In this series, we highlight some of the many artists who contribute to the deep creative culture of Concord. Across town, many organizations are dedicated to uplifting the visual arts and artists through exhibitions, educational programs, performances, and workspace.

For its 2025/26 Artist-in-Residence program, The Umbrella Arts Center expanded the cohort to include artists across all its programs, including Performing Arts and Education. In this feature, we focus on the three artists who create Ceramic and Visual Arts. 

KATIE FEE

For Ceramics Artist-in-Residence Katie Fee, surprise is a welcome part of the process. “Often with ceramics,” she says, “it’s not like ‘I want the clay to do exactly this’ but instead, ‘what can it do, and then how can I work with that?’” These moments of resistance keep Katie challenged and engaged in her practice, as she searches for new ways to balance control and unpredictability. This balance is visible in the careful, yet wild shapings of Katie’s pots, which embrace both smooth, curving paths and harsh, unexpected edges. On what excites her most in her current practice, she says, “I love moments when a material or technology reports new information back to me – a surprise coming out of a kiln, for example.”

The South Carolina landscape Katie grew up in is an important inspiration for her work, as well as her studies in geology and studio art. She has traveled the country and the world as an artist and instructor, and currently teaches ceramics at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. “I most admire artists who have a close dialogue with the material itself,” she says of her influences, “and who seem to welcome change, risk, and unpredictability in their studio practice.”

Katie has spent her first few months at The Umbrella working on a series of slips and glazes, and fine-tuning firing processes as she builds out her body of work. She values the time she spends teaching and working alongside other artists, and looks forward to continuing her work with The Umbrella’s ceramics community. 

SAYAKO HIROI

“For me,” says Visual Arts Artist-in-Residence Sayako Hiroi, “painting is not about fixing fractures, but about staying with them – questioning through color and line, and practicing presence without turning away.” Her work explores silence and erasure – how bodies are seen and judged according to history and stereotypes. “I’m interested in the moments before the judgement takes place,” she says, “where intimacy and tensions already exist, but the meaning hasn’t been placed yet.” Employing a careful mix of figuration and abstraction, Sayako often works with references like Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints, breaking apart these historical images and reconfiguring them into vibrant arcs of color. 

In a new series about intimacy within interracial relationships, Sayako employs softer colors and a more figurative approach. Slowing down her process, she layers, erases, and repaints. As she explores her visual language, she plans to begin painting on a larger scale. She says, “I am looking forward to having the time and space to let questions unfold, to experiment, and to allow unexpected directions to emerge.”

Sayako’s practice includes both painting and traditional kintsugi, the act of repairing broken pottery with gold, which she will teach in a workshop this spring at The Umbrella. For Sayako, teaching kintsugi is an opportunity to practice Japanese tradition, embrace imperfection, and encourage cross-cultural dialogue.  

IVO MAKIANICH

Visual Arts Artist-in-Residence Ivo Makianich uses reductive painting and drawing to explore the relationship between time, space, and memory. Often starting from a solid, layered field of paint or charcoal, Ivo reveals images through subtraction to form complex, architectural spaces. Restriction – through time constraints or a limited palette – is a tool that lends his work both immediacy and groundedness. Attention to material and process allows Ivo to “cultivate subtlety through minimal gestures and atmospheric depth.”

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and raised in California, Ivo studied painting while working at an architectural engineering firm, before moving to New England, where he received his MFA in Painting from Boston University. His background in architecture is evident in the subject matter and precision of his current work, which depicts places both unbelievable and grounded in logic. 

In his first few months at The Umbrella, Ivo has focused on slowing down his practice and experimenting with new processes. A significant focus has been introducing color into his typically black and white palette, by studying color theory and creating swatches as he prepares to make larger scale works. Ivo also looks forward to teaching at The Umbrella. “Teaching is about shared discovery,” Ivo says. “There is a special satisfaction in watching students become curious or energized by ideas I have long taken for granted. Those moments remind me that learning never stops. They keep me questioning, evolving, and staying present in both my classroom and my studio practice.”