Forged by Fire:
How a Ceramic Studio is
Creating a Radical
Community

Leer en Español

Photo: Rikki Wright.

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic and racial justice uprisings, art-making—like everything else—is immensely challenging. But visual artists press on—and if any medium encapsulates the possibilities of creating beauty from high pressure and heat, it’s ceramics. Pottery is, after all, forged by fire. But the increasing popularity of the art form—across institutional shows, trendy retailers, and even Instagram how-to videos—begs the question: who gets to explore ceramics and who feels unwelcomed by the medium?

For years, ceramics has been on the rise in both the fine art and commercial design worlds. In 2015, the New York Times reported that the number of graduate students specializing in ceramics at the Rhode Island School of Design had increased by 50 percent.¹ In 2018, the Los Angeles Times highlighted efforts by educational institutions, such as CalArts and Cal State Long Beach, to make pottery tools and facilities (as well as practical knowledge about starting careers in the field) more available to students.² In 2016, Los Angeles’ own Craft Contemporary (formerly the Craft and Folk Art Museum) kicked off its annual CLAY LA fundraiser, featuring a marketplace of local vendors, with a percentage of proceeds going to the museum. This year, it also presented the second iteration of its clay biennial, The Body, The Object, The Other, featuring 21 contemporary artists. While there’s been increasing institutional interest in ceramics over the last few years, artists are still trying to fill in the gaps when it comes to representation and access in a field that often presents barriers to entry.

Seeing ceramic objects in museums or highbrow shop windows, flanked by lofty wall text and warnings not to get too close, can make the objects themselves feel inaccessible. Like with much art-making, there is also a financial barrier—a significant amount of equipment and space is needed to work with clay, and overly-expensive studio fees prevent casual experimentation. Aside from their prohibitive prices, the environments of many ceramic studios can feel particularly unwelcoming to beginners: these spaces are often predominantly white, making it hard for ceramicists of color to find community. For BIPOC, it’s often tough to even find a class where they won’t be the only person of color in attendance.

In 2017, Los Angeles native Mandy Kolahi got tired of art spaces that felt overly-professionalized and recognized the void of BIPOC-centric creative spaces. As a community organizer and activist with a focus on space-making, Kolahi wanted to build a place for creative solidarity and help BIPOC artists earn a living from their art-making. She joined forces with activist and artist Ambar Arias to create POT, a pottery studio in Echo Park that specifically aims to make ceramics more accessible to people from marginalized communities, with a focus on BIPOC artists, whom it supports through rigorous community programming. The studio hosts workshops, private parties, and classes—which include Spanish language offerings. Its online store sells wares made by POT members, and the studio offers classes on sliding scales—sometimes waiving fees entirely—and considers the trade of goods or services equivalent to payment. POT will even grant travel funding to BIPOC ceramicists living outside of Los Angeles, offering a stipend to help cover flights and free lodging. Amidst the pandemic, the studio has shifted to online classes, preparing hand-building kits for students to pick up before each virtual workshop.

The studio’s dedication to BIPOC and queer communities has been felt by ceramics lovers outside of Los Angeles. According to Kolahi, before the pandemic hit, it wasn’t unusual for people to drive two to three hours to attend POT’s classes, with some traveling from places like San Diego, Bakersfield, or Davis for the weekend. Others would plan an entire trip around attending a workshop, visiting from the Bay Area, and even the East Coast—a testament to both the need for, and success of, POT’s BIPOC- and community-centric mission.

Kolahi explained that other ceramic studios feel unwelcoming and sometimes aggressive to BIPOC: “The fact [is] that most of the spaces are owned by old white people. The microaggressions are there—they’re present. I get countless [ceramicists] of color who’ve been at other studios [and] who are dying to leave because of problematic shit that they’ve heard around the studio.” There’s something to be said for getting your hands dirty in a space that welcomes your full identity, particularly in a moment when the anger long felt by Black and brown communities over violent systemic racism is reaching a boiling point. “It’s like a physical energy transfer,” Kolahi said, describing working with clay as a way of processing feelings and experiences and re-centering oneself. “I never go to sleep feeling like my creativity hasn’t been sucked dry for the night.”

Photo: Sina Araghi.

