Our Board

Ritika Kanade
President

  • Ritika is a Software Engineer by profession and has a strong interest in art and education. She has a Masters in Computer Science from Stony Brook University.

    She learned to throw on the wheel in 2020 and has since fallen in love with the ceramic arts. Ritika visits the studio regularly to keep throwing more vases and mugs. She loves sketching and enjoys spending her time exploring different forms of art.

Su Liu
Vice-President

  • Ever since she was in kindergarten, Su has dabbled in all forms of arts, focusing on pen and pencil primarily before discovering ceramics in 2021. She strongly believes that diversity and access are the future of arts, which is why she is excited to join the Pottery Northwest Board and help create an inclusive clay community for everyone.

    Su graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and has worked professionally in the video game industry for a decade. She used to travel for work, planning events all across the world, and still adores traveling to and exploring new places. Outside of pottery, she enjoys board games, bouldering, and being around water. She lives with her two kittens and too many plushies in Capitol Hill.

Alison K. Shlom
Treasurer

  • Alison is an attorney and multi-hyphenate artist, committed to fostering Seattle’s creative communities.

    With a background that blends strategic problem-solving and creativity, her goal as a board member is to ensure PNW remains an inspiring and welcoming space for ceramicists and artists of all levels and backgrounds to flourish.

    She previously served as the founding President of the Living Artists Collective, where she led efforts to build sustainable support for Seattle’s artists.

Terese Jennings
Director

  • Terry has been involved with clay on and off for 50 years. She received a BA in ceramics and is now retired and able to devote more time to the craft. Other interests include jewelry making. She hopes to be able to explore a fusion between jewelry and ceramics in sculptural forms.

    Terry believes in giving back to her community and would like to contribute her support to Pottery Northwest. She feels PNW is part ofher community and that it has supported her during these trying times.

Jennifer Wannarachue Chevchek
Director

  • “Clay is the meditative artform that’s always there for me when I need it.”  

    Jennifer Wannarachue Chevchek began experimenting with clay in 2011 while a designer at Nike where they had a partnership with Oregon College of Arts & Crafts.  The calm and meditative art of handbuilding led to her first personal project of a series of water canteens.  She eventually found her way to the wheel and in 2016 attended an Alfred University Summer Arts Workshop where she tried her hand at throwing large vessels and atmospheric firings, and the love interest continues to grow.

    Chevchek has been an apparel designer for over 20 years, starting in the skate and streetwear sector of the market and honing her design leadership skills at performance and activewear companies - Nike and Fabletics.  Athlete and celebrity collections is what Chevchek is known for in the industry, having designed championship looks for Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal, summer beachwear looks for Vanessa Hudgens and outdoor hiking collections for Khloe Kardashian.  She is a breast cancer survivor, wife and boy-mom.

John Miller
Secretary

  • John Randall Miller discovered clay several years ago as a way to unwind from the pace of corporate life. What began as a simple creative outlet quickly grew into a grounding practice that’s given him perspective, patience, and a strong connection to a community of makers. The same qualities he’s learned at the wheel carry into his work as a lawyer, where he helps startups and growing companies navigate the twists and turns of building a business. With experience in mergers and acquisitions, corporate structuring, taxation, and financing, John works to make complex challenges feel manageable and to set the stage for long-term success. Whether working with clay or clients, he’s most interested in the process of shaping something meaningful and lasting.

Jenna Newland
Director

  • Jenna Newland first discovered pottery more than 15 years ago, when she tried out a wheelthrowing classes as a grounding creative outlet and a way to find stress relief from a demanding career in human resource consulting. Clay quickly became a meditative practice that offered balance, calm, and a meaningful way to reconnect with herself.

    After recently moving to Seattle and taking a 10year hiatus, Jenna returned to ceramics with fresh enthusiasm. She immediately found a vibrant and inspiring clay community, with Pottery Northwest at the center. Being immersed in Seattle’s rich ceramics culture has sparked a new chapter of learning, exploring new techniques, reconnecting with the wheel, and deepening her appreciation for the art form.

    Jenna brings her passion for individual creative practice, community connection, and the restorative power of the arts to the PNW Board. She resides in Capitol Hill with her husband and their two Boston Terriers, Baylor and Champ.

Mitzi Laney
Director

  • Mitzi has a B.A. in Studio Art and a Masters in Nursing. She works as a Medical Director for a School Based Health Program, an innovative healthcare model that provides free medical, mental health, and dental services to public school students, funded by a Seattle Levy. Working in an elementary school, she has had the pleasure of developing Crafternoons, a free afterschool arts program for 4th and 5th grade students. 

    Mitzi has organized large scale craft fairs in the past, firmly believing in artists making living wages for their time and work. She is interested in public policy and local funds distribution related to expanding equitable access to the arts for all ages, as a means for improvement in both individual and collective physical and mental health.

Sienna Spencer-Markles
Director

Kevin Murphey
Director

  • With a foundation in both education and data analytics, Kevin brings a blend of curiosity, structure and creativity to his work and community involvement. Kevin holds a Master’s in Statistics from the University of Florida and has spent his career helping organizations make sense of complex information. Before entering the analytics world, Kevin worked as an educator and private tutor, where he often used the arts as a bridge to spark creative learning and deeper understanding to mathematics.

    His passion for the arts runs deep – shaped by a music-teacher mother and a software-engineer father – who encouraged both imagination and problem-solving. Pottery has become a natural extension of that upbringing, being a joyful, grounding practice in Kevin’s life for the past two years.

    Kevin is excited to support the mission of Pottery Northwest by bringing both his analytical skill set and his belief in the transformative power of the arts to the board’s work.

Allison Hoffmann
Director

  •  Allison Hoffmann (she/her) is a registrar, project manager, and arts consultant based in Seattle. With over a decade of experience in museums and fine art logistics, she has supported major traveling exhibitions, public art installations, and site-specific works in collections across the country. Her expertise includes deinstalling and reinstalling complex installations, inventorying estates, relocating entire collections, coordinating conservation, and collaborating with art handlers, designers, and fabricators to ensure artworks are handled, displayed, and transported with care and precision. Through her consulting practice, Hoffmann Art Strategies, she works with museums, municipalities, corporations, estates, and private collectors to strengthen collections stewardship, streamline logistics, and build equity-driven arts infrastructure. 

    Allison’s creative practice includes photography—often inspired by solo road trips and quiet landscapes shared with her dog Bowie—and a longstanding connection to ceramics that began in junior high and continued through graduate school and continuing education. A passionate traveler and lifelong learner, she has taken studio art classes in Salt Lake City, Chicago, and Seattle, and visited museums and galleries throughout North America, Europe, and Australia. 

    She is deeply engaged in Seattle’s arts community, regularly attending First Thursday Art Walks in Pioneer Square and collaborating with local artists, gallerists, and cultural leaders. She is committed to advancing equity in the arts and supporting organizations that center curiosity, community, and care.