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Finding Passion and Purpose in Pottery with Justin Kiene
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In this episode of 'Shaping Your Pottery,' engages in a conversation with artist and potter Justin Kiene. Justin discusses the importance of creating art that one loves and how this passion shapes more intriguing and unique pieces. Justin shares his journey into pottery, starting from his dabbling in high school to rediscovering pottery through a local studio in Oakland. He also recounts his influential residency experiences in Puerto Rico and Denmark, which helped him rethink his artistic practice from the ground up. Keene delves into his creative process, particularly his fascination with slip trailing and microbiology-inspired designs. He emphasizes the significance of tactile and sensory elements in his work, as well as the impact of colors. The conversation also covers the business aspect of pottery, where Justin talks about his experience transitioning to a full-time potter and the role of social media. Throughout the episode, listeners are encouraged to make art from a place of passion, surround themselves with a diverse artistic community, and not let imposter syndrome hinder their creative journey. You can learn more about justin be checking out his instagram https://www.instagram.com/justinkiene/
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00:00 Introduction and Newsletter Invitation 00:29 The Importance of Making What You Love 01:13 Justin's Journey into Pottery 02:53 Residency Experiences in Puerto Rico and Denmark 05:42 Rediscovering Pottery and Slip Trailing 10:35 Inspiration from Microbiology 13:09 Creating Sensorial Pottery 19:17 Becoming a Full-Time Potter 25:43 Finding and Developing Your Unique Voice 32:29 Final Thoughts and Contact Information
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Transcript
Introduction and Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, real quick before we get started, if you want to dive deeper into the techniques and the lessons I've learned from the potters I've interviewed, come join the Shaping Your Pottery newsletter to dive deeper and learn more about pottery. Go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash newsletter or click the links in the description.
00:00:18
Speaker
If you love pottery and want to take your skills to the next level, you're in the right place. Find your own pottery style right here on Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. Let's get started.
Creating Art You Love
00:00:29
Speaker
Justin, welcome to Shaping Your Pottery and share with me what is something you believe everyone in the pottery world should be doing? Yeah, I mean, I think everyone should be making what they love. I think that's, you know, kind of obvious maybe, but I feel like That is what creates interesting art. It creates interesting things that when you're making something that you're putting passion into and you feel inspired to do. So yeah, everyone should be pushing themselves to go deeper into something that they're that they're in love with. Absolutely agree. Shape Nation, the most important part of pottery is to make what you love because that's how you find your voice and that's how you become passionate about your work as well. Absolutely love that.
Rediscovering Pottery
00:01:14
Speaker
So tell me the story how you got started making pottery.
00:01:18
Speaker
Yeah, so the story goes after kind of dabbling throughout my childhood and like high school, I, you know, kind of fell out of practice with pottery, but I've tried to maintain an art practice with painting and drawing and sort of different types of sculpture.
00:01:35
Speaker
And around 2018, I was the local studio here in Oakland. They had a ah party with their members, people showing off their work. And I went just to check it out. And I saw some things that really challenged the way that I understood pottery to be. And one artist in particular, by the name of Kid Topher, who became a friend, who really showed me like things that I didn't think of as pottery. or Well, he's not a potter. He they would make hand sculpted ceramics. He did a lot of things that were really mind blowing for me, specifically in regards to color and what what ceramics can look like. So I started to revisit that
00:02:24
Speaker
medium as an, as a possibility and started thinking more about it. And I ended up taking a six week course and intro to wheel throwing at that studio and sort of got back into it. And that studio is now where I work as an instructor, manager tech, everything in my pottery world in my career has sort of bloomed out of that space. So that's, that's the story. Absolutely love that.
Influences from Art Residencies
00:02:53
Speaker
So tell me about your time doing a residency in both Puerto Rico and Denmark. Yeah. So when I was around 2016, I was living in Puerto Rico and I met my partner there who at the time had an art collective in the mountains with his brother and some friends. And I, I.
