Guillermo Cuellar was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela in 1951. He grew up in Caracas and in the early ’60s he travelled to the United States to complete high school.He studied ceramics at Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa, where he majored in Art, French and Geology, graduating in 1976.After a three year job with the World Wildlife Fund in Venezuela he returned to pottery in 1980. In 1986 he set up a studio in the village of Turgua, an hour southeast of Caracas, where he made pots for sixteen years.In 1981 he worked as assistant to Warren MacKenzie, who was teaching in Caracas and with whom he regularly shared workshop experience from 1984 to 2006.

Guillermo has taught workshops sponsored by the Venezuelan Association of the Arts of Fire and assisted in those given by MacKenzie, Linda Christianson, Clary Illian, Randy Johnston and Jan McKeachie, David Leach and Mark Pharis.His work has been on display in the Venezuelan National Art Gallery, the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Caracas Sofia Imber, the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Puerto Rico, The Smithsonian Institution, The Northern Clay Center in Minnesota and private galleries in the United States, England, Venezuela, and Chile.In 1992 he and other Venezuelan potters founded Grupo Turgua, a non-profit association of craftspeople dedicated to the support of hand made objects in Venezuela. From 1992 to 2005 Guillermo hosted twenty-eight group sales offering pottery, jewelry, photography, woodwork, drawing, weaving, Venezuelan native handwork and other creative expressions.

In 2005 he moved to the upper St. Croix river valley near Shafer, Minnesota. Here he established a home and studio with his wife, Laurie MacGregor, and children, Carlos and Alana.

In 2009 Guillermo was invited to participate as a host on the Minnesota Potters of the Upper St. Croix Valley Annual Pottery Tour after being a guest potter at Linda Christianson’s studio for the prior three years. When not making pottery, Guillermo enjoys being on the beautiful and scenic St. Croix River.