REsidency Programs
Residency applications for 2026 - 2027 will become available this July!
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About Our Residency Program
At Heirloom Ceramic Studio, we believe in supporting the growth of art and culture through providing residency and internship programs. Each of our programs aim to support artists at varying levels to improve their making practices and have an accessible space to create. Each Program provides materials, full facility usage, and customized residency plans to help you develop your artistic practice.
With a focus on material and glaze science, personal business development, and finding an artistic voice, our programs look to bring in artists who wish to develop an understanding of complex and personalized ceramic materials, find economic stability in their ceramic practice, and put in the time to advance their body of work.
A dedicated glaze lab and material library allow our residents to create and test a multitude of glazes, clays, and ceramic materials. Full studio access gives our residents the opportunity to create significant amounts of work in a space that can support their growth and experimentation. Each resident also receives a personalized mentorship to aid in meeting their unique goals.
Our Current Programs
Artist in Residence
Focusing on emerging artists, this program aims to provide space and materials to artists looking to hone in their body of work and develop their glaze and ceramic material knowledge. Residents aim to come out of this program with in depth glaze/material knowledge, personal business development, and a large body of work. Resident artists receive a monthly stipend, full glaze lab access, full material usage, full studio access, and paid teaching opportunities.
Current REsidents
Savannah Baker (2025-2026 Resident Artist)
Savannah Baker was born and raised in Boise, Idaho, and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. Her father was an art teacher who inspired and encouraged a great love of art from a very young age. She received her Bachelors of Fine Art with an Emphasis in Ceramics in 2019 from Boise State University. Savannah creates intricate hand built ceramic sculptures both functional and non-functional. Much of her work is inspired by grief, being a growing individual in today's wild world, skateboarding and tattoo imagery. Savannah’s work honors her inner child using imagery from the 90’s mixing masc and fem elements, think Hot Wheels meets Lisa Frank. Savannah aims to create works that challenge her, pushing the boundaries of clay through her detailed multi layered complex creations.
Lila Roehr (2025-2026 Resident Artist)
My work is rooted in a reverence for the California landscapes I grew up in, from alpine meadows in the Sierra Nevada mountains to redwoods meeting the craggy beaches on the Pacific Coast. Inspired by fragments of these landscapes, I aim to make work that feels both precious and organic – with detail and delicacy engrossing enough to replicate the feeling of finding a shiny pebble in a river or admiring a spotty oak leaf. In my practice, I feel a similar sense of solace and quietness as I find in such landscapes, a feeling of smallness and stillness in the overwhelming bustle of the big busy world. At the same time, I grapple with the permanence of my work, knowing that what I create may outlast me for thousands of years. This awareness compels me to work with care and intention, striving to balance function and beauty while honoring the very landscapes that inspire me. Ultimately, my hope in creating functional pottery is that it will be treasured and used until it erodes, making its creation meaningful.
Jiaxi Chen (2025-2026 Resident Artist)
I am a sculptor based in Portland, Oregon. I work in ceramic figurative sculpture, and what drives my practice is a genuine curiosity about human emotion in all its variety. I am fascinated by how many different ways there are to feel something, and I find myself most interested in the feelings that are uncomfortable.
When an uneasy feeling surfaces in my daily life, my first instinct is not to push it away but to lean in. I want to understand it. I ask myself why it is there, and I keep asking, layer by layer, until something opens up. There is something I genuinely love about that process: sitting with a difficult feeling and slowly making friends with it.
The sculptures I make are animal-human hybrid figures, and they carry this same spirit of acceptance. They exist in an in-between space, neither fully one thing nor another, and I think that is exactly where a lot of our emotional life happens too. My hope is that these figures give people permission to look at their own uncomfortable feelings with a little more curiosity and a little less fear.
Previous Residents
James Alby (2024-2025 Resident Artist)
My work draws from the shadows of my personal history, Chamorro heritage, and the environments that shape me- from the island of Guam, where I was born, to the city of Portland, where I currently live and create. I began my pottery journey in July 2023. My wheel-thrown creations are as much about the form as they are about the technical work in the creation of the piece.
Like a Chamorro Latte Stone, my work stands as both foundation and memory… Holding up what once was, and offering strength for what’s yet to come.
Laura De Anda-Hall (2024-2025 Resident Artist)
Though I've crafted and made art my entire life, it wasn't until reaching a difficult point in my journey with motherhood and PPD/PPA that I discovered my obsession with pottery. Making ceramics allows me to rebel against my inner critic and get to say "Yes!" to the things that bring me joy. My hope is that when others take in my work, they can see and feel the play involved in my process.
Elly Encell (2024-2025 Student Resident)
I began making ceramics in the fall of 2020, aiming to discover a form of making that soothed my mind during a time of uncertainty and angst. Now five years later, my work focuses on the memory of clay, and how it serves as a record of our emotional state. Through our moments of contact with the material, we are creating documentation of our state of mind. As our emotions remain malleable, the clay does not, thus we leave behind our mental “notes” in the material forever.
Erick Martinez (2023-2024 Resident Artist)
Erick Martinez is a figurative sculptor fascinated by the human figure and the complexity of emotions. He began his art journey in 2019 after moving to the United States from Bogotá, Colombia. Life experiences inspire his artwork. His sculptures seek to transmit that all emotions have a purpose, even those labeled as negative.
His sculptures have been exhibited in galleries in Oregon and Washington State. He currently lives in Arizona, where he is pursuing a career in mental health counseling.
Connor Schulz (2023-2024 Student Resident)
