Ceramic teachers Penny Palmer and NancyAnn Roeder pose with artwork during the Redlands Art Association November 2026 featured artist show. (Photo by Siw Heede)
REDLANDS, Calif. — Shelves at the Redlands Art Association are lined with functional pottery and ceramic artwork this month as the gallery showcases the work of three instructors and 12 of their students.
Ceramic artists Penny Palmer and NancyAnn Roeder have taught adult classes at the association for the past decade, helping students develop their skills and confidence while exploring their creativity.
“These are some of the best ceramics I’ve seen in the gallery,” Palmer said of the collective artwork.
Palmer has worked with clay for 50 years. She first explored ceramics in junior high and continued through high school and college before working for Laguna Clay Co. in Santa Ana.
“My best day, I literally made, bagged and put on a pallet 11 tons of clay in one day,” she said. “But I was always a potter.”
Palmer also worked for Marquel Ceramics alongside well-known ceramic artist Brent Bennett and operated her own studios, including one in the mountains and, more recently, in Yucaipa.
Each experience taught her different techniques. Working with Bennett, she said, taught her the importance of consistency.
As an instructor, Palmer wants students to discover the excitement of creating something themselves.
Four of the featured students with their teachers. From left, Dorene Isenberg, Ernesto Gomez, Penny Palmer, Carolyn Tarrin and Erika Menge. In front, NancyAnn Roeder. (Photo by Siw Heede)
“I want to show something where people look at it and get excited,” she said.
Students sometimes arrive at classes intimidated by the material, but Palmer said that changes with experience.
“Over time they start to develop their skills and they trust themselves,” she said. “Then you see this wonderful confidence come up in the student, and they are not so worried about technique as they are about what they want to make it into.”
On open studio Sundays, as many as 15 artists gather at the gallery to work on their own projects. Palmer believes artists benefit from being around other artists and encouraging one another's creativity.
“I really want to see the whimsy and the creativity,” she said of her students' work.
She also encourages students to appreciate the creative process itself, comparing the experience to that of artists throughout history.
“You are getting the same experience that Van Gogh had,” she said, describing the creative process as a relaxed, meditative state.
Among the students exhibiting work is Ernesto Gomez, who was the gallery's featured artist for his watercolor paintings in June 2025.
“One of the things I like to do is mix the art of ceramics with the art of painting and bring them both together,” Gomez said.
His sculpture, displayed near the gallery entrance, depicts Sisyphus, the figure from Greek mythology condemned to repeatedly push a boulder uphill.
“Sisyphus to me is the patron saint of grad students,” Gomez said. “I was thinking of when I was writing my dissertation, and re-writing and re-writing it.”
Gomez's wife, Sue, also has artwork in the exhibition. He described her as an amazing artist and “the guiding light and love of the last 40 odd years.”
Finding creativity through clay
(Photo by Siw Heede)
Roeder, who co-teaches the adult classes with Palmer, was introduced to clay by her mother, a preschool teacher who made homemade modeling clay from flour, salt and water.
“I loved it then and I love it now,” she said.
Growing up in New York, Roeder also discovered an early passion for art when her mother entered one of her drawings in a competition. The drawing was selected for display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“I think that launched my career as to this is what I want to do, this is what I want to be,” she said.
Roeder worked for the American Forces Network for 26 years, including at March Air Force Base, but ceramics remained an important creative outlet.
“The best part for me was after work, when you do ceramics and the teaching,” she said.
Working with clay, she explained, provides an escape from the stresses of everyday life.
Roeder met Palmer about 20 years ago, initially as a student before becoming a fellow instructor.
“We just try to do the best we can to bring this spirit to life,” she said.
A recent trip to Alaska inspired Roeder to incorporate designs influenced by totem poles into her ceramic artwork.
“I’m a laid-back teacher,” she said. “I want to encourage anything that they want to do.”
Encouraging the next generation of artists
The exhibition also features work by Kristy Sullivan, who began teaching children's ceramics classes at the association this summer.
“They are very creative,” Sullivan said of her students. “They come up with things I wouldn’t even imagine. It’s really fun to work with them.”
Sullivan has been an artist since childhood and studied art at Cal State San Bernardino. She currently teaches ROTC at Redlands High School while pursuing her goal of becoming a full-time artist.
She works in painting and ceramics and has a home studio devoted to pottery. Her ceramic style, she said, has a midcentury modern influence.
“I’ve always been obsessed with bowls,” she said. “They are so simple but you can do so much with glaze patterns that every single one of them can be different.”
Sullivan, a Redlands Art Association member since 2014, said the exhibition represents both the artists' accomplishments and the community they have built through teaching.
“We’re showing our mastery, our skills and what we are capable of,” she said. “And we are also showing what we can teach others and I think that’s an important part.”
For Sullivan, part of the excitement comes from the unexpected results of working with glazes. She recalled experimenting with a dark celadon and green glaze combination that produced a remarkable finish after firing.
“It was like a mirror and it was the most amazing thing that ever came out,” she said.
Palmer agreed that opening the kiln is one of the most rewarding parts of ceramics.
“You want to open the kiln and feel like it’s Christmas morning,” she said.
Visit the exhibition
The ceramics exhibition continues through Nov. 25 at the Redlands Art Association, 215 E. State St.
The gallery is open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closed Sundays.
Siw is the ultimate cheerleader of what happens in Redlands. She is a dual citizen (Danish and American) who likes to write about what is new as much as about the things we take for granted.
