Sara Deren is a ceramic artist born and raised in South Bend, Indiana. Having graduated from Indiana University Bloomington with her BFA in Ceramics in 2023, she recently moved to Port Angeles for her first post-grad opportunity, the Artist in Residence program at Peninsula College. As a resident artist, Sara helps maintain a clean studio space while also handling student work, firing kilns, making glazes, and working on personal projects. Through Peninsula College’s Community Education program, she teaches community wheel throwing classes.

She first found an interest in clay through a teen pottery class at the South Bend Museum of Art and continued to take classes during high school. As a junior, Sara got a job at a local paint-your-own pottery studio, The Pigeon and The Hen Pottery. After expressing interest,  the owners gave her the opportunity to teach beginning wheel throwing classes. She worked there on and off for seven years as she finished high school and went on to get her Bachelor’s.

While wheel throwing was her first love, Sara considers herself a hand builder. Through techniques of coil building, pinching, and occasionally wheel throwing, she creates both utilitarian vessels and decorative sculptures inspired by organic forms and textures.