Artshack Brooklyn is a non-profit community ceramics studio. We provide classes, workshops, after school, and memberships for all ages and abilities. Our community programs—such as Scholarships, Community Day, Keepsake Gallery, the Artist Residency program, and free & subsidized classes for Bed Stuy youth and seniors—rely on your support!
See our annual report here
Artshack was originally started by McKendree Key in 2008 as a very small, artist run program offering art classes in her Brooklyn backyard. In 2016, Artshack became a registered 501c-3 non profit organization focusing on ceramics and moved to Bedford Avenue, in Brooklyn. In 2022, Keepsake Gallery was established within Artshack, showcasing works by kids, members of Artshack's community programs and artists in residence.
Since its founding in a Brooklyn backyard in 2008, Artshack has evolved several times to meet the changing needs of our growing community of artists. This has included our registration as a 501(c)3 nonprofit and move to Bedford Avenue in 2016, efforts to foster diversity and inclusion begun in 2019, adapting to the challenges of the pandemic, and the opening of our café and gallery in 2022. Artshack is undergoing an exciting transformation once again, one that will ensure financial sustainability, fair pay for artists, student and teacher safety, and expanded opportunities to learn and create.
In many ways this evolution is overdue: since 2022, Artshack has doubled our budget, doubled our physical footprint, and doubled the number of people we serve. As an organization, we have to catch up both to our community’s needs and to our own ambitions to meet them.
We know that any change can be a challenge and that members of our community will have questions. This process will take time, careful consideration, and ongoing engagement with the community. As we embrace this moment and look to our future, we will remain committed to maintaining a dialogue throughout this process and answering questions where possible.
Alva Calymayor, a visual artist from Mexico City now based in both New York and Mexico City, explores social issues, perceptions of safety, and patterns of mass consumption through her art. Her interdisciplinary approach emphasizes process-driven learning and play, reflecting her role as both an artist and the founder of Art Experimentos. Previously, Alva ran the artist-run space Eyelevel BQE, which was highlighted in Exit Art's "Alternative Histories," curated by Herb Tam - celebrating pioneering alternative art venues in New York. Her work has been featured in notable exhibitions such as Astral America, Chaos/Control, and Harvest the Night, and she has exhibited in both the U.S. and Mexico, including at Casa Maauad in Mexico City and the Spring Break Art Show in New York. Alva’s contributions extend to her role as a mentor in NYFA's Program Mentorship for Immigrants and her involvement in the Bronx Artists in the Marketplace program. Recognized for her non-commercial approach to art, she co-founded Eyelevel BQE in 2008 and has been acknowledged in publications like Interview Magazine and MIT Press. Her innovative printmaking earned her a grant from the Stephen Sprouse Scholarship Fund.
Angeli Rasbury is a self-taught visual, ceramics and textiles artist, award-winning writer, educator and lawyer. Angeli primarily works to evolve conversations about being a Black girl and woman in this world and unsung Black women sheroes. Her journalism has looked at girls in juvenile detention, formerly incarcerated mothers' struggle to reclaim children, and policies behind homelessness and gentrification. Angeli loves providing opportunities for youth to create ceramics, visual art, and poetry; dancing; traveling; and riding her bike.
Atlas is a project manager, studio technician, and teacher at Artshack Brooklyn. They work to help maintain and improve the different systems and equipment used throughout the ceramic making process. Outside of studio work, he is a sculptor, ceramicist, and art historian. His work is centered around different traditional crafts, and the limitless possibilities of combining different practices. They draw inspiration from ceramics, glasswork, textiles, and woodwork to create art that is an extension of the individual craft or trade. By combining different mediums and crafts, they are creating a practice where boundaries are arbitrary and tradition can be rewritten.
McKendree Key founded Artshack in 2008, and turned Artshack into a nonprofit in 2016. McKendree is a professional artist with over 20 years of teaching experience. She is a native New Yorker and taught art with Studio in a School for 8 years. She has taught workshops at Socrates Sculpture Park , P.S.1, and The Whitney Museum of American Art. She taught art education at Pratt Institute for 3 years. She holds an MFA from Hunter College and a BFA from Colorado College. She studied at Skowhegan School of Painting and Scultpure, and has exhibited her work at P.S.1, The Sculpture Center, CUE Art Foundation, The Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Socrates Sculpture Park, and The Brooklyn Museum, among other venues. In 2023, McKendree founded Keepsake Gallery, a space within Artshack where she leads and exhibits collaborative art projects with community members and kids. photo: Michael Dajour
Olivia Bartlett is a Brooklyn based ceramic artist & painter originally from the UK. Her work focuses on the aesthetics, actions, and morality inherent in lived experiences. Drawing inspiration from Abstract Expressionism and the 1960s Funk movement. She has a MA in Ceramics from Cardiff School of Art, and her BFA from Falmouth University in Cornwall, UK.
Alayna Wiley is a ceramicist and an art educator with a passion for cultivating self knowledge through creative expression. As a Teaching Artist for The Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as the Museum of Arts and Design, she identifies artistic concepts within the galleries and translates them into approaches for artmaking in the studio. In her own design practice Alayna focuses on the material languages of clay, paper, textiles, metals, and stone for her collection, ANIMATE OBJECTS. She welcomes you to center yourself as you center the clay!
