BILL SHEARROW 

When students watch Bill Shearrow’s strong steady hands gently mold a mound of spinning clay into another beautiful vase, they may not know the sheer passion and drive that went into building his career as a fine artist.  

When a teenage Bill Shearrow wanted to take art classes, his steelworker father refused to pay for such frivolity.  Bill found a job and paid for them himself.  A few years later his father started to come around when the school librarian bought two of Bill’s paintings.  He became a full-fledged believer when Bill earned a scholarship to the Columbus College of Art and Design.  There, Bill became fascinated by ceramics and never looked back.

Today, Bill Shearrow is the CMA School of Art’s longest tenured teacher.  Indeed, he is our longest serving employee.  Over the last 31 years Bill’s combination of skill, experience, patience and wry humor has touched the hearts of thousands of local students.  Children just learning the joy of clay.  Adults looking for an outlet to their creative souls. Many have touched his heart as he shows them the skills that have made him a successful fine artist.  

With awards strewn about his basement studio, it’s easy to overlook the twisting path Bill has followed.  After graduation he came home to Canton and took a job at K-Mart.  His father was on board with his ceramic art and helped him set up a studio.  Bill gave himself four years to make it as an independent artist and kick started things with a backyard show set up by a friend’s mother.  He netted $300 and was on his way.

Along the way there were stints as an artist for a national float-building company and a tile designer for the Meredith Collection, the art tile division of the Metropolitan Tile Company.  When the bottom fell out of building markets Bill soon found himself unemployed so he took his show on the road.  Today he owns the tile designs he originally created for Meredith and shows those along with his vases and other ceramic creations at art fairs throughout the midwest and east.  He also does a brisk business on his web site and has built up a sizable national following.

However, ceramics is more than a skill to Bill Shearrow.  He is a student of the craft and knows its history and possibilities.  He especially enjoys sharing his love of ceramics with CMA students of all ages.  He knows most won’t become full-time ceramic artists.  But he also knows the sheer enjoyment that comes from molding something beautiful with your own hands.  And, when it comes to making beautiful things, Bill is stubborn enough to let very little stand in his way.