Nina Nabizadeh
Artist in Residence July - August 2024
Nina Nabizadeh is a first generation Iranian-American in Southern Vermont. They are an art educator and ceramicist with an MA from Umass Amherst and BA from Marlboro College.
Their work seeks to integrate pattern, color, and memory. They enjoy sewing and growing flowers in their spare time.
Lauren lukasavitz
Studio Assistant 2023 - 2024
Lauren lives in Sauk Rapids, MN where she works with children with Autism providing therapeutic services as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and minor in Art from University of Minnesota Duluth in 2016. She later pursued a Master’s degree at Ball State University in Special Education emphasizing in Applied Behavior Analysis in 2022. She first started working with ceramics during her time at UMD with a focus on hand building.
Lauren began taking classes at Maine Prairie Studio in the winter of 2022 to learn more about the wheel throwing process, and became a Studio Assistant at Maine Prairie Studio in April of 2023.
Cortland Harstad
Studio Assistant 2023 - 2024
Cortland was born and raised in the St. Cloud area and currently resides in St. Joseph. He started his career in the creative fields after studying 3D Modeling and Graphic Design at Minneapolis Media Institute. He served as a Studio Photographer, a Graphic Designer, and a Studio Specialist during his career and now currently teaches as a Visual Arts Coordinator at the Boys and Girls Club of America.
Cortland was introduced to Maine Prairie Studio through his Studio Specialist position at Cherrico Pottery during a Wood-Firing opportunity. This opportunity not only lit the fire of the kiln, named Rocinante, but lit a proverbial fire in his heart for the awe inspiring community and practice of pottery. He quickly found himself taking classes with JD and Megan and in April of 2023 he became a Studio Assistant at Maine Prairie Studio.
Samantha Martinez
Studio Assistant 2020
Sam grew up along the shores of a small lake in northern, WI. She earned a BA in Spanish at the University of Wisconsin- Stevens Point where she minored in; Ethnobotany, Anthropology, and Environmental Studies. She has found work in seed conservation and tribal food sovereignty, on organic farms, for a tribal environmental health program and ecological restoration cooperative, in native plant nurseries and community gardens, in folk schools, art centers, private studios, charter schools, and public schools.
She studied to obtain her K-12 teaching license and degree in Art Education at UW - Whitewater and now serves as the K-12 Art Educator for the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe School in Hayward, WI where her teaching practice is focused on sharing earth-based media, critical multiculturalism, and environmental stewardship. As an artist, she explores her reverence for life and human traditions through earthly riches like clay, natural pigments, fauna fibers, soil, water, and bioregional botanicals.
Sam was introduced to Maine Prairie Studio through a network of karatsu kick wheel pottery people and completed a Wood Fired Kiln Building Internship during July - October of 2020, where she assisted in the construction of wood fire pizza oven and wood fire kilns on the studio’s North campus.