Sheila Maithel

Sheila Maithel has a background in tech startups, moved to Atlanta from Canada, and works in figure drawing and sculpture, jewelry, and pottery. Her pottery series have names like "Caffeinated Spider,” "Unicorn Sprint,” and “Elephant Parade,” and combine a sense of humor with elegant silhouettes and shapes, inspired by nature, world culture, math, and science.

The "Caffeinated Spider” series was originally inspired by the geometric forms found in Islamic architecture, applied to curvy silhouettes inspired by Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Greek, and Indian pottery. The series is named after NASA's experiments caffeinating spiders and observing the webs the spiders produced! The pieces with golden inserts are inspired by Japanese "kintsugi" golden joinery, and pieces with intricate filigreed golden patterns are inspired by Indian "Tanjore" and Italian "pastiglia" gilded low relief painting.