Ceramic artist Tempest NeuCollins working on large, textured clay vessels.

Ceramic artist and educator in Ann Arbor, making sculptural objects that aren't complete until you add a plant.

I first worked with clay at 12, when I decided my first project should be a teapot. It didn’t work, but I was hooked.

My path through art kept bringing me back to clay. Even when I worked in other materials, I wanted texture and something physical to build. In graduate school, I made collaged and painted landscapes on handmade, three-dimensional paper forms. When my family returned to Ann Arbor in 2016, I joined a community ceramics studio. Those interests in landscape and surface came with me.

Over time, I became interested in what happens to a vessel after it leaves my hands. Someone chooses where it belongs and what to put in it. That led me to planters, then bonsai containers: pots that support a tree while creating a landscape of their own.

At the end of 2025, I became a full-time teaching artist and potter. I work and teach primarily at Yourist Studio in Ann Arbor, and lead classes and workshops in other spaces around the area.

  • My work begins with places I’ve spent time in and details that stay with me. Sometimes I start with an observation; sometimes with a memory of a landscape.

    As I build, I respond to what the clay is doing. A mark can change the direction of a piece. I leave the traces of making visible, letting them become part of the surface. The forms are a bit wild, but they have a practical job: to hold a plant.

    The plant changes the piece. It brings its own shape and, as it grows, changes the relationship between pot and planting. I make the vessel, but the person who chooses what to grow in it takes the work somewhere I couldn’t take it alone.

  • Tempest NeuCollins holds a BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, OR) and an MFA in Studio Art from the School of Visual Arts (New York City), where her focus shifted toward abstraction and mark-making across media. Now based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she works out of the Yourist Studio ceramic community.

    Select Exhibitions

    • We are the Guild, Gutman Gallery (2026)

    • Varied Vessels, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor, MI (2025)

    • Collaborative bonsai piece with Michael Abbot, Ann Arbor Bonsai Society Show, Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Ann Arbor, MI (2024)

    • PowerArt! Public Art Program, vinyl wrap installation, Hands-On Museum, Ann Arbor, MI (2018–present)

    • Michigan 'Scapes, Second Museum, Brighton, MI (2018)

    • Works on Paper III, Jeffrey Leder Gallery, Long Island City, NY (2014)

    • Of Place and Landscape, Space Object (2014)

    • Into the Vortex, NARS Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2014)

    • Grey Matter, The Painting Center, New York, NY (2011)

    • Exit, SVA Gallery, New York, NY (2011)

    • The Great Disruption, Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco, CA (2009)

    Awards, Commissions & Residencies

    • Hidden Lakes Garden, competitively selected commission for a ceramic vessel for a 60-year-old wisteria (2026). Scheduled to enter the permanent collection in spring 2027.1st Place, Ann Arbor Woman Artists (2018)

    • SVA Alumni Grant Recipient (2011)

    • Artist Residency, Rancho Linda Vista, Oracle, AZ (2014)