​A native of Nashville, Tennessee, Kirke has 25 years of experience studying, teaching, and professionally producing ceramics and building kilns. He has worked in ceramics studios throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. He first discovered ceramics while still a teenager at the Cranbrook Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, MI. Afterwards, Kirke received his BFA with a concentration in ceramics from the Appalachian Center for Crafts, Tennessee Technological University. Then he supplemented his education and professional formation with an apprenticeship with John Glick and by working in a studio at Micki Schloessingk’s Bridge Pottery in South Wales. He established his M4 Studios in Rock Hall, Maryland in 2002, and moved to Keedysville in 2004