00:03:16
Speaker
joined the space as a as a resident and this was before i wasn't doing ceramics at the time i didn't have a practice yet i was actually making a lot of i was really just using the materials around me and what i had access to which was very little at the time because i was very i was living a lifestyle of like very low funds and very stripped down to the basics. And so what I did have access to was bamboo. There was a lot of bamboo all around where we lived. And so I would just go into the woods and chop it down with a hacksaw and build structures with the geodesic domes and installations, plant-related installations. And so that residency there
00:04:01
Speaker
was called Casa Cuniclo. There was one ceramic workshop that was hosted at the house where we did some natural wild clay harvesting techniques and sort of learning about just scooping clay from the ground. And I think that really planted a seed for me where even though we didn't fire, we didn't have access to a kill in our studio space to really kind of like do much with it, thinking about the basics of like what clay really is and where it comes from, planted an early seed that developed a couple years later. And then, yeah, in Denmark, it was something similar. This was around the same time before I had a pottery practice. I went and I would go pretty regularly throughout my 20s to stay with a close group of friends that I have there in Copenhagen. and
00:04:55
Speaker
I was, yeah, doing a a short residency at a ah now defunct collective outside of the city and the countryside. That is basically, I had the same experience where I'm like using the resources around me to create something. In this case, it was, there was no bamboo fields in Denmark. So I used some, some trees and some wood and I chopped down some wood and built some similar structures and installations.
00:05:25
Speaker
And so no clay on that trip, but I think both of the experiences sort of stripped everything away of like what I understood my art practice to be and had me kind of rethink the what it can be from from the ground up. When you started making pottery again, how did these two experiences help you with your own pottery?
Personal Connection to Pottery
00:05:49
Speaker
Yeah, I mean,
00:05:51
Speaker
I think primarily kind of what I just described with finding the basis of what Clay was, I think that played a big role in like, rethinking like I think I thought of pottery as this kind of like I didn't have much connection to it and I didn't really interact with it much and it was sort of an abstract thing for me and maybe like scooping out of the earth with my hands actual clay and realizing kind of like making connections and putting things together I think that played a big role in in sort of making it personal for me
00:06:28
Speaker
But also just witnessing other people's practices and art forms and seeing inspiration and other people's ideas. I think there was a lot of like really amazing creative people that I interacted with during those times. And there were a lot of a lot of a lot of creative seeds planted. So you mentioned that it helped you become personal for you. Tell me more about that.
00:06:53
Speaker
Well, pottery was not something that I had a ah real connection to for almost most of my life. It wasn't until, you know, my late twenties that I started to connect with it and understand what I could get out of it and what I could do with it. So I think that was the beginning of finding that personal connection and and seeing the possibilities of the roller can play for my own art practice. Absolutely love that. So let's talk about your pottery now.
Growth During COVID-19
00:07:31
Speaker
Can you tell me a story how you started making the pottery that you make today? Sure. Yeah. So I think it kind of started
00:07:41
Speaker
pre-pandemic when I was taking a class and building a practice with trying to get into the studio as much as possible to experiment with all the different like possibilities that I was starting to learn and having my mind kind of like expanded with what can What can be ah you know a pot? What can be ceramic? I had a visual language that I had used for a while in two-dimensional forms of like painting and drawing. and I think i'd originally I was trying to sort of transmit those onto just like the surface in a two-dimensional way of ah of a pot or a ah vessel.
00:08:19
Speaker
And around, well, 2020, COVID lockdown, I got like all for my job. I had all this free time. We were all just kind of like, and the house that I still live in with a group of really creative people. I bought a wheel with my stimulus check and I just sat in my basement right here where I'm sitting right now and Didn't have much of a studio built out at the time, but I just started taking every day, all this free time I had with COVID lockdown and stuff and just did pottery constantly. And in that time, I went deeper and deeper with, uh,
00:08:58
Speaker
the sort of two-dimensional forms that were in my head and they became three-dimensional and I started to develop and understand more about surface decoration and slip trailing. And then that was really the game changer for me was discovering slip trailing and falling in love with it and figuring out ways to use it in a in a way that connected to the visual language that I already had with color and form and blobs and shapes.
