THE CLAY ART STUDIO |
| Barbara Toole opened The Clay Art Studio, Nantucket Island’s only studio devoted entirely to ceramics, in May, 2000. Although she has been making pots for over 30 years, it is only in recent years that she has become a full time potter – after a longtime career as a pastry chef and co- owner of a restaurant on Nantucket. |
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| The Clay Art Studio is a functional studio, classroom, and gallery, open to the public year round. She teaches classes to adults and children on all levels. A Native of California, Toole attended San Diego State College until 1967, when she was offered a job in the fashion industry. In 1972 this job brought her to NYC where she took her first pottery class – just before raising four children. Although Toole moved back to California several times before becoming a permanent resident of the East Coast, she has continued her studies in ceramics with a variety of workshops, lessons, and classes in the many places she has lived. |
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| In 1991 she began attending ceramics workshops at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine where she has studied with Nancy Selvin, Suze Lindsay, Alec Karros, Jo Ann Schnabel, Julia Galloway, Douglass Rankin and Will Ruggles, Peter Beasecker, Sam Chung, Mary Law, Lisa Orr, Andrea & John Gill among others. Toole is a member of NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) and of the Artists |
| Association of Nantucket. She has exhibited her work at the Artists Association, the Nantucket Looms, Flowers on Chestnut, The Capizzo Gallery, The Spectrum and has contributed pieces to the Annual Festival of Wreaths, and the various fundraising events at the Artists Association. She had her first solo exhibition at the Artists Association in June of 2004. |