Keith Meyers received a Bachelor’s degree in fine arts in 1999, with a major in ceramics and a minor in painting. Keith moved to North Carolina in 2001, and has been teaching pottery classes since 2005. Keith taught classes at Clay Works (Charlotte), Pottery101 (Salisbury), Carolina Clay Connection, (Charlotte), Icehouse (Davidson). He currently teaches at Tack House Pottery. Keith is also the Studio Manager and an instructor with the Cain Center ceramics studio, including when it was the Creative Arts Project and the Cornelius Arts Center.
Come back next year to see what Keith is teaching!
Taisia Ealy is a Florida native who fell in love with pottery, printmaking and art in general at Stetson University. She went on to get her MFA in printmaking from SUNY Purchase college where she also adjunct taught evening classes, and started an elementary homeschool co-op art program in Crestwood, NY. After moving to NC in 2000, she began working at Children’s Arts Project, which became Community Arts Project/ Icehouse, which became the Cornelius Arts Center which is now the Cain Center for the Arts. Along with working at the Cain Center, Taisia also is the lead art teacher at the lower school at Community School of Davidson. In her spare time Taisia fishes obsessively but mostly she enjoys time with her two daughters, Hannah and Emma.
Keep an eye out for Taisia’s summer camps next year!
Kathy Murray created art and taught in California for 15 years until moving to Cornelius in 2021. She creates vibrant abstracted nature and figurative mixed media paintings and collages with a passion for color and texture and energy. She doesn’t feel she has to paint exactly what is there, but rather alter things to achieve vibrance, harmony, balance and excitement. Kathy is passionate about helping others create their own vision with strong composition, color and design.
Kathy is teaching Mixed Media Painting and Collage this winter.
Maria Luz Roca was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina where she received her education in the Arts and Letters. She attended the “Instituto Superior de Formacion Artistica” where she received her training as a painter and received a B.A in journalism from the “Instituto Superior Mariano Moreno”. Miss Roca started her career as an educator in San Francisco, California and has been teaching for over 35 years. She is thrilled to be sharing her love for the arts at the Cain Center.
Keep an eye out for future classes and workshops!
Beverly Walker is a fiber artist who has won many awards and taught many workshops in several states. She has been weaving pictorial tapestries for over 20 years, and her creations are found in corporate collections in the U.S. as well as in a Scotland hotel, a Mercy Ship in Africa, and a Paramount Pictures movie. Having relocated to Mooresville, she is bringing this tapestry fine art skill to our area this fall with Beginner Level classes you will be excited to learn!
Come back to check out Beverly’s future class offerings!
Lisa Albinus is a professional illustrator and teaching artist with over 20 years of experience in traditional and digital art. She creates a welcoming, encouraging environment where students can develop their skills and explore creative techniques with confidence. Her work includes book illustration, surface design, and botanical illustration. Lisa is excited to bring her experience and approachable teaching style to Cain Center for the Arts!
Lisa is teaching Summer camps this Summer— Check out her 2D summer camps for children!
Jonathan Lang has been studying and practicing ceramics for over 25 years. Driven by the principle of kaizen (devotion to continuous improvement) and inspired by wabi-sabi (impermanence and natural simplicity), his work aims to capture the elegance of nature and reflects an appreciation for Japanese pottery. His current work centers around his passion for gardening and horticulture with a focus on functional vases and planters under the studio name Crucible Ceramics. You can find Jonathan on Instagram @crucibleceramics
Jenny Zito works across a variety of media, Zito’s primary passion is oil painting, though her practice also includes drawing and mixed media. Her compositions often feature figures, household objects, birds, and other familiar elements that evoke the complexities of everyday life. Through layered imagery and nuanced narratives, her work investigates relationships and moments of connection that remain intentionally open to interpretation, inviting viewers to bring their own experiences to the work.
Drawing inspiration from the spaces we inhabit and the people who shape our lives, Zito creates paintings that balance the personal and universal. Her use of color plays a central role in her artistic language, serving as both an emotional and visual force within each piece.
Outside the studio, Zito is a wife, mother of two, bonus mother of two, and devoted pet owner to a dog and two cats. Family life and the rhythms of home continue to inform and enrich her creative practice.
Marisa Abate has grown up locally here in Charlotte North Carolina since the early 2000s. Inspired by pop culture and nature, she drove herself to learn all about art and how to express oneself. She graduated with a Bachelor Fine Arts in digital media from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She now works as an elementary art teacher in Charlotte Mecklenburg schools. As a Jack (or Jane) of all trades, she now makes it her mission to help other create and freely express themselves.
Marisa is teaching Nature Inspired Ceramics for Summer A, and Summer B.
Ava is a biomedical engineering student at NC State University who began doing pottery with her grandmother four years ago. She is currently a member of her school’s exclusive craft studio, where she spends her free time throwing on the wheel and experimenting with new techniques. Since she is largely self-taught, Ava has had the opportunity to explore a wide range of approaches and discover what works best for her.
One of her favorite aspects of pottery is how each person develops a unique style suited to their own body and way of thinking. She is passionate about sharing what she has learned and helping others explore and grow their pottery skills.
Ava is teaching Throwing Sets on the Wheel, and Beginner Hand-building Trays.
Jasmine Lee McGranaghan is a contemporary Korean American artist specializing in ceramics and oil painting. Raised in the Philadelphia area, she spent many summers in Coastal Maine, both of which continue to influence her work. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Pratt Institute with a Minor in Art History. Jasmine has worked as a preschool arts educator, a New York gallery assistant, and as a production potter in Maine, all while maintaining her own studio practice. Inspired by her film photography, nature, and art history, her work is deeply informed by color theory. Her ceramic practice bridges her love for drawing with her desire to create functional work. Through the use of underglaze and underglaze pencils, she creates detailed imagery, using clay as her canvas.
INSTRUCTOR'S ASSISTANT
Brenda Wilmot has spent her life flying the skies, and now she finds herself embracing a new passion for ceramic arts. She eagerly assists with instructing, enabling her to spend time learning and sharing knowledge with students. The pottery skills she has obtained also allows for her to translate the love she has for animals into clay through carving (sgraffito). She is delighted for the expansion of the for Puckett Pottery House and greatly looks forward tothis summer!
Brenda will be assisting in classes next year!
CERAMIC STUDIO STAFF
Lily Kuntz is a ceramic artist based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her work is inspired by both ornamental patterns seen in architecture and organic patterns that form in the natural world. Her practice is based in sculptural hand building, slip casting from plaster molds, and wheel thrown functional work. In 2024 she earned her BFA in 3D Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of North Carolina Charlotte and was a recipient of the Advanced Student Network Project (ASPN), a short term residency at the Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, Montana. She is now working as the Ceramics Studio Manager at the Cain Center for the Arts.
Ashley Heredia is a Colombian Dominican ceramicist residing in and working in Huntersville, North Carolina. Born in New Jersey and raised in Huntersville, North Carolina. She attended the University of North Carolina in Asheville and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in ceramics in December 2025. During her studies, she served asa Professor Assistant for over 3 semesters, assisting professors in the ceramicsdepartment and supporting students’ growth. Earlier this year she exhibited a piece at Emergence: A Survey of Southeastern Studio Programs (2026) at The Bascom: Center forthe Visual Arts in Highlands, North Carolina. She is currently building a home studio andcontinuing to develop her personal body of work post-graduation.