Shelley and Michael Buonaiuto met while studying sculpture and painting at the University of Massachusetts in 1968.
After a few vagabond years, their spiritual search led them to the study of Gurdjieff, a Greek Caucasian spiritual master, at Chardavogne Barn in New York. There Shelley began to study pottery, making creches and small figures, and Michael, after a few years as a stone mason (in debt to his Italian ancestry) joined her in 1975, after the birth of their first child. Besides sculpting, Michael was a skilled mold-maker.
After a second child, Michael and Shelley began to dream in Spanish, so they sold their house and headed to South America for seven months with Ben and Nina, then 8 and 5, before settling in Santa Fe, NM. in 1984.
Now in Fayetteville, AK, they continue to work in stoneware and porcelain, but have added work in earthenware (cookie jars), and bronze (small detailed human figures) and bonded porcelain (this new line of women laughing, leaning from windows, and lovers.) They plan to continue adding to this line. Mia, the third child, was born in 1987.
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