Join local designers and makers Chelsea Kaiah, Sean VanderVliet, and Sherise Talbott alongside Nate Craig, the curator of Made Known, for a panel discussion on the connections between art, craft, history, and self.

FREE and open to the public. Register with the form below!

Chelsea Kaiah

Chelsea Kaiah is Ute and an enrolled Apache with Irish heritage. She was born on the Northern Ute reservation, and currently resides in Denver Colorado. Chelsea is a first generation college graduate with her Bachelors in Fine Art from Watkins College of Art. Chelsea is known to have resilience and a passion for educating Native culture. Today Chelsea learns traditional crafts of pine needle weaving, buffalo hunting, hide making, and beadwork. Contemporary practices of painting, sculptures, and photography are mixed within the traditional practices. The storytelling of interweaving personal perspective with culture and trained artistic skills.

Sean VanderVliet

Fenway Clayworks is the result of a lifelong interest in functional ceramics. My mission is simple; to make great pots while simultaneously building a community of potters, chefs, and consumers who are interested in, care about, and conscious of how they consume food. To bring light to not only what you eat, but what you eat off (and out) of.  

Born in Iowa, onto Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and finally Colorado. I don't think that's what they mean when they say "never settle", but it's worked for me. All of these places have without a doubt impacted the style in which I make pots. Most significantly may have been growing up nearby to Simon Pearce,  a glassblowing and ceramic studio in Vermont. It's here where I learned to appreciate the focus and attention that it took to make something unique and worthy of the home by watching potters and glassblowers for hours on end in their working studios.

From New Hampshire to Maine where I studied under Paul Heroux and Tyler Gulden at Bates College. Each with very different aesthetic ambitions, I learned and borrowed from both of them and headed for Colorado.

Here my style has become heavily influenced by the recent transformation of Denver itself and the ever-growing artisan community aspiring to create something impactful. It's a practical and happy town - full of people dedicated to the things they care most about. I'm one.

Sherise Talbott

I am an active ceramic artist in Denver. I enjoy creating pottery during my free time, and illustrating whenever I can. I got my B.F.A. in Ceramics at Colorado State University in 2008 as well as a B.A. in Art Education. I am the Museum Store buyer at Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art. I’ve been working with the Museum since 2012, initially as a volunteer, but was hired on full time in 2018. I curate all the local Colorado ceramics within the store, and I consider myself the unofficial ceramic expert within the institution. I see it as my role to help tell the stories of local makers and bring their handmade goods into the hands of our Museum visitors.