Mary K. Cloonan was born and raised in western New York state, receiving a BS in education from Nazareth College in Rochester, NY. She then went East to earn her MFA in ceramics from Syracuse University. She has since headed south to become a resident artist and teacher at Baltimore Clayworks in Maryland. National and international art journals have published articles she has written, as well as those written about her own work. Her work has been exhibited around the country and is in many private collections. Most artists have a touchstone of artistic epiphany; she blames that salty Play-Doh.