Hanselmann Pottery was founded in 1970 in the village of Corrales, New Mexico. To this day we are committed to creating art in the medium of handmade, functional stoneware. Each piece begins as a ball of clay. It is turned by hand on the potter’s wheel, and is skillfully crafted into a piece of durable high-fire stoneware. Our design choices are informed by the history of the craft, and the innovative minds of present-day chefs, brewers, roasters, and you, our customers.
Head Potter
James West was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His large family includes musicians, actors, painters, photographers, jewelers, and potters. He apprenticed and later worked in the pottery studio of Robert Brodsky and studied Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico 1989-1992. In the 1990s he worked in New Hampshire as a thrower in a large stoneware pottery studio firing with salt. James designs and throws our collection while managing overall production for Hanselmann Pottery.
Manager, Potter
Jessica Penrod was born in 1994 in Pinetop, Arizona. She moved to Albuquerque, to attend the University of New Mexico and pursue an education in Fine Arts and received her BFA with a focus in ceramics. Originally, she began studying as a painter, but shortly after learning how to throw on the potter’s wheel, she felt more connected to the relationship we have with objects we use in our daily lives. She has a strong connection to nature and draws inspiration from the White Mountains where she grew up, and the high desert where she currently resides. She now is able to use both her love for painting and pottery to create functional vessels. Jessi is the studio manager at Hanselmann Pottery. She helps produce the core line of ceramics, as well as glazing, prepping and firing kilns. She also manages the social media brand, networking and customer service.
Assistant Manager, Potter
Christina Rockwell was born in Norfolk, Virginia into a Naval family. She traveled around the world, including Sicily, Italy, before settling in Albuquerque, New Mexico. While in high school, she found her love for ceramics. She continued her passion for ceramics by receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Art Studio at the University of New Mexico in 2016. While at UNM, she studied Japanese style ceramics and has continued the technique for a total of ten years. Her studies of Eastern style ceramics took her to Japan in 2016, where she was able to learn and grow even more within this art form. Christina has continued her love for ceramics here at Hanselmann Pottery where she throws our core line of ceramics, glazes, mixes glaze, loads and fires the kilns, assists with social media, and packs and ships orders.
Potter
Sophia Torres was born in the forest adjacent town of Cordova, New Mexico. Most of her early life was spent playing and running in the acequias and mountains behind her grandmothers home, where she honed her creative spirit; making mud sculptures and stick toys, creating because of the pure joy of it. This limitless way of creating is something she continues to embrace today. She attended the University of New Mexico, studying a multitude of disciplines, including oil painting, metal work, ceramic sculpture, and had the fortune of being able to learn Japanese style ceramics. Today, she continues her own sculptural work as a professional artist, but also finds herself among good company at Hanselmann Pottery. Currently she’s perfecting her technique in the smaller works, such as the thumb cup, bud vase, and match striker. You will also find her assisting in glazing, kiln loading and firing, prepping our best work for shipping, and packing.
HANSELMANN ALUMNI
Apprentice Potter
Evan Small was born in Denver, Colorado, but raised on the east coast for the first half of his life. He moved to Albuquerque sight-unseen to go to art school at the University of New Mexico; whereupon, he received his Bachelors and Masters degree in Art & Art History. He spent most of that time studying ceramics in both Western and Eastern (Japanese) throwing (pottery) practices.
His entire life has been a continuous string of artistic/spiritual/intellectual explorations, such as: portraiture, automatic drawing, furniture-building, oracle arks for use of the I Ching, and porcelain spinning-tops. In addition, he is a kooky geometer who eternally obsesses over geometric constructions, fractals, natures shapes and forms, mandalas & yantras.
Bookkeeper
Esther Fredrickson is an accomplished classical flutist, playing professionally with symphony orchestras in New Mexico and Texas. But she's always had other interests as well, including ceramics, which she stumbled upon during her time in Eugene, Oregon. Her other endeavors include the adobe house she built with her husband, and a love of the outdoors. At Hanselmann Pottery Esther handled bookkeeping, accounting and built our instagram from the ground up.
Branding / Photographer
Melissa Agate was born & raised on the Southern Coast of Australia. She took care of all of our original Graphic Design, Branding and Product Photography. Melissa is a Freelance Graphic Designer & Photographer, Visual Artist & Musician living in Australia. She also likes to ride bicycles, observe (obsessively) cloud formations and explore nature.
OWNERS
Owner
Luke Parker was born in Minneapolis Minnesota to a family of misguided Laplanders. He spent most of his early life in the Dakotas and the Northwest before moving to New Mexico. He has studied, traveled, taken a degree, worked in disparate vocations and intervals and now fires the kilns, procures minerals, tests glazes, and assists with sales and marketing at Hanselmann Pottery.
Owner
Rachel Reynolds was born in Taos, New Mexico. She spent the majority of her early childhood in the Black Hills of South Dakota before traveling throughout Mexico, Central America, and the West Coast. She found, in the course of her travels, that crafting by hand is a tradition worth preserving. Her decision to invest in Hanselmann Pottery made the notion real.