Steven Czerniel was born in Glendale, California in 1957. Raised in Orange County, Steve was exposed to art every day, as his mother “Freddie” was a talented creative influence and nurturing creative force.

Steve was drawn to clay at an early age. For the most part he has been self-taught. His clay work began in the sixties with wheel thrown vessels, moved to a variety of hand-built, pit-fired portfolios in the seventies and eighties, and evolved to its current form in the nineties.

Large steel bolts held his sculptures together then, and were later replaced by copper rods, tubes and rusted pieces of scrap metal. His current work is made in pieces, and created using things he finds. Strong hand-built slab forms are constructed in a variety of methods and later filled with thousands of clay tiles, each made and fired individually, then reunited with the frame.

Steve currently lives and works in Taos, New Mexico as a full time clay artist. He has now operated his own clay studio for over 35 years.