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
As a ceramicist with a background in interior design, project management, and marketing, Yvette Garcia-Mier draws inspiration from texture and the structured repetition of fabric patterns, which influence the tactile and visual elements of her work.
She founded Barro Ceramics to pursue her passion for clay, sharing art and ceramics with adults and children in the UK before moving to Canada in 2021. Now, through Beyond Pottery, she continues to foster a space where creativity and community thrive.
Her pieces are inspired by textures and patterns from around the world, as well as the organic beauty of nature. She embraces the imperfections inherent in handmade pottery, celebrating the unique character of each piece over the uniformity of mass production.
Yvette uses a mix of wheel-throwing and hand-building techniques. Block print designs and layered textures and patterns created with coloured slips, underglazes and transfers play a significant role in her designs, allowing her to incorporate depth and a tactile quality that enhances both the visual and functional aspects of each piece.
Beyond her own work, she is passionate about creating spaces where people can experience the transformative power of clay. Opening a community studio was a dream born from a desire to share not just her love for ceramics but to create a space where people can connect, express themselves, and find solace in the process of making.
Through her ceramics and her work in the studio, Yvette strives to create pieces and experiences that bring warmth, meaning, and a sense of belonging.
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.