Who we are
Beyond Pottery was started in 2023 where three friends met as fellow art instructors. We bonded over our unique artistic experiences and with a shared dream of opening up an interdisciplinary art studio. We believe that art has the power to connect people and create community and that the process of art-making can be grounding, offering a meditative refuge from our hectic lives. We feel There are not many things in life that can bring more self-gratifying experiences than creating your own unique pieces of art.
In creating this teaching and learning studio we hope to share the joy and peace artmaking brings us with others. Our desire to open a community studio is not only to share our love of art and clay with others but more importantly to share a space where people can come together. We strongly advocate that art making, and in particular working with clay, can make a powerful contribution to our mental health and create a feeling of community".
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Yvette Garcia-Mier
Shahrzad Amin
Lauren Sinett
Yvette is an experienced ceramicist with a background in Interior design, project management and marketing. Yvette started her own business, Barro Ceramics, pursuing her passion for clay and worked in the UK offering art and ceramics to adults and children before moving to Canada in 2021.
Her pottery is inspired by many things, including nature and textures from Spain, Africa and India. "My pots are never perfect, but that's what I love about handmade items, celebrating the handmade over mass-produced".
She wanted to open a community studio to not only share her love of art and clay with others but more importantly to share a space where people can come together.
Shahrzad is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist. She creates socially engaging art pieces that invoke thoughts and encourage conversations about socio-cultural issues that surround us. Shahrzad makes original pieces that truly move people to feel intense emotions. Her interest in fundamental social issues such as democracy, human rights, equality, and migration has informed an art practice examining diasporic and socio-cultural subjectivities through the lenses of art practice, sensory ethnographic filmmaking, architectural design, gender, and language. Her works highlight a social openness and necessity for global international connectivity, by applying the historical eastern architectural figures such as arch bridges as a metaphor for overcoming cultural distances. She obtained a BFA from Tehran University of Art in 2010 and an MFA from OCADU in 2020.
Lauren has been teaching art in public schools and community based organizations for 13 plus years.She has formal art education in various techniques and mediums but her focus has been in ceramics and contemporary jewelry metalsmithing.In 2013 she obtained a bachelor's degree in Art and minored in psychology and interdisciplinary studies from FGCU.Her academic artwork explores and challenges social constructs and reflects on how they impact and shape her identity and greater society.Her passion has been to use the therapeutic aspects of art making to help others heal,and to create art that addresses social issues like mental health, environmental sustainability,and sexism.These interests led her to study Expressive Art Therapy, obtain a Bachelor's degree in Social Work and pursue a Masters degree in Social Work.