This piece started out as a lovely little mug. The cup was thrown perfectly and the handle turned out great, but one clumsy moment of mishandling knocked the handle clean off. The shape was just too nice to throw away, so I was determined to save it. I initially tried to lean into a bug…
There is so much rich lore surrounding the dragon. While this magnificent, magical being takes on vastly different personalities and characteristics in Eastern and Western mythology, there is one undeniable commonality: its fearsome, raw power. Dragons have been portrayed by countless artists and great storytellers throughout history, which left me wondering—how do I approach my…
The Evolution of the Beast The Head & Body: In the early stage, the dragon’s head was smooth and blocky, primarily focusing on getting the silhouette right. By the bisque stage, I carved in a deep, piercing eye socket and covered the snout in fine, interlocking scales. The jagged spine plates now sharply pop off…
Behind the Mud: Going Tall with a Glaze-Driven Tumbler When you spend a lot of time at the wheel, your hands eventually want to push upward. I had been practicing throwing taller pieces, which naturally got me thinking about what I could do with a larger vertical canvas. I didn’t want to jump straight to…
The most fun I ever have playing with mud—both hypothetically and practically speaking—is when I just step back and let my inner fanboy completely take over. That’s exactly what happened with this latest batch of experimental cups. If the handles look a bit like legendary weapon hilts, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. They are directly…
Behind the Mud: Embracing the Mess on a Challenging Form Every form you throw on the wheel brings its own set of rules. For this project, I wanted to step away from standard vertical cylinders and try a classic, flared latte cup. It turns out that wide, sloping walls are a much tougher canvas. Carving…
Behind the Mud: Building a Battle in the Background As you spend more time with the wheel and the carving tools, you start to realize that what you leave flat matters just as much as what you carve. With my earlier mecha pieces, I focused heavily on the mobile suits themselves—letting their giant features morph…
Behind The Mud: Squeezing a Giant Robot Into a Small Canvas Every now and then, the studio presents you with a purely technical riddle. After working on highly exaggerated, chunky sculptural pieces, I found myself holding a much smaller cup and wondering: How much of a giant mecha can I actually fit onto a canvas…
Behind the Mud: Let the Clay Decide the Mecha Morph Every now and then, it’s incredibly grounding to dig back through the studio archives and look at pieces that pushed our boundaries. Looking back to November 2019, I remember sitting at the workbench with a fresh cylinder of wet clay and a desire to try…
There is a unique thrill in bringing a legendary rivalry to life. For this throwback, I wanted to share a pair of handcrafted ceramic tea cups featuring the ultimate anime duo: the RX-78-2 Gundam and Char’s Custom Zaku II. They were meant to be a perfect match—nemeses by destiny captured in clay. But if you’ve…