00:09:27
Speaker
What were you feeling when you first discovered slip trailing? I think, you know, I was discovering it felt exciting and fun, but I think what I was feeling outside of that overall in my life was despair and terror. I mean, it was early 2020, like crazy times. It was just very turbulent. It was very uncertain. You know, I was thinking a lot about death and COVID and all of these things that were happening really in an unprecedented way and so I think for most of the world that was a really
00:10:08
Speaker
turbulent time and so the act of slip trailing physically is so for me what I do with it is very meditative and I'm just doing millions and millions of dots one after the other and it's very meditative and so I think that was a way of like coming back into my body and grounding myself out of these like big scary thoughts and emotions that were taking over Absolutely love that. So you are inspired by microbiology.
Biology's Inspiration
00:10:39
Speaker
Tell me more about this and how this impacts the way you make your own pottery.
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's something that I wonder, you know, what came first and where did it come from? And, you know, I've always been really fascinated and interested in cellular biology. I think back to like when I'm in high school and college and and studying like you know, cell diagrams in a textbook and it shows this representation that's very colorful and cartoonish and you see the inside of a cell broken down into this little cartoon city of parts and and to me that's always been such a fun and interesting and amazing art form in a way, just the way that
00:11:27
Speaker
ah people choose to, or show that, choose to show that in the textbooks and represent that. And so that's always like been in my head since I was a child really, and did something I thought about the idea that there are these.
00:11:43
Speaker
little worlds all around us and within us that we don't even perceive and can't see, but they exist in this really complex and beautiful way. And then I think that always kind of being an underlying current of what I, you know,
00:12:00
Speaker
got out into an art practice became sort of doubled down during COVID. Again, it was like COVID lockdowns. I'm thinking about a virus floating through the air that can kill you and all these things and all these ideas that are like really coming to the surface from the subconscious. And I'm literally thinking about the particles all around me or stuff like that. So um I think that became and not necessarily intentional. I wasn't trying to represent these cells and these biological forms in my work, but I just started to notice that that's what my work started to look like.
00:12:43
Speaker
And then I started just thinking of them as amoeba cup. I was calling them amoeba cups and amoeba planters, because these blobs that I make, to me, it's it's an amoeba. And I don't know why, I don't know where it came from, but that's just what what it is. Absolutely love that.
The Tactile Experience of Pottery
00:13:00
Speaker
Shaped Nation, you could take your fears, whatever fears you have, and you can actually turn them into interests and make and apply it to your own pottery. I absolutely love that. So something interesting I found from your website is you said,
00:13:12
Speaker
I seek to create sensual encounters that invite people to touch and remind them to be present in their body. Can you tell me more about this? Yeah, I definitely think now about ceramics and pottery as a tactile experience and the especially with my cups and pieces that are meant to be held that have a sort of acupressure effect when you hold them in your hands. I think about it now but I didn't think about it early on and I think that act came about when I first started to
00:13:57
Speaker
see other people interacting with my work and watch people hold it in their hands and react to that and feel something in their bodies. And then yeah, that became sort of like something that I put more intention into and thought more about as I'm making something of like, what is this going to feel like? What is this going to be as a body experience? Not just something to look at and take in with your eyes. It's going to be like,
00:14:22
Speaker
a whole sensorial experience. And so that I think comes back to something I found in my life to be very helpful for times of stress and anxiety and bad feelings, returning to your body and returning to like, you know, mindfulness and being present. That's major and that's important. And I i think that can be found through interacting with pottery. Absolutely love that. Now, when you started adding this sensor sensory type of pottery, did it change the way you made before it or after? Yeah, yeah, it definitely changed the way I started to make things. Once I started to see how people were interacting with my work, it kind of informed future
00:15:18
Speaker
techniques and processes that it became suddenly originally I was thinking more visually about what is this going to look like what is the you know form gonna be when it comes out and watching people interact physically with it allowed me to start to think about what is this gonna feel like? What is this gonna do to your hands when you hold it? Or maybe even like roll it on your face or your body. I see people sometimes take my cups and like roll them like a massager. So yeah, now it's something I think about all the time. Absolutely love that. So now can you very briefly walk me through your process of adding the textured part of your pots and also how you think about the way you use colors?
