On View: October 10 – November 7
Morean Center for Clay: 420 22nd Street South
Salt AIR welcomes a new cohort of Artists-in-Residence to the Morean Center for Clay. Bringing together emerging voices from across the country, this exhibition introduces artists whose practices are shaped by personal history, community engagement, material exploration, and a deep commitment to the transformative possibilities of clay. Drawing from diverse experiences and artistic approaches, the residents arrive in St. Petersburg ready to immerse themselves in a new environment, exchange ideas, and expand their practices during their time at the Morean.
As an introduction to the residency year ahead, Salt AIR offers a first look at the voices, ideas, and ambitions of the Morean’s newest residents. Together, their work signals the beginning of a period of growth, experimentation, and creative exchange that will continue to unfold throughout their residency.
Artist Statement:
I use ceramics as a way to investigate the human experience, specifically as it relates to one’s body, mind, and growing up. My work aims to comment on the perception of Neurodivergence in society, an increasingly timely topic in our culture and one that I believe deserves to be examined within contemporary craft.
Through the platform of figurative sculptures atop decorated wheel-thrown vessels, inspired by traditional craft motifs and sentimental patterns, I display narratives inspired by what are seen as routine occurrences in everyday life. With the use of a bright color palette and stylized figures I explore themes of play, childhood, and whimsy in my work.
In making this work, not only am I able to reassess memories for myself but I can simultaneously give viewers an inside look into what living differently can look like. I aim for the viewers to reflect on their own everyday routines and consider how even the most mundane events and experiences can differ between us all. As humans we are more alike than different, but the differences are what makes us people.
Bio:
Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Quinn Hanna has grown up in a diverse community of people of all ethnicities, abilities, sexualities, and gender identities. As such, this diversity has inspired her art practice and passion for teaching art in an accessible way.
Most recently, Quinn’s work has been inspired by her exposure to neurodivergence and her interactions with traditional craft motifs which have influenced her pattern development, now present on the surface of her ceramic works.
Quinn’s artworks have been featured in many group exhibitions across the Midwest and beyond, including the Ohio Craft Museum’s Best of 2024/2025 and The Strictly Functional Pottery National Exhibition in Lancaster, PA (2024).
Quinn recently concluded her year as a resident artist at Hope Center for Arts and Technology in Sharon, PA. At HopeCAT, Quinn taught ceramics Youth Arts and led the BALA Arts program for adults with developmental disabilities. Upon completing HopeCAT’s artist residency, Quinn wants to continue on the residency track at Morean Center for Clay to further develop her portfolio and experiences between artists before attending graduate school. Quinn hopes to attain her Masters in Fine Arts with the ultimate goal of teaching ceramics at the collegiate level.
Website:
Sleepless Nights Ceramics
Social:
@SleeplessNightsCeramics
Artist statement:
I create functional ceramics to fill a person’s life and not just galleries and museum halls. Creating ceramics with challenging forms and surfaces which allows me to bridge the materials I use with the function they serve. I produce ceramic pieces that exhibit the natural and inherent qualities of the clay, the atmosphere in the kiln, and my intentions as the artist. By harnessing these aspects of my process, it compels the ephemeral or impermanent qualities to be made physical. The ceramics I create are a reflection of the difficulties I faced growing up in an often abusive and dangerous environment. Crafting works with challenging and sometimes confrontational forms allows for dialogue within the allegory of how an onerous upbringing can shape a person. Once fired in the kiln the materials are permanently altered as they are unable to return to their previous state much as people are changed but the circumstances they go through. This material change is a record of a place and time of the clay, the kiln, and me as the artist. It is critical that I create ceramics that can be lived with, cherished, with enduring qualities that brighten and enrich the user’s life, and passed down generationally. Just as people’s negative actions or inactions can create trauma that is passed down generationally and must be lived with and often endured unless deconstructed and addressed. Turning burdens into gifts.
Bio:
Angelo Silecchia is a ceramics artist that creates functional ceramics with alternative forms which possess challenging shapes and surfaces in an effort to bridge the natural qualities of clay and fire with utilitarian nature. He specializes in wheel thrown and altered forms fired in wood, soda, and salt atmospheres. Growing up in a multigenerational home, Angelo was surrounded with heirlooms and traditions which gave him a great admiration for the objects used in his daily life and its rituals. Angelo found his love for clay and began developing his ceramic sensibilities at Valencia College where he received his Associates in Fine Arts. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art with a concentration in ceramics and sculpture from the University of Central Florida. Angelo was the first ceramic artist to win the University of Central Florida’s J.R. Hopes Art Scholarship in its history. Currently Angelo’s work is consumed with the material nature of clay as he undergoes the experimentation of new forms and firing methods.
Website:
About — Kira Straub
Bio:
Kira Straub recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee earning a BFA in Studio Art with concentrations in Sculpture, Ceramics and Community Art. Within the last year their work has been included in shows at Var Gallery, the Trout Museum of Art, Center for Visual Arts Wausau, and the Museum of Wisconsin Art. Their first work of public art was included in Sculpture Milwaukee’s 2023 exhibition Dear, Nature located at the 3rd St. Market Hall in downtown Milwaukee. Straub is currently Studio Manager at local community art studio Tooth + Nail Milwaukee, where they spend their days arm deep in buckets of clay.
Artist Statement –
My work is influenced by the intricate designs found in nature and local architecture. I am drawn to the idea of morphing these visual languages together, using clay as a medium to explore how repetition and structure exist across both the natural and built environment. For me, crafting elaborate designs is deeply human and instinctual, and returning to this practice is away of reconnecting with both history and ourselves.
I create luminary forms to explore the idea of holding light within a tangible object, something that can be examined and held close. Even when the piece is unlit, the way the transparent glazes I use pool and break over the carvings becomes its own form of light manipulation. I fill carved windows with a transparent glaze packed with microbubbles that catch and scatter light within, encouraging the viewer to look not only at the form itself but into and through it.
Underlying the precision of my process is a desire to shape and contain things that often feel intangible. The control and intentionality in my work reflect my effort to navigate a world of uncertainty. By holding light within a vessel, I aim to evoke the presence of a soul from within the form, attempting to capture something that seems to always be out of reach.
Bio –
Jess Rossi is a ceramic artist who graduated from Kutztown University in 2026 earning a BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in ceramics. While at Kutztown, she was heavily involved in the ceramic program where she worked as a studio technician, ceramic course assistant, and served as a Clay Club officer. Her work has been shown in the 33rd Annual Strictly Functional Pottery National 2025 in Lancaster, PA, as well as in her undergraduate solo show “Intricacies” where she explored how repetition and structure exist across both the natural and built environment.
