My Pottery Mentors

My Pottery Mentors:
Joel Magen & George Dymesich

I am thrilled to participate in 2013 Open Studios for my second time.   I wanted to be a potter back in high school, but Mom convinced me to go to college first; she said I could do pottery later.  Three decades later: after college, a stint in Peace Corps/Nepal and a career in community development work in Asia, I am now pursuing my dream to be a potter.  

Thanks Mom & Dad!

And I've landed in Santa Cruz with its vibrant community of functional potters!  I reconnected with pottery, as so many in Santa Cruz have over the past three decades, through George Dymesich’s Santa Cruz Adult Education ceramics program.  After I completed all of George’s classes and workshops, he introduced me to Joel Magen.  I apprenticed with Joel at Santa Cruz Pottery and Dark Horse Pottery for three years. 

George and Joel were students of both Bruce Anderson and Al Johnsen, who in turn had both studied with Marguerite Wildenhain, from the Bauhaus tradition. In 1942, Marguerite fled from Nazi Germany to Pond Farm Pottery in Guerneville, California where Bruce was her first American student, and Al was her first Teaching Assistant. Al Johnsen went on to establish Big Creek Pottery and Scott Creek Pottery, taught ceramics at UCSC Cowell College, and continued the age-old tradition of apprenticeships, which Joel Magen carries on today.  

Thank you George and Joel 
for mentoring me and sharing the lineage’s knowledge and passion for pottery.

Drake Bialecki and I started our apprenticeships with Joel in September 2009.  Joel's taught us the steps to the intricate dance of producing handmade functional pottery in his three kilns, including a wood-gas combination kiln that's fired during the rainy winter season.  The days are already getting shorter, and we're happily anticipating the next round of firings!


Please come visit and see my newest pots during
Open Studios Art Tour

or cyberly on Facebook






Wendy King – Artist # 73
Double Happiness Pottery
143 Mason Street
(westside) Santa Cruz CA 95060
831.421.1263