New year
I’m excited to share some new creations with you this year. Last year I really honed in on a natural color palette, and I loved how cohesive my work felt by the end of the year. The rich greens, browns, and black and white combinations feel like a true brand for me now. I plan to stick with this palette for my wheel thrown work this year. Getting to a place where my glazing feels reliable and cohesive has taken time, but it has been so worth it.
Even with a solid group of go to glazes, I still have so many ideas I want to explore. One big goal this year is to bring hand building back into my ceramic practice. That means experimenting with new techniques, and one I’m especially excited about is a traditional Japanese method called nerikomi. This technique involves mixing multiple clay bodies together to create high contrast designs. Most nerikomi pieces are left unglazed or finished with a clear glaze so the pattern and clay itself can really shine. The clay becomes the main attraction.
Nerikomi patterns can be very precise, like stripes, circles, or checkerboards, but they can also be fluid and marbled, making each piece completely one of a kind. I’m especially drawn to checkered patterns and hope to work my way into more complex designs as I experiment. I am hoping to re-create my most popular item: checkered mugs. I am hopeful that I can create a checkered nerikomi design, to honor my current checkered mugs that are glazed in a checkered design.
While nerikomi takes away the guesswork of glaze selection, it introduces a new set of challenges. When choosing clay bodies for this technique, their drying and firing shrink rates need to be within one to two percent of each other. If they are not compatible, the finished pieces can crack or even pull apart during drying or firing.
Last week I made a trip to Rovin in Ann Arbor, the closest clay store to me. I wrote down shrink rates, compared clay bodies, and eventually swiped my card. I’m excited to work with blue, black, white, and brown clay. I think the designs will feel fun while still tying back to the work I loved making in 2025. I especially love the idea of mixing cobalt blue, brown, and white clay to create something geometric, abstract, and modern. I imagine these pieces as small plates and cups.
So how will this change my studio routine? I’ll be spending a lot less time at the wheel. Instead of wedging, throwing, and trimming, my process will focus more on wedging, slicing, and assembling. That also means much less water, and my rib tools will be replaced with carving tools. I’ve been watching lots of YouTube videos and I’m really looking forward to getting started.
The early stages of this transition will definitely be experimental, and I’m sure there will be some failures along the way. But honestly, I can’t think of a better way to kick off the new year.
Stay tuned for process updates and hopefully some successful nerikomi!