Alisha Hastings-Kimball and Joe Ryan, both raised in West Windsor, reunited at their 20th class reunion, and are presenting a pottery and photography show at her studio in Lambertville on Saturday and Sunday, June 12 and 13.
She was born in Paterson and moved to West Windsor when she was less than a year old. She was a student at Hawk and Dutch Neck schools. Although she attended West Windsor-Plainsboro High School, she graduated from Solebury School in Pennsylvania. Her parents, Allan, a professor of engineering and technology at College of New Jersey, and Sally Katz, a speech therapist, still live on Old Trenton Road in West Windsor.
Hastings-Kimball graduated from the College of New Jersey with a bachelor’s teacher in art therapy and a master’s degree in teaching. She taught pre-school and kindergarten at Hopewell Country Day School. “All of my art training came out in teaching and it would take me eight hours to create a bulletin board,” she says. “I loved the kids but in my heart what I loved doing was my art.”
A girlfriend wanted to take pottery classes and convinced Hastings-Kimball to join her. “I knew from the first set of classes that I wanted my own pottery studio,” she says. “I decided to realize my dreams and pursue art full time.”
She met her husband, John, in college 20 years ago and they have been married for 14 years. He works for Serena Software, based in California, but he is able to work from home in an office that is next to her studio. His hobby is restoring cars — especially the Austin-Healey and Karmann Ghia.
Three years ago they began the adoption of two children from Nepal. “It took us two years and two trips to Nepal to get them home,” she says. The five-year-olds are a girl and boy, Shanti and Sandeep. Although they are not biologically related to each other, their birthdays are a week apart. Now in Pre-K, they begin kindergarten in September. “We all have a strong connection with that area of the world and its culture,” Hastings-Kimball says. “I have been trying to balance life as an artist and a mother.”
Joe Ryan graduated from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School, Class of 1989, and from Mercer College in 1996. A freelance photographer, his work has appeared in The News, and he is known for his photographs of the Grateful Dead. His father, Don Ryan, still lives in West Windsor. Ryan is married to Christy Morrison, also a graduate of WW-P High School. Their twin sons are Joe and John. The family lives in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.
He has photographs from near and far in the exhibit — from West Windsor to Ireland. “I received my first camera on my 21st birthday. It was glued to my body for the next year before I took up photography in college. Those months that followed proved to be most valuable as I molded photography with my favorite music,” says Ryan.
Spring Pottery and Photography Show, Songbird Studio, 538 Brunswick Pike, Lambertville. Saturday and Sunday, June 12 and 13, 10 a.m. 609-397-5797. www.songbirdstudio.com.
