ceramic artist | photographer | author

Angela Smith Kirkman is a ceramic artist and photographer with over thirty years of experience specializing in rustic dinnerware influenced by years of travel. She recently returned from a two-year journey around the world with her husband and three children. During her family’s Big Field Trip, she hiked the Inca Trail, rode a dragon boat up the Perfume River, caught the swine flu in Istanbul, was chased out of the Great Mosque of Uqba in Tunisia, robbed at gunpoint in Bahia, lived on a vineyard in Portugal, rode camelback through the Sahara, snuck into a dilapidated communist headquarters in Bulgaria, taught at a tribal school in Rajasthan, biked through floating markets in Thailand, and communed with snow monkeys in the hot springs of Japan.

Kirkman has published dozens of travel stories. Her pottery and photography are influenced by travel across five continents and by her beloved home in Santa Fe where she runs Paseo Pottery, Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery, and Tumbleroot Pottery Pub.

“I have chosen to specialize in functional dinnerware because I love transforming clay into vessels that will be held between two hands, that will be filled with nourishment, that will be brought to lips, and that after serving their purpose will return to the earth.”