Coille Hooven

Coille McLaughlin Hooven was born in New York City and grew up on the East Coast. Always interested in art, Hooven discovered ceramics when she enrolled in a beginning class at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, in 1959. Her teacher was David Shaner, from whom she learned the potter’s wheel. She took later workshops with Peter Voulkos and other artists, which resulted in looser, more expressive work.

Hooven graduated from Illinois cum laude with a BFA. She taught at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, in Baltimore. Under her guidance, the ceramics program grew from a one-wheel, one-room facility to a full department with complete facilities, which she headed as chairperson.

In 1970, Hooven moved to Berkeley, California. She saw the ceramics field on the West Coast as being freer and more open to exploration. There she began working on her own, first at home and then in a shared studio, making pottery that she sold in craft fairs and group sales. Her first one-woman show was held in San Francisco at the Imprint Gallery.

Hooven has shown her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and her work is included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Oakland Museum of California, the Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City, and the National Collection of Fine Arts of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

Hooven is actively involved in ceramic arts, and she partners with her daughter in Hooven & Hooven, creating hand-crafted porcelain ornaments sold in department stores and online.