Jeff Reich
Biography
Jeff Reich was born in Livonia, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. His father was an engineer with an eye to detail, and his mother a homemaker who loved to paint and garden. Jeff grew up with interests in architecture and basketball. Early in his college career at the University of Michigan, Jeff moved to Arizona to transfer to the University of Arizona in Tucson. He settled on a major in Arts Education. After taking a ceramics course there, he knew that was his deepest studio art interest. Jeff spent many hours in that studio, befriending his ceramics professor Maurice Grossman, now a retired Professor Emeritus. Maurice is a friend to this day.
When Jeff graduated, he started a home pottery studio and began teaching pottery part-time in Tucson. When he learned of a full-time job opening for lead pottery instructor in Mesa at the Mesa Arts Center, he applied. Rudy Turk, former director of the Arizona State University Art Museum, was part of the hiring panel. Jeff was offered the job, and has been the director of the Mesa Arts Center Ceramics program ever since.
Jeff is an exhibiting studio artist as well. He maintains a home studio, Indigo Street Pottery, with his studio potter wife Farraday Newsome. Reich’s work is included in numerous public art collections, including the Northern Arizona University Art Museum, the Ceramics Research Center of the Arizona State University Art Museum, the City of Phoenix Contemporary Arizona Ceramics Collection, the City of Mesa Contemporary Art Collection, the Kamm Teapot Foundation, and the Northern Clay Center of Minnesota.
Jeff Reich’s work has been featured in Lark Books’ 500 Tile and 500 Cups. He has also has been featured in numerous magazines, including Ceramics: Art and Perception, Ceramics Monthly, and Clay Times.