We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lily Martin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lily below.

Lily, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

My most meaningful project was an experimental exhibition where I built 7-foot tall towers out of raw clay in two weeks and destroyed them at the closing reception. This experience was physically demanding because I threw 400 pounds of clay in a short period of time. It was also psychologically liberating because I was able to create without being concerned about a tangible outcome.

This project taught me that finding your community is so important for artistic growth. My initial vision for the exhibition was a relatively small, single tower, but a close group of artist friends helped me expand this into something more than I thought I would be able to do. They seeded ideas that grew into the final project and helped me pushed my boundaries beyond my expectations.

A massive failure near the end of the project also helped cement this experience in my memory. When the towers were complete, one of them collapsed took the other towers down with them like giant dominoes. I felt so disappointed and embarrassed to show my work at the closing reception. However, my artist colleagues stepped in and helped me deal with the broken towers and incorporate it into the final exhibition in a way that felt honest and genuine. I am forever grateful for their ways of seeing and their ability to approach any situation with curiosity and acceptance.

During the closing reception, I turned the towers into a water fountain that eroded the clay sculptures back into mud. The mud was eventually recycled into usable clay, so at the end, it was almost like nothing had ever happened except for this beautiful burst of creation for whomever happened to witness it. The impermanence of this exhibit strikes me as a little microcosm of life and the situations that we find ourselves in. Time passes, things come and go, we fail/recover/adapt and while this process might feel limiting to us in the moment it ultimately liberates us.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a ceramic artist based in Ventura County, California. I specialize in making homewares—from cups, bowls and vases to hanging sculptures—all things that add a little bit of earthy and organic feeling to your living space. My style leans towards minimalism with a touch of naturalism and refinement, and I always try to preserve the human touch in my work. None of my pieces look like they’ve been pressed by a machine—the asymmetry is something I enjoy about the look of handcrafted ceramics.

My journey in ceramics has been a way to rediscover the self. Previously, I worked for over a decade as a corporate lawyer, which led to burn out and a deep sense of not knowing who I was. Working with clay has been a way to commune with self and others in a different way, in a quieter environment where it’s easier to hear myself feel and think, and the physical nature of manipulating clay helps me connect with my body.

This craft is also a way for me to connect with our deep history, as humans have relied on ceramics for nearly 30,000 years. It fascinates me how ancient peoples accumulated just massive amounts of knowledge of clays, glazes and firing. It’s such an ancient technology that basically uses a humble material made of decomposed rock–clay–and heats it up to the temperature of lava to create something that is as durable as stone. The circular nature of this process feels so poetic to me.

A big theme in my artistic process is embracing the unknown, accidents and imperfection. When I was a lawyer, I sought to predict and avoid all risk, which soaked into my psyche and made me anxious and overly risk avoidant. Through making ceramics, I’ve learned that the most beautiful and resonant pieces can arise from accidents and synchronicity, so in my work, I try to let go and loosen my grip on the outcome.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Before I was a ceramist, I worked as a corporate lawyer for over a decade. As a lawyer, my life was ruled by structure, predictability and avoiding risk. Now as an artist, I get to create my own structure and I must embrace unpredictability, since the ceramic process has a high rate of failure and surprises. I’ve learned that predictability only gets you so far in creating that really special piece and that accidents can lead to the most beautiful work.

So I ended up in law like so many people because I was a good student but had no idea what I wanted from life except to get my parents off my back. The prestige and the paycheck were nice, but the workload was so heavy and I felt like people expected me to be decisive and have all the answers when in fact the opposite were true. Despite the grind, I finally made it to in-house counsel which is supposed to be a sort of promised land for corporate attorneys but this “success” felt empty and lonely. I started to get nauseous every morning on my way to work and I knew I had to leave and chart my own path.

I left law without a clear plan but with the idea to give myself space to explore the things that drew my curiosity. I stumbled into a neighborhood ceramics class and was instantly drawn by the focus that it required and the complexity of the craft. I met some amazing professors at local community colleges who helped open my eyes to all the possibilities of ceramics and found a community of humble, honest and hard-working potters who helped me through times of vulnerability and growth. I have met some of the nicest, open and community-oriented people along my journey.

Now as an artist, personal growth is baked into each creation in clay. The failures are often, but each experience gives me the opportunity to learn a little more about myself. I am so grateful to have this humble material to learn from about life.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve always had a strong work ethic which brought me a lot of success in school and the corporate world. But ceramics has taught me that working relentlessly can be detrimental and that rest is critical for creativity.

A common thing that you hear amongst potters is that if you’re not centered, you can’t center, which is a process of making sure all the clay sits directly in the middle of the wheel before you start to throw a form. I used to be the type of person who would try to ignore my frustrations and use the work to keep moving forward. But at the wheel, when you’re feeling unbalanced, your hands and body will work against you and you won’t be able to center the ball of clay. Now if you try to throw a vase from that off-centered clay, it will be a struggle the entire time and end up wobbly and will probably make you more annoyed than when you started out.

So since inner balance is crucial to clay work, I take the extra step of making sure I feel emotionally grounded before I start work in my studio. That might mean doing some journaling, going on a hike, or most frequently extending some compassion to my inner self. I still struggle at this because the disciplinarian within me wants to crank out work to make for up whatever insecurity lies inside. But stopping to rest is a practice that I’m actively trying to cultivate in my ceramics process because of how important it is to the inner self.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.iamimperfectpottery.com
• Instagram: @iamimperfectpottery

Image Credits
All images with me in them — Roxanne Casas