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Contact Info     info@ncpotterycenter.org

Staff

Lindsey Lambert
Executive Director

Open
Operations Manager

Cat Viera Akerman
Educational Program Manager

Sophie Potts
Projects Coordinator

Shianne Buie
Gallery Attendant

Membership
If emailing regarding Membership, please click the word Membership.

Board of Directors (FY2023-2024)

Executive Committee:

President
Mary Holmes
(Robbins) is a Project Manager at STARworks in Star, NC. She grew up on a dairy farm in Ireland. After earning a business degree, she worked in Dublin, England, New Zealand, and Australia for international financial software companies. She came to Raleigh in late 1999. She collected her first pottery in Ireland when she bought her kitchenware from Kilroot Pottery in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland in her mid-twenties. Fast forward more than 20 years and she meets a Seagrove potter, Michael Mahan, and moves to Seagrove in late 2002. She was President of the Seagrove Area Potters Association for a number of years. She is the chair of the Celebration of Seagrove Potters. She spends her summers in Ireland with Michael and her family where they make pots, listen to great music, and walk the highways and byways.

Secretary
The center’s projects manager, Sophie Potts, is currently acting secretary (ex-officio) to the board.

Treasurer
Currently Open


Board Members:

Virginia Cleary (Chapel Hill) is a native North Carolinian. She grew up in Raleigh, attended UNC-Greensboro studying Interior Design, and earned her master’s in business from UNC Chapel Hill. She has worked in Greensboro, Washington DC, and Raleigh in the commercial interiors industry. She has served on the vestry of her Episcopal church in Raleigh and has volunteered and worked for several non-profits throughout her career.

Brenda Hornsby Heindl (Liberty) is a graduate of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture who has been making pottery since 20210. In the summer of 2012, she became a co-owner of a farm where she had the chance to put down some clay roots and, with a Regional Artists Project Grant, built a 60-cubic foot wood-firing kiln. For her work, she uses the method of single firing which has given her the chance to experiment with glazes made from local clay, ash glazes, and natural clay glazes.

Heather McLelland (Wilmington) was born in Seoul, Korea, and grew up in Montclair, Virginia. Heather received her BA from Elon University in Psychology with a minor in Art. She furthered her education at UNC at Wilmington, where her interest in wood-fired ceramics started. Continuing her pursuit in clay, Heather did an apprenticeship in Cromarty, Scotland. Prior to Attending ECU, Heather worked as a studio potter, the ceramics technician at Cape Fear Community College and UNCW, while also teaching classes at Orange Street Pottery in Wilmington, NC.

Joseph Sand (Randleman) is a wood-firing potter and ceramic artist. He studied general art with a ceramics emphasis at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. During a year abroad in Italy with the University of Georgia-Athens’ program for art students, he committed himself to becoming a professional artist. He then went on to study at the University of Wolverhampton, England and later became an apprentice for potter Mark Hewitt in Pittsboro, NC. Joseph now owns and operates this own pottery studio and shop in Randleman, NC.

Barbara Wiedemann (Chapel Hill) joined the UNC School of Social Work in 2022 as assistant dean for strategic communications and marketing. She previously served at Carolina as communications strategist with UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media (2018–2022) and as director of UNC’s in-house design team (2006–2008). Her service to the state also includes roles with the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) as publications director and earlier, as head graphic designer. She is also an avid pottery lover.

David Zmiewsky (Pinehurst) is an avid pottery lover and a Market Executive working out of the Seven Lakes office of First Bank (FBNC). He has over a decade’s worth of banking and financial experience and expertise.