Owner/Studio Manager + Instructor

Alana Rae McDowell is a self-taught ceramic artist from the unceded Sylix Territory/Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. She currently resides and creates in the unceded Sinxit Territory/Nelson area of the West Kootenays. 

Alana holds a degree in social work which informs her approach to working alongside and teaching others. She strives to make others feel comfortable and supported in their journey with clay. Alana began teaching in the Spring of 2022 and immediately felt that it was a direction she wanted to follow.

Her work highlights the transformative nature of clay; the therapeutic process of creating allows her to turn the stress and anxiety of modern life into contemporary, bright, and joyful pieces. For Alana, this empowering process embodies our ability to heal, transform, integrate, and shape our experiences while creating vessels for our journey from darkness to light.

Alana uses her work to playfully explore the rejection of personal/societal seriousness and mundanity. Above all else, she prioritizes creating functional art that evokes feelings of delight.

Alana has been incredibly fulfilled by connecting with people through the joy of pottery. Her dream is to offer a community studio space in Nelson where others are encouraged to have fun and get muddy.

To see her work visit claybyalanarae.com.

Wheel Instructor & Studio Technician

Birch makes functional pots for the kitchen with a casual, comfortable feel intended for everyday use.

Birch first began making pots out of the Kawarthas potters guild in Peterborough, ON while she was a university student studying biology. To Birch, biology and ceramics are the exploration of landscapes and they both spark her adventurous and curious nature.

Birch has since graduated from the Kootenay School of Arts Studio Ceramic program and gained experience as a potters apprentice for various potters in Winlaw, BC, Lake Lenore, SASK and Bird Creek, Alaska. Birch now as settled in Winlaw, BC, where she continues to work with both clay and biology.

Birch strives to make simple forms that have variation and depth in the surface while still letting the clay-body speak for itself. Her work is a life long journey of exploring the vast clay terrain and making pots.

Birch has now settled in Winlaw, BC, where she continues to enjoy working with both clay and biology.

Wheel/Hand-building Instructor & Studio Technician

In September 2023, Kalyx moved back to Nelson, where she was born and raised, to complete the ceramics program at KSA. Those 10 months of school invited learning and play into her life.

Kalyx draws inspiration from sewing and crochet, which were childhood passions. She will often dart or reshape wheel thrown vessels to transform the pieces completely.

Kalyx is fascinated by clay's capacity for expression, its ability to convey emotions, and its inherent duality of fragility and strength, which she passionately explores in her work. Her dedication to clay and her creative approach show how much she loves her art.

Wheel & Hand-building Instructor & Studio Technician

Amelie Drewitz was born in Germany and raised in the Kootenays where she spent her childhood drawing and playing outside in the wilderness.

She attended her first art exhibition in 2011 and has been a part of many exhibitions in the Kootenays since then. As a self-taught illustrator, Amelie illustrated her first book “The Tale of Two Opposites” at the young age of 14, and soon after at the age of 15 her second book, “The Fairy Flurries.”

Amelie attended the Nelson Waldorf School from first to eighth grade, graduated and began ninth grade at the local highschool. It was then and there when she was first introduced to the art of working with clay. She was mesmerized, and from then on took the ceramics course each year in highschool.

Amelie recently dove deeply into the world of ceramics at the Kootenay School of the Arts Ceramics program where she combined her love for illustration with her newly found passion for ceramics.

She has since graduated from KSA and is very grateful for the opportunity to share her knowledge and creativity teaching eager students at MUD Ceramics Club!

Hand-building Instructor

Imogen Carter is originally a city girl who grew up in the hustle and bustle of grey, rainy East London. She decided to make the big move to the Kootenays five years ago, which was easily one of the best decisions of her life. Since then, she has been a multi-disciplinary artist among the mountains—skiing/snowboarding, hiking, drawing, and playing with clay.

With a background in illustration, Imogen is constantly pushing herself to break through the two-dimensional barrier and delve into the world of ceramics by making beautiful and functional pieces that can be enjoyed in our everyday lives.

Imogen has fun with the relationship between earthy clay, rustic glazes, and the controlled, detailed illustrations that are a constant in her work. Marrying these three mediums brings layers of creativity to her practice. Instead of staring at a drawing on a flat surface, she hopes to push your focus to follow her linework around quirky ceramic forms that also portray texture, functionality, and design.

Get Muddy with Imogen at one of the many hand-building workshops she leads at the studio.

Wheel Instructor

Eva Myers-McKimm is an alumni of the Selkirk College Ceramic Studio Arts program, having completed her diploma in 1998. After completing a 6-week residency at Selkirk in 2023, she repeated the program in 2023-24. In between that time she has maintained her studio practice making functional pottery in her home studio on Kootenay Lake.

The ceramics process is a valuable source of expression and practice for Eva. As the owner and maker of Myers-McKimm Ceramics for the past 26 years, she has spent most of her career focused on the functional canons of small run production work.

Her most recent studies saw a focus on improving the mechanics and quality of her technical throwing skills, as well as exploring the spacial relationships between the components of assembled pieces - handled mugs, teapots. Her next exploration she will be moving into mark making, both in the form and on the surface.

Eva is excited to be a part of the MUD studio family; sharing her expertise with new and experienced makers!