Janis Wilson Hughes hails from the Smoky Mountains of Johnson City, Tennessee. In 1998 Hughes obtained a degree in Chemical Engineering with an Environmental specialization from Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. Soon after graduating and moving to Wisconsin she began her journey with clay studying under potter Rick McKinney while working as a research scientist and engineer. For years Hughes continued to study from ceramists from around the country, and she built her own pottery studio in 2004 after moving to Georgia. In 2009, after 11 years Hughes left the corporate world entirely to pursue her passion for clay. She is now a fulltime ceramic artist and owner of Evolution Stoneware Pottery, LLC. While her early work was primarily functional, Hughes nature based sculptural work gained notoriety in 2011 when her “Woodland Pod Quintet” was awarded 1st Prize in the 17th Annual Nellie Allen Smith Juried Pottery Competition juried by Gay Smith at Cape Fear Studios, Inc. in Fayetteville, North Carolina. And soon following, her solo show “Seeds and Pods” was presented at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. Later in 2012 Hughes expanded her creative vision for her body of nature inspired work during a fruitful artist residency as a Fellow at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences located in the mountains of North Georgia. Hughes has been featured on the cover of Clay Times Magazine and print articles in Pottery Making Illustrated Magazine and the Ceramic Arts Daily website. While Hughes’ primary focus is on making art, she also teaches techniques through workshops, articles for pottery magazines, short videos, and three commercially available DVDs. Hughes’ work has been presented in more than forty national and international exhibitions, is held in private collections in Europe, and is available in several galleries. In 2014 she was awarded 1st Prize in the Southworks national juried exhibition in Watkinsville, Georgia, and the Art League of Hilton Head presented her second solo exhibition “Cycles of Vitality” at the Walter Greer Gallery on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Hughes was awarded 1st Prize in the Georgia Artists 2015 juried exhibit presented by Fulton County Arts & Culture in Sandy Springs, Georgia. In 2016 she is slated to present in a 3 person exhibition titled “Of the Earth” at the Dalton Gallery in Rock Hill, South Carolina January 8 – February 14, a solo exhibition “Balance, Bounty, & Awakening” at the Roswell Cultural Arts Center in Roswell, Georgia in February and March 2016, and a to-be-titled solo exhibition at the Appalachian Center for Craft at Tennessee Tech University May 20 – June 24, 2016. Hughes currently resides in Alpharetta, Georgia with her husband Rob and two dogs Luna and Perseus.