Artist's Bio

 

 

Don Ryan was born in Southern California and grew up in San Juan Capistrano, CA. 

 

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He began working with clay as a young teenager, then worked as a production potter/apprentice through college and earned a BFA in Ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA in ceramics from UCLA.

 

After graduate school, he spent 2 years in the South Pacific where he was an artist in residence at Murdock University in Perth, Western Australia. Upon returning to the U.S., he designed and produced fine dinnerware, tables, tile, and lighting.

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Currently he teaches at Soka University where he is the director of the Creative Arts department and heads the Ceramics, Sculpture and Digital 3-D lab.

 

He is now making table lamps, sculptures, and 3D printing with clay. The lamp bases are thrown and hand-built, fired to cone ten with proprietary glazes on stoneware (high fire).

 

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With a lifetime of creating and studying ceramics from all over the world, he brings together a contemporary sensibility with an appreciation of the long and rich history of ceramic vessel making.