Board of Directors

Brian Harper is the founder of Artaxis and currently serves as the Executive Director. In addition to his role with Artaxis, he is also a practicing artist and an Associate Professor of Fine Art and Ceramics Area Head at Indiana University Southeast. He holds a BFA from Northern Arizona University and an MA and MFA from the University of Iowa. His artwork investigates our inherent human wonderment of the unknown and the methods, mythological or otherwise, for how we give structure to elements of our observed, unobserved, and unobservable world. His work has been exhibited in over 100 national and international exhibitions, including 8 solo exhibitions. He lives in New Albany, Indiana, with his wife Tiffany, their daughter June.

Natasha Hovey was born and raised in New Hampton, Iowa. In 2011 she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from The University of Iowa and in 2014 she received her Master of Fine Arts at The University of Wisconsin-Madison. Hovey has exhibited work at Sundaymorning @ EKWC/ European Ceramic Workcentre in the Netherlands, Glassell School of Art within The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas and the MANA Contemporary in Chicago, IL. Hovey was a NCECA Project Residency Artist at the European Work Center in the Netherlands during the summer of 2014 and an Artist-in-Residence at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and Midwestern State University. She is currently an Assistant Professor at The University of Central Missouri.

Living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Ellen Kleckner (she/her) is an artist and educator whose artistic practice combines community engagement, material investigation, and collaboration. She earned her BFA from the Appalachian Center for Craft and her MFA from Ohio University. In addition to serving at the Artaxis Fundraising Coordinator,, she is the Executive Director of the Iowa Ceramics Center and Glass Studio, a non-profit community art center.

Dina Perlasca is a Mexican-American artist from The Paso del Norte Region, where she grew up on the Border of Mexico and the U.S. in El Paso TX, and Cd. Juarez Mexico. Dina lives in El Paso Texas with her 3 children. She obtained her BFA in Ceramics from The University of Texas at El Paso and her MFA at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces NM. She is currently teaching undergraduate ceramics at The University of Texas at El Paso and at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, NM. Fostering community, research, and collaboration are of utmost importance to Dina as she has dedicated time, leadership, and support to the ceramic field in various ways.

Antra Sinha is a ceramic artist, educator, and community builder with the arts. She received her BFA & MFA from MS University of Baroda, India. She was then an apprentice to Ray Meeker and Deborah Smith at Golden Bridge Pottery (GBP) starting in 2002, where she worked for a decade. In addition to being a member of Artaxis, she is a member of the IAC, ISCAEE, and NCECA. She is one of the on-site liaisons for the 2025 NCECA conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. Antra currently teaches ceramics at Cache Valley Pottery Studio, Providence UT, plus drawing and 3D design at Utah State University.

Sara Torgison received a BFA from Cal Poly Humboldt in 2011 and an MFA from the University of Cincinnati Department of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning in 2021. Her work often blends ceramics with fiber art, extending finite and fragile surfaces to emphasize and inhabit marginal spaces. Strange alliances formed in passages between hard and soft substances are resonant of the shifts inherent in navigating public and private life, and the distance between self and other. Sara is currently Visiting Ceramics Faculty at Miami University in Oxford, OH and works as a preparator at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center.

Kwok Pong ‘s work focuses on investigates the spatial relationship between the development of objects and human interaction. Pong originally was born and raised in Hong Kong, and decided to come to the USA to continuing his education while begin exploring the cultures differences. In 2009 he completed his BFA from Northwest Missouri State University, and completed his M.A and MFA from the University of Iowa in 2013. Pong is currently an Assistant Professor at Northwest Missouri State University, he was named as Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist in 2014, and NCECA Emerging Artist in 2016, He spend two summer as summer resident at the Archie Bray Foundation, he has exhibited and published internationally and nationally including in China, Rep.of Korea, Romania, Germany and United Kingdom.

Casey Whittier received her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and MFA from the University of Colorado Boulder. Her work investigates the fine line between the need to preserve and a desire to re-imagine, re-configure and re-contextualize the world around her. Utilizing a variety of forming methods and clay bodies, Whittier recreates elements from nature, unites the landscapes of her reality with the landscapes of daydreams, exploits the visceral qualities of clay, and ponders the power of shared experience. The physical impressions that come through rolling, tearing, squishing, dipping, pushing, pinching, molding, casting, and scratching become representations of touch, of thought, of time spent. Whittier is an advocate for community engagement through the arts. She teaches ceramics and social practice at the Kansas City Art Institute and works from her home studio.