Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Asa and Daisy Maestas. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Asa and Daisy, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

As artists and teachers, it’s a very important thing for us to understand our craft. When it come spinning clay on the wheel, it can seem like a very easy task when you see someone skilled doing it. But learning it is a process that takes years to master. When I was learning, one of my instructors told me that I wouldn’t even begin to understand the clay until a ton of it had passed through my hands. Your standard mug is made with approximately one pound of clay, so making it to a ton of clay thrown is going to take quite a while. I realized very quickly that my learning came more from my failures than my successes, and so I became someone who didn’t shy away from messing the pot up. I encourage my students to do the same. It’s not always fun starting out watching something that you’ve put so much effort into making crumble before your eyes because you tried to push it too far, but after a while it doesn’t phase you. It’s just another pot that you’ve learned a lesson from.

Asa and Daisy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

For Daisy and I we both have our own relationship with clay. We met each other in a ceramics studio each pursuing this medium that had spoken to us so deeply. That’s been a very big driving force for us as a couple because it isn’t just one of trying to make this work, but our whole life is built with this craft worked into it.

As a teenager I had a lot of issues. I had terrible self worth issues. I felt alone all the time. I was depressed and I didn’t even know it because speaking up about my problems seemed like I would have been trying to be too self important. I lost my mom to cancer when I was fourteen. When I was fifteen my brother left to the navy and me and my dad moved to California. I am originally from there but the majority of my life at that time had been spent in Phoenix, so it felt like moving to a new place. It was an incredibly dark time for me. I often had thought around not being alive anymore. I never attempted to doing anything like that, but they were thoughts that were with me everyday for years. It was in this place that I started taking ceramics in high school. I had a teacher who cared about his students unlike any teacher I had ever had. He played the part of a philosopher to me, constantly asking questions that provoked me to re-examine how I viewed reality. At the same time I was learning how to work with clay and was being given an outlet to express myself in a way I never had. And with all my issues of self identity, the praise from other students in my class made ceramics something I could find my worth in. For the first time a long time I was actually seeing myself as valuable and capable, and it wasn’t solely due to clay, but it was absolutely enveloped by it. After high school I took a semester at a local junior college and then I ended up moving back to Phoenix. Once I was back in Phoenix I found a studio where I could work clay again and then it wasn’t long till I met Daisy. There a whole other story there, but that’s the beginning of my walk with clay.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

It might seem odd to some and obvious to others but the book that has impacted our business the most is the Bible. It’s full of wisdom for how to conduct yourself with people, with money, with situations that make you examine your values. It’s just a book that give a complete package of how to move forward. It’s a bit of a heated topic for the last 2000 years, but it’s definitely the core of who we are and how we try to conduct ourselves. It’s seems like a bit of a fools errand to try and make a living as an artist sometimes, but it’s actually been what we’ve learned from the Bible that has led us into doing this. There are many great lesson on boldness and doing things that make you uncomfortable just because it’s the right thing to do. It’s definitely not a normal American lifestyle being an artist, so living a different way from the rest of the world just kind of comes naturally.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think that our society at large is incredibly shallow and superficial. I know individuals are not that way most of the time, but our society seems to lack depth. There have been a couple of instances while selling at a market that people have been surprised at the prices that I charge for my work. Spending 40$ on a mug seems like an absurd number to some, but for handmade pottery that’s actually fairly reasonable. When I compare to other potters I encounter out in the wild, I’m often charging less than them. But I also completely understand why someone would be perplexed at spending that kind of money on a coffee mug. I don’t think people understand this craft and we have a society that can have every single need filled at a single department store. Obviously the quality is wanting, but you can get most of what you need to live at a dollar store. I’m not knocking that though, its really impressive that we as humans have created such a proficient system that we don’t really need to worry about how to get things anymore. But it’s also an illusion. Just because we don’t really see it here in the states it doesn’t mean that there isn’t someone working in a sweatshop for you to have a mug for a dollar. I think one of the best things that you can do for creatives in your area is to invest in an artisan who is making something useful and purposeful that you don’t know how to do. Something made here in the states is always going to be more expensive, but finding a people who make their products themselves your often going to find a better quality product.

Contact Info:

• Website: thekingandtheflower.com
• Instagram: @thekingandtheflower
• Facebook: Facebook.com/@thekingandtheflower
• Youtube: The king and the flower

Image Credits
Asa maestas Photo by Daisy maestas