Us
Maine Prairie Studio is the pottery studio of Megan and JD Jorgenson, located in Kimball, Minnesota. Our studio aims to nurture creativity and elevate the ceramic arts through community education for rural Minnesotans. Additionally, we support local, regional and national artists through assistantships, retreats and residencies.
Visit our ceramics tab to purchase our work online. We send out information periodically about upcoming events. Join our mailing list by going to "Stay in the Know " in the About section to stay current with what's happening.
Email us at: info@maineprairiestudio.com
Megan Jorgenson
Megan resides in Kimball, MN, where she and her husband JD Jorgenson operate Maine Prairie Studio, a ceramics studio, teaching space and gallery. She received an MFA in Ceramics from Utah State University in 2012. Since then, she has been an Artist in Residence at the Red Lodge Clay Center, North Dakota State University, Northern Clay Center and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Ceramics at Marlboro College in Vermont. Currently, she teaches at Saint Cloud Technical and Community College and Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Megan’s functional and sculptural work has exhibited in galleries nationwide and been featured in Ceramics Monthly. She has taught workshops focused on printing on clay at numerous locations: Grand Marais Art Colony, Studio 550 in Manchester NH, and North Dakota State University. She received a McKnight Individual Artist Award in 2016 from the Central Minnesota Arts Board and a 2017 Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.
Artist statement
Through my studio practice, I examine human relationship with place, and contemplate intrinsic, contradictory yearnings for belonging and freedom. My work frames distant and local landscapes, with a goal of providing space for the examination of inner and outer worlds.
My ideas find voice through both functional and sculptural objects, united by an interest in reconciling surface to volume. My practice is fed by an ongoing curiosity regarding forming methods as well as the application of printmaking processes to clay. Through the interplay between pictorial and spatial dimensions, it is my intention to create a dialogue between illusory and actual space.
JD Jorgenson
JD is originally from Bismarck, ND. He now resides in Kimball, MN, where he and his wife Megan Jorgenson operate Maine Prairie Studio, a ceramics studio, teaching space and gallery. He received an BA from the University of Iowa in 1997. Since then, he has apprenticed with Richard Bresnahan, at the Saint John’s Pottery. He has taught ceramics classes and workshops at Northern Clay Center, Paramount Center for the Arts, White Bear Center for the Arts and the Grand Marais Art Colony. Currently, he teaches at Maine Prairie Studio and Paramount Center for the Arts. JD’s functional work has exhibited in galleries nationwide. He has taught workshops focused on techniques he learned during his apprenticeship that incorporate Japanese and Korean influences at: Grand Marais Art Colony, Northern Clay Center, White Bear Center for the Arts and Marlboro College in Vermont. He received the Jerome Foundation Visiting Artist Award at the Saint John’s Pottery in 2002, Red Wing Collectors Society Foundation Award in 2011 and Individual Artist Awards through the Central Minnesota Arts Board.
Artist statement
I deeply believe that working with native or wild clays cultivates conversations and relationships between the material and the person. I strive in my process to understand the material for what it is through its strengths and limitations. There are stones and other minerals in the clays that make themselves known through the making and firing process, which I believe adds beauty. My voice and work is often a reflection of the source material. The true beauty is the clay itself, unglazed and raw interacting with fire, charcoal, and atmosphere in a wood burning kiln.