Artist Talks
with Menan Al Ramah, Kimberly Bañes Muth, & Audrey Puckett
Thursday, November 19 at 5:30pm
Artist Talks at Starworks are free and open to the public. Guests are invited to meet featured visiting artists, watch and learn as they present slides and discuss their process and influence, and ask questions about their works.
Treat Yourself - Starworks Cafe & Taproom is open during this event and proudly serves a variety of craft NC beer, delicious wine, coffee & lattes, smoothies, and much more.
Menan Al Ramah
Menan Al Ramah is a ceramic artist born and raised in Baghdad, Iraq, currently based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her work explores themes of resilience, memory, and cultural identity, drawing from her experience as a refugee and her connection to Iraqi heritage. She creates sculptural vessels and forms that incorporate raw, matte textures and architectural influences rooted in Middle Eastern aesthetics.
Her pieces often evoke weathered metal or ancient artifacts, reflecting both personal and collective histories. Through clay, Al Ramah gives form to narratives of survival, loss, and transformation, while continuing to expand her practice through new explorations such as sculptural water features.
Kimberly Bañes Muth
Kimberly Bañes Muth is a glassblower currently based in Corning, NY. Born and raised in rural Pennsylvania to a Filipina mother and an American father, her work explores feelings of otherness- of being caught between two different cultures, of navigating the space between self-authenticity and expectations. Driven by experimentation and process, she is conceptually interested in the relationship between objects and “place” and how these relate to personal mythologies, identity, behavior, and culture. Before beginning her glassblowing journey in 2023, Kimberly earned a B.S. in Psychology (2014) and an M.Ed. in Foreign Language Education (2018) from the University of Pittsburgh. She went on to complete a Fulbright Fellowship in the Czech Republic, where she taught English as a Foreign Language at the High School of Applied Arts for Glassworking in Železný Brod. It was during this time that her passion for glass deepened, prompting her transition to glassblowing. Since then, she has honed her skills in glassblowing by working in studios and factories around the world including Seattle (Washington), Venice (Italy), Aruba, and, most recently, Corning (New York). She recently completed her first artist residency at the North Carolina Glass Center in spring 2025. Before glass, Kimberly worked as a cognitive neuroscience laboratory manager, a trail crew leader in the Colorado Rockies, and a front desk receptionist for a San Francisco start-up, among other roles. These diverse experiences continue to shape her perspective on art and its relationship to human behavior and the human experience.
Audrey Puckett
Audrey Puckett grew up in Colby, Kansas, and studied Film and Media at the University of Kansas, where she discovered a love for hands-on, repetitive work with physical film. That process led her to stained glass after experimenting with secondhand supplies, and she quickly fell in love with the medium’s play of light and color. For the past two years, Audrey has been part of Monarch, a studio with a dual focus in hot and stained glass, where she has continued to explore and expand her skills.