00:16:01
Speaker
yeah totally so the process it's pretty straightforward trailing so I usually will throw a vessel on the wheel I'll trim it and then at the trimming stage when it's leather hard really immediately as soon as possible will apply the ah slip and I have many many jars and bottles of different colored slip. I mix batches of colors and add flocculents and deflocculents to get the perfect consistency and viscosity so that I can hold its blob form. That was probably the
00:16:41
Speaker
experimentation that took the longest to kind of get it right and get it perfect because a lot of my early things i was using like watery slip or thick slip and it wasn't really doing the things that i wanted it to do and then eventually i found this perfect sort of recipe in a way even though it's i don't i'm not measuring anything it's all kind of eyeing it up and that allowed me to get this this unique look that i had always kind of represented in my Drawing and painting into a 3d form on my pot. So that was like an exciting breakthrough for me but really it's just lots of mixing and blending with a drill and then Sorry, what was the second part of the question was how do you how do you think about adding colors into your pots? Yeah Yeah colors are a huge part of my work. That's something that i've always really been interested in taking two
00:17:38
Speaker
places that I see I see a lot of I see pottery with like earthy tones and I think of that I think a lot of people think of pottery as this sort of like there is a certain aesthetic that has this kind of classical like look to it. I initially was really inspired by people that had color and form that was something unfamiliar to me in pottery and ceramics. It was something that I didn't like know existed. And so I think that left a really strong um impression. And so ever since then, I've been really interested in taking color to its extreme and its brightest and its most... I love bright colors. I love contrasting colors. I play a lot with
00:18:26
Speaker
Contrast, I play a lot with the visual effects. I really like to use a spray gun to spray underglaze in two different tones so that you're looking at something and it kind of catches you off guard where you're like, wait, what is happening here? Is this piece kind of like floating in the air? That's something that I'm really interested in achieving with color. But I don't really put a whole lot of intentional thought behind color. To me, color is very intuitive.
00:18:55
Speaker
and I just kind of use it and I know what I like and I know what I don't and I can't really explain what's behind that. Absolutely love that. Shape Nation, don't be afraid to trust your instincts. You don't always have to plan things out. If you trust your instincts and just go with the flow and do things you like, your pottery is going to look great in the end. Absolutely love that. So let's talk about the business
Social Media and Pottery Career
00:19:20
Speaker
side of pottery. Can you tell me about the moment when you decided to become a full-time potter?
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think there was really a moment that it kind of became an idea. I think the time ah that I started to share my work on social media and put it out there in the world, um that was when things just started to naturally take that direction. So I remember You know, I, I'm not a big social media person. I didn't really ever host much or enjoy posting on like Instagram or anything. And, you know, I had an Instagram, a personal page had nothing to do with my art, but it was, it was.
00:20:07
Speaker
maybe a year or two into my deep daily like obsessive practice where I was kind of like developing a lot more work than I ever had. um I started to make things that I was really proud of and excited about and I wanted to show people beyond just my like immediate circles. um So I just started you know putting things on my Instagram page and immediately I would get feedback of quest people asking me like, Oh, can I get, and is that available? Can I buy this? And that was, you know, that's a good feeling. That's pretty validating. You're like, Oh, people want to purchase my art. So I, you know, naturally it started to become like, Oh yeah, this is available. but You know, if anyone wants it. And then I would start to promise people things and people are like, can I get one? Can you make me one? And so that happened very quickly. And it wasn't.
00:21:01
Speaker
I mean, obviously the wheels start turning and you think about like, okay, is this like a side hustle now? Is this a business? But it wasn't something that I was like, I am going to be a hotter professionally and make money off of this. And then I think very quickly within a couple months after sharing some things on Instagram, I started to get contacted by.
00:21:25
Speaker
retail shops and people doing projects curating collections to put into places and it was things that were very exciting to me that I had never really anticipated and so I was just saying yes to everything and I was like yes yes yes I'll do i'll do all of that maybe a little to my detriment because it was looking back there's a lot that I would say no to now that I that you know, I wouldn't be interested in but I had the time, I had the excitement and so I started to take those things on and then within a year or two I was doing in-person craft markets and that's a really different experience than being on the entirely virtual side of things and like interacting with people face to face is
00:22:13
Speaker
That's kind of what I was saying before, where you see people's physical reaction to picking up your work and it really kind of changes your practice in a way. It changes how you think about it. So it's kind of, there was not really one moment I can point to, but that's how it developed. Absolutely loved that. So now you have a little over 6,000 followers on Instagram, but are still able to sell out your work. What do you think helps you the most being able to sell out your work?
