Upstairs in the Churro Gallery, five western slope potters will display their work in a show whimsically and
appropriately entitled “Comin’ Round the Mountain.” These artists hail from Crested Butte and Gunnison, and
together represent several masters degrees in Fine Arts and decades of professional claywork and teaching.

Mary Jursinovic, founder in 1979 of Creekside Pottery in Crested Butte, now lives in the North
Fork Valley, and has collaborated with the other four artists for years. “We each have a distinct
personal style,” she says. “It is exciting to display our combined talents at the Creamery.
Pottery to me is an art form that serves to bring beauty and excitement to the ordinary aspects
of our lives,”

Sheila Anderson is an artistic functional potter whose love of working with clay began as a
young teen in Denver. After stepping away from her ceramic hobby for 22 years to raise her five
children, she emerged at the Gunnison Arts Center in 2004 to pick up where she left off.
Currently she is the Clay Center Manager at the Gunnison Arts Center and teaches several
children’s and youth classes there. “For me, the fun of working with clay comes from feeling it
glide through my hands and begin to take shape,” says Sheila.

Karen Immerso is a Gunnison artist who enjoys producing functional wheel thrown and hand
built pottery. She has a Masters Degree in Experiential Education from the University of
Colorado in Boulder. Both in ceramics and other realms of teaching, her philosophy has always
been about “hands-on” learning: her own and others. “Hands-in-clay is a connection with the
earth, with beauty, with a natural process. I choose high-fired stoneware clay and glazes that
give me, and the user a sense of simple, earthy and useful” says Karen.

Laura Cooper Elm is a highly diversified artist who freely uses a wide range of styles, media and
techniques. She is an established and nationally recognized professional with over 20 years
experience teaching and working in clay, and she received a BFA from Carnegie-Mellon
University in Pittsburgh. Painting remains her primary emphasis whether on porcelain or canvas. Laura adds, “Throwing on the wheel is pure mediation. Any kind of clay work is sheer concentration. My
subconscious just takes over… I do my best thinking when I’m not thinking.”

Donna Rozman received her BFA from Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana and MFA in
ceramics from Kansas State University, Manhattan. Donna works at her studio south of Crested
Butte, Colorado. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, written articles for
ceramic publications, and taught many workshops at colleges across the United States. Donna is
currently a ceramic instructor at the Gunnison Art Center and teaches ceramics through the
Extended Studies program at Western State College. Donna says, “My current work investigates the
tantalizing relationship between spirituality and sexuality. As I build wheel-thrown and altered forms, I add
spiritual as well as erotic symbols”