Tom Coleman
American,
b. 1945
For over fifty years, Tom Coleman has been developing his craft as a potter working with both porcelain and stoneware classic forms, all equally refined, well-balanced and faultlessly thrown. Coleman was born in Amarillo, Texas, and traveled to the northwest for his BFA in Portland, Oregon in 1968. For nearly twenty years he taught and did studio work in the Portland area. In 1987 he made a notable geographic move to teach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he taught for thirteen years. From 1974-1993 he maintained a long-standing collaboration in Oregon working with fellow ceramicist Frank Boyden. Coleman threw vessels, including bowls and vases, and Boyden drew, carved into and manipulated the surfaces, often depicting animals such as fish and birds; theses pots were mostly wood fired.
Coleman perfected glazes throughout his career, including his “test site” glazes done in response to the destruction of the Nevada desert during atomic bomb testing of the mid - 20th century. Coleman has written much on the subject of ceramics and has himself been the subject of many published reviews.