our 607 square foot studio

space and welcomed 18 students in our first session of classes. The first few months involved a

lot of learning about studio management. As the studio developed, our classes filled faster than

we anticipated and we quickly began outgrowing the space. In December 2023, the perfect

opportunity arrived and we expanded to Studio D right down the hall at FARM. The week we

started moving equipment to the new studio space, we found out we were not only expanding

our studio, but that we would be expanding our family that year as well. 2024 was a year filled

with growth and change in the most beautiful ways!

With the larger footprint of Studio D, we were able to add more pottery wheels and expand our

capacity to teach 40 students in our 8-week classes and offer 4 open studio membership

spaces. Since 2024 we have continuously refined the studio space, gradually offering more

community classes, as well as hosting team-building workshops, one-day classes, and date

nights. We are honored to be a part of the growing Fruita arts community and share the love of

ceramics with the Western Slope.