Process

Coiling my own memories into each piece.

Here are some glimpses into my studio practice. I use traditional coil building techniques to make my hollow ceramic sculptures. It’s a technique that has been used for thousands of years. Coil building is an ancient ceramic process of rolling out “snakes” of clay, placing them in the desired shape, and smoothing them together. Here I’m blending my hand rolled coils together using my fingers with a hand inside to support the walls. I then use a variety of metal and rubber ribs to blend and smooth my pieces to the desired result.

I took my first introductory pottery class in 2012 but developed a steady committed practice in 2015(after I got my first full time job as a software engineer). I fell in love with and became quite proficient on the pottery wheel first. I loved throwing off the hump and making teapots. I also loved altering my thrown vessels to achieve unique shapes after but I always had this urge to express more than my functional work could say. I started coil building sculptures in 2019. It was frustrating at first and I struggled to make nice coils and control the shape of the pieces, but I’m so glad I stuck with it. Coil building gives me considerable control over the shape of my sculptures. You can carefully sculpt the coils in the air and make your sculpture bulge outward or narrow inward. The possibilities are limitless and I’m so happy I get to keep discovering what is possible with this method.