Medium/Technique: Ceramic arts
Location: Montreal, Quebec
Website: https://www.yyycollection.com/
1. How would you describe your art and artistic practice?
A little bit silly, a little bit sci-fi and a little bit perfectionist.
2. How did you first get into pottery and ceramic arts?
My grandparents were potters, and I grew up with all their wares around the house--my Dada’s brown pots and my Omi’s celadon porcelain. I always thought I would also become a potter when I retired because I knew it would take over my life if I started. And then I started by accident while living in New York in 2010. Whoopsie.
3. Where do you find inspiration for your work?
I am inspired a lot by shapes and colour. Simple stacked shapes. Recently I have been into nostalgia and queerness in objects.
Top row, L--R: Porcelain and coloured porcelain cups, 2024 // TV Guide sculptures from Fakes and Weirdos series, 2024 // Porcelain and coloured porcelain sculptures and vessels with blue stoneware and underglaze stool, 2024. All photos by Nathan Lang
Botton bow, L--R: Pink stoneware table, 2024 // Chips, banana and apple core sculptures from Fakes and Weirdos series, 2024 // Blue stoneware and underglaze stool, 2024. All photos by Nathan Lang.
4. Can you walk us through your creative process, from initial idea to sourcing materials to the physical act of making?
It’s hard to have a clear start and end for my process. It’s ever-evolving and never-ending. I can have an initial idea but then as I start making, it will evolve naturally with the materials on hand or ideas that stem from the process itself.
5. You also work in other mediums. How does your interdisciplinary arts background influence your ceramic practice?
I believe that everything I do comes into my ceramic practice somehow as I am only one and the same person. Did I start doing functional work because I worked in food? Or did I start making jewelry out of ceramic because I worked in fashion? Probably.
6. In what ways do you use your practice and techniques to push conventional boundaries?
I have been working with nerikomi techniques in the last couple of years and have developed a way of throwing pattern with minimal distortion. I am now pushing that further with atmospheric research of using reactive materials in my coloured clay bodies. Essentially making my clay body a glaze.
Left: Blue stoneware and underglaze stool with ceramic harlequin romance book sculpture and coloured porcelain goblet, 2024. Photo by Nathan Lang
Right: Salt fired black and white porcelain cup thrown with nerikomi pattern, 2023. Photo by Nathan Lang
7. Tell us about a favourite piece or collection you’ve created and why it’s so memorable.
I perhaps have a favourite piece at the moment, but because I am ever changing it won’t stay my favourite for long. I recently made my most successful stool/table to date from thrown components (my fourth attempt at thrown furniture) that I am really excited about.
8. What have you encountered in your career so far that readers (or other artists) might find surprising or unexpected?
I think the fact that I have had about 6 different “careers” so far in my life. They are all self made ventures (except for being a bike messenger in New York--I was employed by someone other than me). Sometimes I wonder what the next one will be.
9. In what ways do you hope your own practice continues to evolve?
I hope to never stop changing or researching. I never want to be stuck making the same things forevermore.
10. Pay it forward -- tell us about something or someone our readers should know about.
I think everyone should know the work of Marina Lopez (@1loma). She is a queer ceramic artist, friend and collaborator, and taught me so much about nerikomi. We sometimes do workshops together. Her work is whimsical and fantastic.
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