Bios - Staff
Gerald Epperson, Owner.
I’m a third-generation Californian. My father’s family came by wagon train to California and my mother’s side of the family came in the 1920’s, from Oklahoma. I first started throwing pots in a studio in Visalia in the late 60’s. Fern Wilson had converted the old baggage area of the Santa Fe Railroad into a ceramics studio with about 6 wheels and a large updraft kiln. I worked as her apprentice in exchange for doing my own work. I wanted to learn more about ceramics so I looked around for a college with a ceramics program. The closest college was the College of Marin so I moved to Marin and studied ceramics under Thano Johnson for two years. After coming back from a 6-week tour of Europe, a friend of mine asked me to help promote his waterbed business in Europe. The USA wasn’t the best place to be then, so I took him up on it. Waterbeds were unheard of at the time and that business didn’t last long. My wife Joanne and I would then open a custom leather and silver shop in Amsterdam, around the corner from the Ann Frank Museum. We purchased a 60 ft. canal boat to live on which we were able to take out on the canals and live on in the center of town. We came back to California and I was in and out of ceramics. In 1996 we bought out a gallery which was selling my work along with other artists. I figured I could use it as my own retail outlet after I retired from banking. Later, in 2001 we bought the whole building (23,300 sq.ft.). In 2005 we did a major retrofit and remodel. We now have a 3,500 sq.ft. gallery dedicated to ceramics, seven artists' studios, a sound studio, a custom picture framer, a 600 sq.ft. classroom area, and 1,000 sq.ft. ceramics studio.
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Gerald Epperson, Owner. I’m a third-generation Californian. My father’s family came by wagon train to California and my mother’s side of the family came in the 1920’s, from Oklahoma. I first started throwing pots in a studio in Visalia in the late 60’s. Fern Wilson had converted the old baggage area of the Santa Fe Railroad into a ceramics studio with about 6 wheels and a large updraft kiln. I worked as her apprentice in exchange for doing my own work. I wanted to learn more about ceramics so I looked around for a college with a ceramics program. The closest college was the College of Marin so I moved to Marin and studied ceramics under Thano Johnson for two years. After coming back from a 6-week tour of Europe, a friend of mine asked me to help promote his waterbed business in Europe. The USA wasn’t the best place to be then, so I took him up on it. Waterbeds were unheard of at the time and that business didn’t last long. My wife Joanne and I would then open a custom leather and silver shop in Amsterdam, around the corner from the Ann Frank Museum. We purchased a 60 ft. canal boat to live on which we were able to take out on the canals and live on in the center of town. We came back to California and I was in and out of ceramics. In 1996 we bought out a gallery which was selling my work along with other artists. I figured I could use it as my own retail outlet after I retired from banking. Later, in 2001 we bought the whole building (23,300 sq.ft.). In 2005 we did a major retrofit and remodel. We now have a 3,500 sq.ft. gallery dedicated to ceramics, seven artists' studios, a sound studio, a custom picture framer, a 600 sq.ft. classroom area, and 1,000 sq.ft. ceramics studio. |