Our Team
Cassidy Stoner
Owner
BFA in Ceramics and Painting from James Madison University, Harrisonburg VA
Cassidy Stoner started as a portrait artist before discovering her love of clay during school. She creates functional wheel thrown, handbuilt, and sculpted pottery that brings beauty into the everyday moments of life. Along with her partner Julius, Cassidy owns The Little Pottery Shop, a gallery featuring the work of over 100 national and local artists, as well as The Frederick Clay Studio.
Tim Sherman
Towson University undergraduate, BS Degree in Art and Design, Towson MD
Tim Sherman creates functional pottery, keeping visual aesthetics in mind. He uses a wide range of firing techniques and construction styles, both historical and modern, experimenting with multiple layers of sprayed glazes, and small amounts of ash glazes to force colors to run, pool and otherwise mix together on the surfaces throughout the firing process.
Tim Sherman has won multiple awards for his pottery.
Nadette Boughton
E.S.A Degree, Paris, France
Nadette Boughton's first 18 years were spent in West Africa, in Côte d’Ivoire. This experience has greatly influenced her philosophical and hands-on approach to pottery. Her years of architecture and plastic art studies in Paris have served to bring a geometrical and structural knowledge of three-dimensional forms into her work. A profound interest in the Bauhaus movement, emphasizing purity of form as well as functionality of space, is something Nadette always incorporates while throwing or hand building a pot.
Nadette was Bill van Gilder’s Teacher Assistant at the Art League of Alexandria, VA and participated in many wood firings with him in Gapland, MD. Afterwards, she became Blair Meerfeld's Teacher Assistant, who is the Chairman of the Art League Ceramics Department. Nadette has also been potter Allison Severance’s apprentice, assisting her with community and private wood firings.
Katlynn Almansor
BFA in Graphic Design from Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, WV.
Katlynn Almansor first began working with clay in 2017, and works predominantly on the wheel. She started taking sculpture classes at the end of 2020, then began to focus on it more in 2022, when she discovered her love of animal sculpture. She enjoys working with groggy clay bodies to lend texture and depth to her animals, and endeavors to capture their essence through their form.
Leslie King
Since 2016 I have making ceramic sculpture, studying with a number of influential sculptors, and formally, at Hood Collage where earning my MFA in Ceramic Sculpture (2021). Prior to entering the world of sculpture, I have had a lifelong career working in the arts. Those experiences - scene painting for big stage theater in the US and in Denmark, puppet making and performing on 2 smaller stages in New York City, and designing graphics for multi-national marketing projects - have informed my current work as a sculptor. I am currently an exhibiting member of The Artist’s Gallery (Frederick, MD). You can see examples of my work there, at The Bridge Gallery (Shepherdstown, WV) and on my website: LeslieKing.online
Connie Rankin
Connie Rankin has an Art Degree in Illustration and Design from Hussian School of Art in Philadelphia.
She has a career working for museums including The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, The Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, MD and the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington D.C. Other museum work can be found in The Maryland Science Center in Baltimore, Ohio Wilderness Center, Museum of the Rockies, and a museum in Japan.
In the past decade, she has found a love of clay. Her work is memories, thoughts, and feelings finding physical form in this medium. To express them accurately requires several techniques. The wheel provides structure, while hand building and sculpting allows her to work in obsessive detail.
Steve Yarnall
Steve Yarnall started pottery back in 2001. He studied with Bill van Gilder until the school closed in April 2013., and it was during this time that he really came to enjoy pottery and working with clay.
I have found making pottery to be an extension of the martial arts that I practiced for over 30 years. I find it relaxing and meditative yet challenging at the same time. I moved over to the Frederick Clay Studio in May 2013 and started taking classes with Tim Sherman. I continue my studies, there, today and enjoy it more than ever.
I enjoy making functional pottery in various styles, shapes, and sizes — both wheel-thrown and hand-built. I enjoy working with various clay bodies and glaze combinations for various affects and colorations. Over the years, I have done serveral different firing methods, but I have come to really enjoy wood-firing because of its natural and random look and feel. It's always interesting to see how the wood, fire, and atmosphere of the kiln all interact and affect the outcome.