About James

 

James Spiroff was born an artist. He has been exhibiting and winning awards with his art work since grade school. Growing up in the Detroit Motor City Area, James has many relatives who worked in the automobile industry, including his late Grandfather who was a Designer at Ford Motor Company. As a young boy, James' love for the automobile was evident with his constant drawing and sketching of cars and trucks. Six years in a row he entered and won the AutoRama Automobile Design Competition, a state-wide design competition in which he won first place every year.

After graduating from high school in 1990, he enrolled in classes at Oakland Community College. For three years he worked various jobs and took every art course offered at O.C.C. Realizing it was time to move on, James was accepted into the prestigious Center for the Creative Studies, Industrial Design Department in Detroit. But he opted instead to head north to the beautiful Upper Peninsula and study ceramics at Northern Michigan University. After three years of intensive study and studio time, James earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with top honors in the Art department, winning the coveted "Best of Show" award in the senior exhibit. This was just the beginning of a successful career as a ceramic artist. Continuing to learn as much as possible about clay, he enrolled in two summer hands-on workshops; one was a week-long workshop with Steven Hill of Red Star Studios fame from Kansas City; the other workshop was a two-week workshop focusing on Pit-firing with Patrick Dragon. Later that fall, Patrick offered James a paid apprenticeship with him at his studio in Orlando, Florida. What was originally to be a one-year commitment turned into two great years of learning and development with a great mentor, father, and friend. Living and working side by side with Dragon was instrumental in furthering James's career. After the first year of working with Patrick, James began exhibiting his new work at regional street fairs. He was quickly rewarded for his efforts with many cash awards including the "Best of Show" at the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts in Tampa, Florida. This was an astounding cash award of fifteen thousand dollars. Needless to say, the apprenticeship quickly ended, and with the award money, James set up his own studio at his home in Orlando in the small one car garage for which he maintained until March of 2001. At that time James and his new wife purchased a new home together in a more peaceful rural setting in Deltona, Florida. His current studio is a nice 1500sq.ft. building near their home which serves as both the ceramic studio and a car hobby shop. The "shop" has an interesting mix of clay, wood, metal, and automotive tools.

James says he feels fortunate to be able to work full time as an artist, which also gives him time to be creative in many other ways. He continues to exhibit nationally with awards and recognition at many of the most prestigious shows in the country including the Cherry Creek Arts Festival, American Craft Exposition, Smithsonian Craft Exhibition and many others. He has won more awards than he can count including seven "Best of Shows" and six "Best in Ceramics" awards. His work is quickly becoming collectable, and can be purchased here on-line, or at craft fairs and select galleries throughout the country.