Atlas is a project manager, studio technician, and teacher at Artshack Brooklyn. They work to help maintain and improve the different systems and equipment used throughout the ceramic making process. Outside of studio work, he is a sculptor, ceramicist, and art historian. His work is centered around different traditional crafts, and the limitless possibilities of combining different practices. They draw inspiration from ceramics, glasswork, textiles, and woodwork to create art that is an extension of the individual craft or trade. By combining different mediums and crafts, they are creating a practice where boundaries are arbitrary and tradition can be rewritten.
Camila Ruiz is a ceramics artist from Montevideo, Uruguay. She obtained her PhD in biochemistry. Camila’s background in chemistry is extremely valuable for creating new glazes for members and students, ensuring the safety of these glazes, and keeping track of Artshack’s stock supply of materials. The glaze making process requires an extensive knowledge of the materials used and the chemistry behind the reactions that occur during the kiln firing process. She is a valuable ceramics instructor that teaches beginner and intermediate students in wheel and hand building. Come take a class with her! You will not regret it.
Carlos Lara is a Mexican born artist currently based in New York City. He is co-founder of the artist-duo SANGREE which he has worked on actively since 2009. During this time he has explored different kinds of media like concrete, paper and stone, mostly oriented towards sculpture. His ceramic work within the collective is influenced by mesoamerican symbolism and observe on the incidence of this cultural heritage in contemporary world. His work has been exhibited in different institutions in Mexico such as Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Museo Universitario del Chopo, Museo Tamayo and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Querétaro; and also some institutions in the U.S. like The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Black Cube Nomadic Museum in Denver, and TUFTS University in Medford, among other commercial art galleries in Mexico and abroad. @sangree_oficial @charlara
Cody was a very creative child, and as an adult that creativity and passion for making things has manifested in many ways. Cody has a BS in Product/Graphic Design from North Carolina State College of Design, and currently works as a successful hairstylist here in Brooklyn. Three years ago, Cody became an Artshack student and then went on to become one of our teachers. When not in the salon with his clients, Cody can be found at the studio working on whatever projects he dreams up for himself that week. Cody loves sharing his ceramic knowledge and experience with students in a very casual and approachable way.
Ivan has been a ceramic instructor for the Artshack Brooklyn mission for six years. Ivan has practiced the clay medium on a professional level in shared communities in New York City and Boston, MA. He engages our adult populations with beginner to intermediate classes. He engages our clay healing mission with mostly functional pottery wheel instruction, and some hand-building projects, and events. It is also extremely gratifying for him to be able to engage his mentoring and youth development skills. When leading our partnership with the adolescent population from the Bedford Academy High School. The partnership allows Ivan to introduce and teach the clay medium for 9-12 graders for the neighboring community. When he is not sharing his gift instructing the ceramic arts. Ivan is honing his craft at his studio creating collections of small batch functional pottery. Inspired by his love for nature and sea landscapes . Which is featured on his website and at retail pop-up shops and gallery sales. For small business artisans in Brooklyn and throughout the New York City area.
Lam Thuy Vo has been part of Artshack since 2021 and loves teaching people pottery. She started by being a student at Artshack. She became a working member, teaching classes to mentally disabled adults and assisting with date night before starting to teach 5- and 8-week classes. She is a reporter and data journalism professor most days when she’s not playing with clay
Octavio is a ceramics artist from Montevideo, Uruguay. As a young boy he was able to get a hand feel of clay while experimenting with different techniques such as Raku, wood firing, Wabi Sabi and others. He started experimenting a bit more with wheel throwing as a young adult and now he has become an instructor for those fresh inquirers of wheel technique needing a methodization structure on how to conquer the unruly wheel. He tries to keep the class fun and dynamic and really delve into the rationalization of how our body and wheel communicate with each other. Come take a class with him! You won't regret it.
Alayna Wiley is a ceramicist and an art educator with a passion for cultivating self knowledge through creative expression. As a Teaching Artist for The Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as the Museum of Arts and Design, she identifies artistic concepts within the galleries and translates them into approaches for artmaking in the studio. In her own design practice Alayna focuses on the material languages of clay, paper, textiles, metals, and stone for her collection, ANIMATE OBJECTS. She welcomes you to center yourself as you center the clay!
Alina Patrick is a photographer, ceramicist, and arts educator living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Alina is a 2023 Risograph Print and Publication Resident at the Penumbra Foundation where she published her first book of photography and poetry in October, 2023. She is also a 2023 Artist in Residence with the Little x Little artist residency program where she collaborated with dancer/choreographer Ameeya Singh to produce a dance adaptation of her book, How to grow una flor en el desierto. Alina's work focuses on land, memory, and intergenerational stories which she explores through a variety of mediums from clay to poetry. Photo credit Shina Peng.