00:22:43
Speaker
I don't know. I wish, I mean, maybe I wish I knew it's, I don't think I have a business mindset. I don't have ah a good business mind. So I'm not really the person to analyze those things. I think it's just been working for me. I think maybe that's just.
00:23:05
Speaker
an indication that, you know, Instagram following isn't everything because I have a pretty small following and that doesn't necessarily mean that that's what is going to be the determiner of what you're going to sell. I mean, people have been selling their work long before Instagram existed and people will continue to do it after. And I don't think that's like a measure of how much you'll sell or how successful you'll be.
00:23:30
Speaker
Absolutely agree. Shapingation, you don't need the largest following. You don't even need to sell your pottery online. Find what works for you and continue doing that because you're going to have success if you find what works for you. Absolutely love that.
Crafting for Joy
00:23:43
Speaker
So now what advice would you give to someone looking to have more success selling their own work? Yeah, to have more success selling your own work i think you should be making what you're inspired to make i think that when people are making things that they don't love and that they're not drawn to and motivated naturally to make, it shows through in the work. And if you're trying to make things specifically to be like, oh, I think this will sell and I think that'll be a good thing that people, what do people want? You know, asking what people want and then doing it, as opposed to just making a bunch of stuff that you have the natural inspiration to do. I think that's much more likely to
00:24:28
Speaker
Create work that's interesting inspiring that people will be drawn to I would say maybe ah you know consider that maybe selling your work is not the end goal. you know Maybe that's not the thing that you should necessarily even aspire to. If you get joy out of making pottery and you can find a way to continue that as a hobby that you're not monetizing, then hold on to that because like a lot of times I feel like people have
00:24:59
Speaker
hobbies that they turn into a business and then it takes all the joy out of it and then you don't like it anymore. So maybe you don't wanna sell your work, rethink that maybe, I don't know. not every I think there's this idea that we have to like progress in this specific order of things. And then the natural progression is the end goal for everyone is selling their stuff they make. And I don't think that's really the case.
00:25:29
Speaker
Absolutely love that. Shaping Nation, make work that you love that inspires you, but you also don't have to be selling your work at all. If you can find a way to make pottery without selling your work, you have to win in my book. Absolutely love that.
Developing a Unique Style
00:25:43
Speaker
So now, let's talk about discovering your voice. Can you tell me about the moment when you knew you were heading in the right direction with your pottery?
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah, discovering your voice is something that, yeah, I've thought a lot about that and i ah don' it's kind of a mystery to me still. I think a moment that indicated that I was in kind of going and the right direction. I think back to this sometimes, but the studio that I work at as a tech and an instructor, we have an artist in residency every year. And so a couple of years back, one of the artist in residence was just kind of said to me out of nowhere, like, how do you how did you develop your style? How did you find your style and your voice in your work?
00:26:32
Speaker
and i didn't know how to answer that because i did and there wasn't anything that I did intentionally to to try to find a voice or try to find a style. And so it kind of tripped me up because I was like, I don't know. i just I was just making things and then it all started to look the same. And so I feel lucky that it came sort of naturally because since then I've had conversations with other people where that's been a struggle for them where they're like oh I'm you know I'm trying to like develop ah a voice and a style but I can't really you know I like your stuff because it's so cohesive and looks like you and I'm like thank you I don't know how I did that it just kind of happened so
00:27:21
Speaker
I think it's kind of going back to what I've been saying is like, make what you love. If you're making what's inside you that you feel really like inspired to make, it'll show through as like, you know, distinctively you after, after a while. Absolutely love that. And 100% agree. Now, what would you say was your biggest obstacle when you came to find your own voice?
00:27:43
Speaker
biggest obstacle. I mean, probably, you know, there's elements of self doubt and imposter syndrome, especially come from like, comparing yourself to other people or being compared to other people when people say like, Oh, this looks like so and so is working. It's like,
00:28:03
Speaker
I've had moments where I'm like, oh my God, am I just like subconsciously ripping off this person's style? But I think that's like so common with all, you know, every creative person I've talked to is like, oh yeah, I've, of course I feel that I've felt that many times. That's like, everyone feels that way.
