Maria Dondero has lived in Athens, GA, for 25 years with her partner and thirteen-year-old twins. Born in Yaoundé, Cameroon, she grew up in a large, travel-loving family that shaped her artistic perspective. She discovered pottery in 2000 while living in Mexico and has been making and teaching ever since. 

She completed her MFA at the University of Georgia, Athens, in 2008 and founded Southern Star Studio in 2016 – a thriving ceramics space. She teaches, and her work is exhibited nationally and internationally. In 2022, she co-founded a Clay Studio in Cortona, Italy called Tuscan Clay Lab. 

Maria creates mid-range earthenware pots that draw on the rich history of ceramics. Her work subtly references global pottery traditions while remaining deeply personal and rooted. She intuitively sketches imagery from her everyday surroundings onto each surface, grounding her forms in the red clay and cultural landscape of Georgia.