Meet Our Instructors
Our talented instructors bring a wealth of experience and passion to the Roti Roti Art Center, guiding students of all ages in a variety of artistic mediums. Each instructor is dedicated to fostering creativity, skill development, and a supportive learning environment. Learn more about their backgrounds, specialties, and the classes they teach below.
Instructor Bios
Ceramics
Marie Remington
Marie holds an MFA in Ceramics with a special interest in Raku. Marie teaches all levels of pottery at the Art Center, manages the pottery studio, facilitates exhibit installations, and holds seats on the gallery committee.
Ceramics
Nana Maher
Nana teaches all levels of pottery, monthly Make & Mingle, and a variety of mediums. She holds a BFA in Ceramics.
Ceramics
Cathy Tapia
Cathy Tapia was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She studied ceramics at Northeastern Illinois University, focusing on hand-built stoneware and raku sculpture. After graduating from college she studies at Lill Street Studios in Chicago. she took many years off to raise her family, and was reintroduced to ceramics by Marie Remington in her adult classes at Buchanan High School.
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She now creates her work at the Buchanan Art Center. her current work reflects an interest in making impressions on the clay surface to reflect nature or to create intricate patterns on functional forms.
Cathy has won several awards for her work at the annual Student-Faculty Exhibition at the South Bend Museum of Art. She had a solo show, Clay Impressions, in 200 at the Buchanan Art Center and has also exhibited her work in the juried show Underneath It All at St. Mary’s college in 2005. She has been a yearly participant in the Buchanan Empty Bowls project since 2001. Cathy’s work is available at many local art and craft shows throughout the year and year-round at the Buchanan Art Center and Lemon Creek Winery.
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At the Buchanan Art Center, she teaches children’s and adult pottery classes. She has taught Special Education classes for the Buchanan Community Schools for 25 years.
Ceramics
Jeff Finn
Jeff Finn is a founding member of Adagio Artisans in Buchanan, Michigan. He began pottery more than twelve years ago at a studio in Oak Park, Illinois and focused his interest and intention on bowl shapes and lidded pots.
“Holding a bowl with wide supporting hands beneath is a gesture of gratitude for all that we have. It requires we be open, humble and grateful in our acceptance of gifts and for being in the position to share gifts of ourselves with others.”
Jeff and his wife, Phyllis – a weaver – live outside of Buchanan on a dead-end dirt road that’s “gloriously quiet.”
Jewelry
Elizabeth Hendrick
Elizabeth Hendrick holds a certificate in jewelry fabrication from JSD Designs in Grand Haven, MI. She is an award-winning fiber artist and a former corporate trainer and writer.
Mixed Media
Olvia Bromilow
Olivia is a self taught artist. She primarily works in mixed media journals. She views art as self care and a way to process big emotions. She loves exploring different techniques and tapping into her intuition while being creative. Olivia lives in Niles with her husband and three homeschooled boys. She loves nature, seasonal living, books and coffee.
Ceramics
Samantha (Sam) Purze
Samantha “Sam” Purze is a working ceramic artist from the Michiana area. She received a BFA in Ceramics from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2019 and completed a two-year Ceramics Post-Baccalaureate Certificate at Indiana University Southeast in 2021. As of this year she has exhibited her own work in 16 states and maintains permanent gallery representation at Graci Gallery, Wildfire Ceramics Studio, New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art and Riverside Pottery
Studio. Sam has also been teaching pottery since 2016. She is happy to cater lessons to the individual’s interests- all skill levels and ages welcome!
Painting & Pastels
Shandelle Henson
Shandelle Henson loves wilderness and finds joy in conveying those feelings through painting in oils and pastels. As a student, she was drawn into the beauty of the deep structures of mathematics and ecology, and since 1994, she has served as a university professor and research mathematical ecologist. She knows, however, that the impact of the beauty that surrounds us transcends the language of science. Expression of beauty must flow from the arts. Creation must be painted.
Photography
Vasilisa (Lisa) Kiselevich
Vasilisa (Lisa) Kiselevich is a professional photographer specializing in Nature, Equestrian, and Macro photography. Her award-winning work has been featured in exhibitions at the South Bend Museum of Art, Midwest Museum of American Art, and others. A Merit Scholar at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, she has taught photography since 2013, mentoring students to notable success. Previously, she studied medicine in Moscow, earned a Biology degree from the University of Minnesota, and worked as an interpreter, a role she recently resumed online.
Writing
Nan Lundeen
Nan Lundeen is a poet, a writer, a grandmother, a Moo of Writing workshop facilitator, and a retired, award-winning journalist. Her work is published in literary journals. Her nonfiction and poetry books have won three national indie book finalist awards. She holds an M.A. in Communication from Western Michigan University and lives in southwestern Michigan.