00:28:22
Speaker
And I think, yeah, in the moment that has felt like an obstacle where I'm like, oh, shit. That's embarrassing. I fucked up. like you know I don't think you should let that get in your way if you're like feeling that. Just keep making things. Nothing is truly original. And as long as you're being honest with yourself about where your stuff is coming from, then I think you're fine. Just keep keep pushing it.
00:28:49
Speaker
So now you mentioned imposter syndrome a little bit. What do you think helped you with getting over imposter syndrome? Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I think it's like certain people are prone to it. And in those cases, it's just always going to be present as a voice that you have to like silence and learn to not listen to and train yourself to ignore. And I think some people are blessed to be confident in themselves all the time and never feel that voice creeping in. I'm not one of those people. I am still, you know, I do with it all the time, but it's.
00:29:27
Speaker
It's just a practice of getting to be comfortable with yourself and getting to know yourself and and feeling like you are true to your principles and that you're honest with yourself about who you are. Absolutely love that advice. Some excellent advice right there.
Community and Artistic Growth
00:29:44
Speaker
So now you contribute growth as an artist to surrounding yourself with a diverse community of artists. Tell me more about this. Yeah, I mean, that's like,
00:29:54
Speaker
I feel like that's crucial in anyone's practice of whatever they're doing, you know for whatever reason they're doing it. I've been very lucky to be...
00:30:07
Speaker
most of my life entrenched in a community of creative people. you know my partner I live with my partner and my friend. My partner is a tattoo artist. Our friend that we live with is ah is another an artist, a visual artist, a painter, and pretty much every all my whole friend group here in the Bay Area is some type of creative or artist and it's, it's those relationships that you pick things up that you can't learn from like, you know, watching YouTube videos or teaching yourself in a class. It's like life experience and perspectives and people talking about how things were for them in this point in their life and what that thing was like and how you can do this better. That's so invaluable. And that is really, I think, given me so, so much.
00:30:56
Speaker
absolutely 100% agree. Shaping Nation, if you want to grow your own pottery poise, grow your work, grow, find something in your art, surround yourself with other artists, not just potters, but other artists in general, you're going to get new ideas left and right, and it's going to help you grow so much. Absolutely love that. So now, what advice would you give to someone looking and to discover their own unique voice with their pottery?
00:31:20
Speaker
I would say, again, just make what you love and make what is drawing you to make it. Take an idea and take a thing that you're drawn to and stick to that and go deeper and try it again and try it slightly differently and just keep going as deep as possible. I think there are needs to be this sort of ah obsessive nature and you need to be a little like You know, crazy obsessed with this thing and go and like really zoom in and do like a deep dive on it. And eventually you'll start seeing results that you're surprised with and that you didn't expect. And then.
00:32:07
Speaker
I mean, at least for me, that was what I felt, that suddenly you have this body of work that you're looking at and you're like, oh wow, this is that and this is that. And then you're like pointing things you liked, things you didn't like, and you can kind of sort it out and like zoom in more on the places you want to take it. Absolutely agree. That was some excellent advice right there. Justin, it's been a wonderful chat with you today. And as we're coming to a close here, what is one thing you want to hammer home with my listeners today?
00:32:35
Speaker
I would say, yeah, just do what you love. keep Keep making pottery if you love making pottery. And if you're feeling like you're doing it for some other reason or whatever, then then don't do it. like If you're not feeling it, if it's not driving you, if you're not waking up every day excited to like do it and think about it, then don't do it. But yeah, make what you love, do what you love, and no know what that is.
00:33:06
Speaker
Absolutely agree. That was some excellent parting words advice. Justin, it's been wonderful chatting today. Where can my listeners go and learn more about you? Yeah, I mean you could learn about you could follow me on instagram. It's at justinkeen or you can come take a class at merit ceramics in oakland or hit me up and yeah, I don't know if You're in the bay area. I'm always down to just have a studio visit and talk pottery out on pottery with but you.
00:33:40
Speaker
hey thanks for listening this episode of shaping a pottery with nick torres if you want to ma the art of pottery and dive deeper into techniques of the pottersza interview i created a newsletter that does just that it dives deep into the techniques of the potters i interview if you want to learn more go to shapinguppoty dot com forward slash newsletter or click the link in the description learn more