Our Staff
Margaret Biddle
The pottery studio represents a labor of love for studio owner Margaret Biddle, an art teacher and longtime volunteer at the Jane Addams Hull House Association ceramic studio.
“I decided that there was a need for a ceramics studio that catered to artists who needed work space in the Lincoln Square/North Center neighborhood,” Biddle says.
Margaret Biddle is certified as an art teacher by the State of Illinois and has taught in the Chicago Public Schools for seven years, as well as instructing classes at Daley College. She volunteered at the Jane Addams Hull House Association ceramic studio as a workshop leader for six years before opening Lincoln Square Pottery Studio. Biddle earned a bachelor’s degree in art education from the University of Southern Maine and a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sara Brennan
Sara found her way to working in clay after ten years in advertising and graphic design. Burned-out and with a tight job market – she moved into general administrative work. The Jane Addams Ceramic Studio in Lakeview caught Sara’s eye and gave her an opportunity to discover a new medium for her art projects. Whatever open studio time was available, Sara was there. Ceramics was a totally new creative path for her. She became a volunteer at Jane Addams and shortly thereafter began teaching basic handbuilding. She has also participated in workshops at Lalola Ranch Clay Center in Steamboat Springs, Colorado with Tom Coleman and Susan Filley.
“The time spent on each piece is a gift for the spirit, the medium is sensuous and the camaraderie enriching.”
Ann Cibulskis
Ann has been involved in clay for many years, and is familiar with several community art studios in the Chicago area. She has trained at the Hyde Park Art Center, Lill Street, and at the Jane Addams Center, where she was also a studio volunteer for several years.
While her technique is primarily hand building, she has collaborated with wheel throwers by altering their pots. For years now Ann has been concentrating on organic looking pieces that resemble bones and fungi. Pinch pots and coil construction are used in the majority of Ann’s work, although an occasional slab may find its way in.
“While some of my work can hang on the wall and be admired, I do prefer to make pieces that can be used and add beauty to everyday life,” says Cibulskis. “I strive to give each item I make a particular line and sense of balance.”
Ann’s creations have been exhibited at the Wholesome Roc Café. She received a BA in Painting and Art History from Providence College in Rhode Island.
Sheila Schaefer
Sheila has been working with clay for many years and concentrates primarily on wheel throwing. She has been involved with ceramics classes at several state Universities and community colleges, as well as private studios. Her work has been displayed for sale at the Prairie Avenue Bookshop in Chicago, as well as at several weekend Art & Craft Fairs around the Chicagoland area.
She has studied many different forms of art including paper making, glass blowing, neon sign bending, metal casting and welding, and painting.
Sheila’s formal education is in Architecture from the University of Illinois with a Masters degree.
Kristi Counts
Kristi Counts first became involved with clay at the age of 17 at her local high school in Georgia. Her education continued at the University of Georgia where she majored in Art Education with the view of becoming an art teacher. After graduation Kristi moved to Chicago where, within weeks of the move, she found Lincoln Square Pottery Studio- Learning Center and began classes there. It didn’t take long to go from substitute teaching for Chicago Public Schools to a position as an art teacher for an elementaryschool on the West side of Chicago. Or from an independent study student to the studio’s volunteer Children’s Class teacher, where her knowledge of clay and her skills in the classroom have proven invaluable.
Mindy Stillman
After playing with clay as a student at the Hull House Arts Center, Mindy became a volunteer, running the open workshop on Friday nights. She came over to the LSPS-LC and began taking wheel throwing classes. She now volunteers on Saturdays and substitute teaches for the children’s classes. She works on the wheel and does handbuilding, and is interested in creating functional Judaica. Mindy’s day job is as a licensed clinical social worker in an Uptown social service agency.
Esther Smith
Esther has been involved in ceramics for over a decade. She was first introduced to wheel-throwing in high school, where she enjoyed making wares pleasing to the eye and useful in the home. It wasn’t until many years later that she tried her hand at handbuilding methods, where she found that she enjoyed the freedom that they provided in forming her pieces. Moving around after college, she always sought out local studios to experiment in. After moving to Illinois in 2004, found herself at Terra Incognito in Oak Park. This is where she made her first true pinch pot and was captured by the process. She is interested in stretching the clay to explore its innate earthy qualities, often ending in a surface that resembles desert ground. Esther enjoys playing with textures, those of the clay itself and from objects found in nature, such as rocks and bark. While she enjoys the meditative quality of coiling and pinching pots, there is a certain satisfaction that comes with wheel-throwing. Unwilling to commit fully to just one clay process, she enjoys handbuilding as well as making functional objects that feel like home to the user.
