Jeff Nebeker (b. 1956) is a Northern California ceramic artist and professional pastry chef whose work merges the techniques and visual pleasures of baking with the irreverence of Funk art. He earned his B.A. from University of California, Davis, in 1980, where he studied ceramics with Robert Arneson and David Gilhooly and art history with Wayne Thiebaud, and received his M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1983. Nebeker became one of the first Funk ceramic artists to adapt pastry tools to clay, developing techniques for piping wet clay onto hand-built forms much like frosting onto a cake. His remarkably lifelike cakes, doughnuts, confections and portraits of artists as pastry chefs draw upon his parallel careers in ceramics and professional baking. Referencing the food imagery of Pop artists including Thiebaud and Claes Oldenburg, Nebeker transforms familiar treats into humorous, meticulously crafted sculptures. His work extends UC Davis’ Funk tradition through an unusual synthesis of ceramics, food culture and technical experimentation, collapsing distinctions between the skills of the artist and artisan.