So Cal’s Sara Paloma says her first pottery class was a requirement (she was forced to take it in order to earn her teaching degree). Low and behold, she fell in love with the messy medium and immediately began setting up a basement studio upon graduating from Cal State Long Beach. Influenced by the shapes and silhouettes of the urban landscape around her, she mastered her craft in the off-hours of jobs in animation. Today, she’s a full-time artist whose collection of wheelthrown stoneware bottles is still produced out of her home studio. Only this time they’re carried in galleries and stores across the country.