Born in New York in 1963, Silverman majored in Ceramic Arts for a year at the University of Colorado before transferring to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). While at RISD, Silverman studied architecture, art and design, but continued to practice pottery in his own time. In 1988, following graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in architecture. After only a few years, Silverman began to focus his attention on clothing design. Together with two friends, he launched a punk skater clothing line called X-Large in 1991. Silverman, however, never lost interest in the ceramic arts. While working as both an architect and clothing designer, the artist maintained an independent studio where he could continue to work with clay. In 1998, Silverman ceased working in all mediums except ceramics. Five years later he started Atwater Pottery, named after his neighborhood in Los Angeles.

For Silverman, the seemingly varied practices of architecture, clothing design, and pottery are unified through formal and theoretical interests – structure and engineering or how each material relates to the human body. Over the years, his ceramic works have evolved from strictly functional to more process-oriented pieces. As he notes, in his work “formal issues of shape, scale, proportion, balance, weight, and surface treatment dovetail with issues of materials and methods of making. The intended results are abstract objects that contain, suggest, project, equally fundamental issues of meaning.”

Silverman currently serves as Studio Director of Heath Ceramics. His work has been shown internationally in museums and galleries including the Pasadena Museum of California Art; Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery, Portland; the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland; Lightbox in Los Angeles; and Starnet Zone in Mashiko, Japan. Silverman’s work will be on exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Atwater Pottery has been featured in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and GQ Magazine among others. Silverman is represented by Tomio Koyama in Tokyo.

Born in London of Iranian descent, Boston-based architect Nader Tehrani moved to the United States in 1978, where he attended the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), receiving a BFA and a BA in Architecture in 1985 and 1986 respectively. In 1987, he chose to continue his studies in the History and Theory program at the Architectural Association in London. Four years later, in 1991, Tehrani completed his Masters of Architecture in Urban Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Tehrani has been practicing architecture in Boston since 1987 and now heads the prestigious architectural firm, Office dA, in partnership with Monica Ponce de Leon. As an architecture and design firm working on projects both within the city of Boston and in locations worldwide, Office dA boasts work on a scale ranging from furniture to urban design and infrastructure. Each project completed by the architects at Office dA takes in to account the peculiarities of the site, the requirements of the program, and the specific needs of the target audience. To add to the unique vocabulary and impact of their work, Office dA often imports materials and methods of construction from areas outside the field of architecture.

In addition to his work with the Boston-based architectural firm, Tehrani is a tenured Associate Professor of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has also taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, RISD, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Tehrani’s work has been recognized internationally with eleven Progressive Architecture awards, a Harleston Parker Award, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and more recently, the coveted Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Award for Architecture. The built work of Office dA includes the RISD Library, the Northeastern University Spiritual Life Center, as well as the renovation of the Harvard Graduate School of Design offices. Office dA has also worked on international projects including the Tongxian Arts Center in Beijing, the Elemental community project in Chile, and the Villa Moda Competition in Kuwait, among others.