Melissa Rice lives and works on the coast of San Francisco, California. She is a professional production potter and runs a community pottery school at her very own STUDIO CERAMICA in the Outer Richmond District. Mel was born in Kansas and moved to Puebla, Mexico in grade school. She returned to the States shortly after high school to pursue her degree in Baking & Pastry in New York. Great food, the Pacific Ocean, and good weather brought her to San Francisco over 20 years ago. You'll often find Mel, a single mother of a little girl and dog-parent with an affinity for Mastiffs, running around with a tool in her hands and a project in mind.
A hands-on artist, Mel built this studio with her blood, sweat, and tears. All of the worktables, counters, flooring, walls, painting, shelving, and everything else was done by Mel's hands. Melissa has developed a simple, clean way of designing functional ceramic pieces for any room and is inspired by the sight, the smell, and sound of the Pacific Ocean. The pottery wheel is where she feels the most prolific and teaching pottery is second nature to her.
ABOUT MEL'S TEACHING
Melissa spent 8 years at the pottery studio at the Fort Mason Campus of San Francisco City College as both a student and a studio manager. This experience taught her every facet of ceramics from glaze making to throwing, giving her a wide breadth of knowledge unparalleled by other ceramists. Handing down the knowledge that was given to her at City College and keeping the old school ways of running a pottery studio alive in SF. All the slips, glazes, and stains are made in-house from scratch. We make our own clay and have a full clay/glaze/water recycling system. We waste nothing! This studio is the only studio in the city run by a Latina production potter.
A hands-on artist, Mel built this studio with her blood, sweat, and tears. All of the worktables, counters, flooring, walls, painting, shelving, and everything else was done by Mel's hands. Melissa has developed a simple, clean way of designing functional ceramic pieces for any room and is inspired by the sight, the smell, and sound of the Pacific Ocean. The pottery wheel is where she feels the most prolific and teaching pottery is second nature to her.
ABOUT MEL'S TEACHING
Melissa spent 8 years at the pottery studio at the Fort Mason Campus of San Francisco City College as both a student and a studio manager. This experience taught her every facet of ceramics from glaze making to throwing, giving her a wide breadth of knowledge unparalleled by other ceramists. Handing down the knowledge that was given to her at City College and keeping the old school ways of running a pottery studio alive in SF. All the slips, glazes, and stains are made in-house from scratch. We make our own clay and have a full clay/glaze/water recycling system. We waste nothing! This studio is the only studio in the city run by a Latina production potter.