Tiffany Hokanson is interested in what happens next.

What happens to a piece of rusted metal after someone decides it is no longer useful? What remains after a building is demolished or a landscape is changed by fire? What can an imperfect surface tell us about where it has been?

And what might something become when you refuse to believe its story is finished?

“I’m typically drawn to materials that have been damaged or cast aside in some way,” Tiffany says. “The work is a way for me to prove that there still is potential in everything.”

That sense of possibility has followed Tiffany throughout a life in art that began when she was just 14.

The Moment It Clicked

Tiffany started working with ceramics in junior high, learning to throw clay on a wheel largely by doing it again and again.

There were mistakes. There was practice. And then there was one particular day when she finally centered the clay.

“The light bulbs went on,” she remembers. “It was just such a beautiful, brilliant moment. One of the most exciting moments in my life.”

Something else clicked too.

“I thought, wow, I’m a maker, like I’m an artist.”

Her parents encouraged her interest and arranged for her to take lessons with local stone sculptor Paula Thone, who also worked in sculptural ceramics.

Tiffany continued that education formally, eventually earning both a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts with a focus on printmaking and ceramics, but her artistic education never really stopped.

In many ways, experimentation has become the foundation of her practice.

Following the Work

Ceramics and printmaking remain central to Tiffany’s work, but over time she has become less interested in staying within the boundaries of a particular medium.

Her work now incorporates metal, paper, found objects, photography and other materials and processes depending upon what the piece calls for.

“ I see the work as always evolving,” she says.

That may explain her attraction to things that already have a history.

Tiffany does not necessarily want pristine material. Rust, wear, damage and imperfections can make an object more interesting because they create a sense of depth. reveal where it hasbeen.

“I want the thing that you’re convinced is useless done because I can pick it up and push it toward create the next iteration or the next part of that story.”

She is not trying to erase the past of those materials. She is allowing that history to transform .

“That story isn't over.”

Art Shaped by Place

Place has always been important to Tiffany.

She grew up in Roseburg in Oregon’s timber country and later lived in Southern Oregon while completing her undergraduate education. She is drawn to rural landscapes and particularly to places that are changing.

During the devastating 2020 wildfire season, she created work connected to the Archie Creek Fire near where she grew up and the Almeda Fire in Southern Oregon. She has also worked at demolition sites, sorting through what remained and reclaiming materials for her art.

Those experiences revealed something about the environments that continually attract her.

“The demolition, the wildfire, the dump, all of those environments are very action heavy, very chaotic,” Tiffany says. “You can go in one day and things look totally different the next day.”

That unpredictability becomes part of the creative process.

A material Tiffany discovers on a particular day might change the direction of a piece. A photograph might become a print. A found object might make an impression in clay and then appear again in another medium.

“I really do like that element of chance,it’s exciting to see what’s going to show up today in the environment.”

Her finished work is largely abstract, allowing viewers to bring their own experiences and interpretations to it. Across mediums, texture and line continually emerge as important elements.

“My surfaces are very active,” she says. “If I were to narrow it down to one or two formal elements that’s always showing up in my work, it’s definitely texture and line.”

Sometimes a Piece Has to Wait

Tiffany’s willingness to let a work evolve can mean waiting until the right answer appears.

While working with a demolition crew, she recovered two pieces of battered steel flashing from an old building. She loved the relationship between them, but something was missing.

They waited.

Then, at a scrapyard, she found two cut I beams.

Suddenly, she knew.

The I beams became bases for the pieces, which Tiffany welded together herself. The completed sculptures eventually appeared in an exhibtiion “Material Matters,” highlighting the significance of material in an artists work.”.

“It’s satisfying to wait and finally see a resolution.’  The story is particularly fitting for an artist who does not believe every creative problem needs an immediate answer.

Artist and Teacher

Today Tiffany is an Assistant Professor of Art and Design at George Fox University, where she teaches ceramics.

Teaching is not separate from her identity as an artist. It is deeply connected to it.

“I wouldn’t be where I’m at if it weren’t for all of the people that were so generous in teaching me,” she says. “And that’s actually why I am a teacher, to pay all of that forward.”

She teaches technique, but she also wants students to understand the less comfortable parts of being an artist: experimentation, rejection, failure, doubt and the discipline required to keep making.

Tiffany does not believe inspiration simply appears.

“I believe that inspiration comes from continually practicing, and for me, it comes from the piece that came before.  My work is always evolving.”

She keeps a sketchbook and journal to capture ideas she can return to when inspiration is harder to find. Most importantly, she tries to maintain momentum.

“Artwork is work.”

It is advice she carries into the classroom and would give to emerging artists as well.

There will be rejection. Things will go wrong. Not everything an artist makes will become the piece they imagined.

Make it anyway.

“A lot of the work that I’ve done was from trying and not doing it right first.”

And perhaps most importantly:

“Believe that you have a unique voice. You have something to bring to this world that no one else has. Your story needs to be told.”

Finding Home in Yamhill County

Tiffany moved to Yamhill County in 2024 to join George Fox University and quickly found connections to the rural Oregon communities that have shaped much of her life.

“I love it here,” she says.

Her colleagues, students, and mentors at George Fox gave her an immediate artistic community. She has since become involved in public art in Newberg and continues to build relationships throughout the county.

In 2026, that circle expanded again when Tiffany was selected as one of the Arts Alliance of Yamhill County and Recology Western Oregon Artists in Residence.

The residency feels remarkably aligned with the  artistic practice Tiffany had spent years developing.

At the Recology transfer station, she is working entirely with reclaimed materials, currently gravitating toward clay, metal and paper. But just as important as what she finds is the unpredictability of finding it.

The landscape changes. Materials move. Something available one day may disappear the next.

For Tiffany, that is not necessarily a problem.

Presence  is part of the work.

The residency has also helped connect her to the community she now calls home.

“I think this residency specifically and the Arts Alliance has helped me meet so many people I never would have met. I’ve been able to explore more of McMinnville that I never would have seen on my own.”

She has also formed a creative connection with fellow 2026 Artist in Residence Chuck Lawrence, whose mechanical ability has become another influence on the practical side of making the work. “This place is home now,” Tiffany says.

There Is Still Potential

Listen to Tiffany talk about discarded materials long enough and it becomes clear that she is not really talking only about objects.

Her philosophy of art is grounded in possibility.

She sees value in experimentation. She teaches students that mistakes are part of becoming better artists. She believes one work leads to another. She finds beauty in materials carrying visible evidence of their past.

And she pushes back against the idea that something imperfect, damaged or unsuccessful has reached the end of its usefulness.

“There’s always hope,” Tiffany says.

Perhaps that is the thread running most clearly through her work.

Not perfection but possibility. 

The willingness to look at something the world has already dismissed and ask a different question: What could happen next?