City College of San Francisco offers a wide variety of classes at two sites in the city. For Open Studios we are highlighting our Fort Mason Center facility. We offer affordable Credit, Continuing Education and Older Adult classes during the day, evenings, Saturdays and online - all taught by practicing Bay Area artists. Classes include sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, painting, watercolor, drawing and art history. Please come by during Open Studios to see our facilities, meet our students and instructors and get information about joining us!

I believe in continuous observation, experimentation and change.  Change is an integral part of nature.  The only way to have change and possibly progression is to experiment and even let accidents and mistakes happen.  From every accident and even mistake there is something to be learned and from each learning experience new elements and forms emerge which can bring about progression. 

Larry Letofsky has emerged as one of the most talented and celebrated potters in the Bay Area. Describing his work as “pottery you can use,” the artist produces mostly bowls, mugs, plates and vases in a natural gas kiln and develops 20 or thirty glazes a year.

Letofsky was born in Fargo, North Dakota in 1940 and graduated from San Francisco State University in English literature and writing. He did his post-graduate work in Special Education and began his teaching career working with developmentally handicapped students. After a six-year stint (1962-1968) in the armed forces he returned to education, switching back to teaching English many years later and then retiring in 2001.

In 1970, Letofsky started his study of pottery and developed skills until 1990 at which time he began to work more intensely. His work in the field complements his deep interest in music – Larry is a devoted collector of jazz and classical recordings and memorabilia - and his rich background in literature.

The major influences in the Letofsky approach are the Japanese ceramicist Hamada (1894-1978) and the Nova Scotian born Brother Thomas (1929-2007). Larry Letofsky continues to create his fine, beautifully utilitarian pottery out of his studio in San Francisco.

Jessica Niello is an oakland based painter and ceramic artist. 

"Be careful about the story you tell; it will be the story you live"

I spent my professional life as an academic and practicing psychologist during which time I swallowed a multitude of human stories. Now, I have retired into clay as a way of bringing these universal human stories back into 3 dimensions. 
Overall, I create ceramic groups. Be they blamers, gossipers, or a 'murder of crows' these pieces capture the reality of group dynamics that may be important and familiar to most people. 
My main interest is to produce synergistic multimedia installations that 'speak' to recognizable moments of some human interactions and suggests a way to ameliorate them. 
My secondary interest has been a search for the right kind of 'skin' for my sculptures, which for now, is raku and encaustics. 
My general goal is to evoke recognition, to touch a common node of humanity and to provide a talking point for change.