Alva Calymayor, a visual artist from Mexico City now based in both New York and Mexico City, explores social issues, perceptions of safety, and patterns of mass consumption through her art. Her interdisciplinary approach emphasizes process-driven learning and play, reflecting her role as both an artist and the founder of Art Experimentos. Previously, Alva ran the artist-run space Eyelevel BQE, which was highlighted in Exit Art's "Alternative Histories," curated by Herb Tam - celebrating pioneering alternative art venues in New York. Her work has been featured in notable exhibitions such as Astral America, Chaos/Control, and Harvest the Night, and she has exhibited in both the U.S. and Mexico, including at Casa Maauad in Mexico City and the Spring Break Art Show in New York. Alva’s contributions extend to her role as a mentor in NYFA's Program Mentorship for Immigrants and her involvement in the Bronx Artists in the Marketplace program. Recognized for her non-commercial approach to art, she co-founded Eyelevel BQE in 2008 and has been acknowledged in publications like Interview Magazine and MIT Press. Her innovative printmaking earned her a grant from the Stephen Sprouse Scholarship Fund.
Originally from The Bronx, Anastasia Corrine is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York. Corrine is influenced by the roots of the African Diaspora and its dislocation. Their research based practice is informed by Black Radical Tradition, nature, and movement. Corrine is a reflex, root, and VOIDTHOT. They are a mirror and at least 60% water. As a VOIDTHOT, they sometimes find comfort and sensuality in a cavernous beyond. Using ceramics, electronic media, performance, and writing, Corrine is developing methods for digging a hole to the other side. Like a root and its reflex, they are seeking and dirt loving. Corrine’s practice inhabits The Afrovoid(ism): a fictive ecology and conceptual framework, which considers the immortality of the Black psyche. It exists on the spectrum of immortality as dignified–every genre of music created by Black America–and a wish gone wrong: a viral death. Afrovoidism is their original methodology for demystifying the occupied, uninhabitable oasis of The United States. Along with a studio practice, Corrine has organized and participated in panels such as Erasure by Exclusion: How Art Schools and Institutions Uphold White Supremacy (School of Visual Arts) and To Possess Freedom Once Again (Boston Ujima Project). Corrine’s work has been included in exhibitions such as ‘Beg Borrow Steal’ at Recess (NY,NY), ‘Persona, Persona, Persona’ at Laden Für Nichts (Leipzig, DE), ‘_assembly, alchemy, ascension [a^3]’ at The New School (NY,NY), and ‘Dirty Work’ at Greenwich House Pottery (NY,NY). They have been an artist in residence at Wave Hill (NY,NY), Institute for Experimental Art (Alfred, NY), and Leipzig International Art Programme (DE).
Angeli Rasbury is a self-taught visual, ceramics and textiles artist, award-winning writer, educator and lawyer. Angeli primarily works to evolve conversations about being a Black girl and woman in this world and unsung Black women sheroes. Her journalism has looked at girls in juvenile detention, formerly incarcerated mothers' struggle to reclaim children, and policies behind homelessness and gentrification. Angeli loves providing opportunities for youth to create ceramics, visual art, and poetry; dancing; traveling; and riding her bike.
Dana Barnes is a native to South Jamaica, Queens, New York, and a recent masters graduate from Parsons the New School. She is an artist and designer who focuses on enhancing community interaction, particularly in marginalized communities, aiming to provide mental, physical, and emotional relief through craft and design. Working with various mediums such as textile art, painting, ceramics, collaging, floral design, and more, she is deeply interested in the intersection of psychology and the built environment and is driven by a desire to cultivate healthy relationships among individuals, their communities, and their surroundings.
Jess Stocker is an artist based in Brooklyn, whose multifaceted work spans analog photography, ceramics, and performance. By intertwining these mediums, she delves into rich themes of cosmology, mythology, and personal narrative. As an educator, Jess is actively involved in youth programming at Artshack, where she shares her passion for creativity and encourages the next generation of artists. Currently, she is pursuing a graduate degree in therapy at Pratt Institute, which informs her artistic practice and deepens her exploration of the human experience. When she’s not in the studio, Jess brings her energy to the stage as an improv performer.
Tahnee Ann Macabali Pantig is an artist by vocation and designer by trade, currently living and thriving on unceded Lenape land (Brooklyn, NY). Tahnee loves to blend mediums and experiences—her approach to her work is to bring all of the disparate experiences of her past and mash them up to make something new. She is fascinated by the ways individual identity and built environments shape human behavior, curiosities which led her to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Urban Geography from McGill University and a master’s from the School of Visual Arts’ Products of Design program. Tahnee’s creative outlets include ceramics, dance, and transforming everyday artifacts into art objects.
Whitney's artistic practice combines clay with meditation, yoga, and sound healing, resulting in highly functional, colorful, and playful ceramic pieces. She specializes in handbuilding, a technique that involves shaping clay using methods like pinching, coiling, and slab building, which allows for a wide range of forms and structures. She has been one of our afterschool teachers at Artshack for two years, and we are thrilled that she will be joining us as a summer camp instructor! With a background in early childhood education, Whitney’s teaching approach is play-based, integrating mindfulness and creativity.
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