About
Sandra Zuidema is a ceramic artist working in Hamilton, Ontario. She specializes in piercing, or openwork: wheel-thrown forms carved through so that light, shadow and negative space become as much a part of the piece as the clay itself.
Her medium is clay, wedged, thrown, carved and pierced just to the point it can stand before cracking. As she pushes the structural limits of clay, she strives to make a substance as hard as rock and as sharp as glass feel weightless and soft. Her forms are carved through to evoke the veins of a leaf, the flight of a bird or the tracery of a window.
Trained as an art teacher (B.Ed., Art and English, Redeemer University), Sandra brings the patterns of architecture and nature into her pots: Gothic rose windows, Gaudí’s doorways, the brambles of the Lake District. In 2026 she completed a three-week residency with SkopArts on the island of Skopelos, Greece, drawing on the carved stone of Delphi and the Caryatids of the Erechtheion.
She teaches piercing to potters’ guilds across the Greater Toronto Area, and in 2024 gave the keynote address at the Charlotte Mason Institute conference from behind her wheel, throwing and piercing a bowl as she spoke. She runs her studio and shop, Aspire Pottery, in Hamilton.
Selected exhibitions & recognition
- 2026 — 260 Fingers, guest artist, Ottawa
- 2026 — SkopArts Residency, Skopelos, Greece
- 2024 — NEXT, juried biennial, Carnegie Gallery, Dundas
- 2023 — Undercurrents, Earl’s Court Gallery, Hamilton
- 2022 — Tracery Windows Through History, 7-piece series acquired for the Hamilton Potters Guild permanent collection
- 2022 — Memory and Rebirth, Altered Elements and Carnegie Craft, juried exhibitions, Carnegie Gallery, Dundas
- 2022 — Featured artist, Hamaka Magazine
For available work and commissions: sandra@zuidema.ca