Kolahi’s creativity is constantly utilized to problem solve, find new ways to uphold the studio’s core values, and support its members by addressing the barriers to entry that often make art-making inaccessible. Even the cost of clay and glazes can make new students feel like making mistakes—something essential to mastering a material—is a huge risk. Last year, the studio held free introductory workshops for trans, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and intersex individuals. These communities often don’t see spaces dedicated entirely to them, and POT politely asked that members not in these groups refrain from signing up for these classes. This created a safe (and unique) space for folks to be fully present as themselves. And perhaps because of the supportive space that the studio has cultivated, the community has stepped up to fund spots for those who would otherwise not be able to afford classes. Earlier this year, POT member donations and holiday sale proceeds allowed the studio to host a free workshop for Black students. Operating outside of the traditional commercial art space or even nonprofit model, POT relies and thrives on these communal gestures. While art spaces often fail to consider the needs of their communities—reflected through the gentrification of many L.A. neighborhoods—POT does the opposite, giving BIPOC artists a sense of grounding amidst rising levels of displacement.

Kolahi is purposeful in fostering this openness. For instance, POT’s instructors (including Kolahi) approach each workshop with a warmth that doesn’t reinforce the student-teacher hierarchy but instead encourages students to loosen up a little. The staff’s playful sense of humor seeps into their programming, as the studio’s past workshop titles demonstrate: “Psychedelia: Mushroom and Crystals Decorating,” “Pornaments with POT: Naughty Ceramic Ornament Building,” and “Decorate Your Own Bong.” Kolahi explained, “You’re not that worried about making this perfect vase when you’re making, like, a dildo.” POT’s playful themes are vital, creating a lighthearted point of entry into the world of ceramics. According to Kolahi, when you are in a room with others, trying to ornament your hand-built bong, “there isn’t this pressure to make high art.”

The playfulness at POT coexists with their social justice mission. Kolahi and Arias, motivated by a politics of inclusion from the start, were talking about issues like police abolition even before memes and petitions began circulating widely in recent months. Regular posts on the studio’s Instagram feature pots engraved with text like “Cops Ain’t Shit” or “Fuck the Police.” In one photo, cups on a drying rack above the sink have been painted with black glaze and the phrases “White Tears,” “Dismantle White Supremacy,” and the simple, but effective, “Fuck.”³ The studio also offers free workshops to any organizations or groups focused on police or prison abolition.

The recent uprisings have resulted in conversations around how art communities, and art consumers, might better support BIPOC artists. Many individuals are re-examining how their dollars can make a direct impact; choosing what they buy, and from whom, can be a way to directly support communities of color rather than pad the pockets of mega-corporations. Kolahi wants to help the artists at POT to shape their futures, and encourages financial independence. This support is particularly impactful for people from communities that have been historically denied loans and resources, which keeps the possibility of entrepreneurship at arm’s length. “I’m really passionate about economic empowerment and independence for Brown and Black communities,” said Kolahi. “I mean, I hate capitalism, but, you know, the country is run on money… I’m obsessed with self-enterprise, and I would love everyone to be able to self-enterprise.”

Kolahi often asks POT members if they want to sell their work, helping them to create branding and logos and sometimes even paying a staff member to help them build websites. Empowering artists to create their own brands and businesses helps them keep more of the profits and avoid splitting sales with big-name retailers. POT’s operations echo recent focuses on mutual aid, particularly in light of Covid-19—supporting creativity and entrepreneurship is especially important during tough economic times. “I just want people to be more fulfilled with the things they do to make money,” said Kolahi. “If you can make money off [of] pottery—this thing you enjoy—and survive off of it in any way, that would be great.” Fostering financial independence through supportive community investment is an important strategy that contrasts with the exclusionary gatekeeping that art institutions so often perpetuate.

When daily activities, like going for a run, become risks for BIPOC folks, art-making can feel like an unattainable luxury. Creating safe spaces that eliminate threats and aggressions for BIPOC—all while fostering experimentation and accessibility, as POT strives to do—is one way to ensure that these communities get to engage in the important act of self-expression.

This essay was originally published in Carla issue 21.

Photo: Sina Araghi.

FTP mug by Amber Arias (2017). Photo: Michelle Genevieve.

Photo: Michelle Genevieve.

Eva Recinos is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles. Her arts and culture journalism has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Hyperallergic, Artsy, Art21, and more. Her creative non-fiction writing can be found in Electric Literature, PANK, Blood Orange Review, and more. She is currently working on a memoir in essays.

More by Eva Recinos