Today we’d like to introduce you to Michelle Grimm.
Hi Michelle , thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’ve had a long and winding career path starting in the fashion industry in NYC then eventually moving onto designing art-based commercial interiors in Sydney, Australia.
Maintaining a personal art practice separate to my design work has always been really grounding and essential for me. I started working with clay about five years ago after enrolling in a figure sculpture class as a supplement to life drawing and to help decompress from the stress of my day job. Getting to use my hands in an analogue way was often missing in my design work and clay specifically allowed me a connectivity and physicality to my work that I had never experienced before. Clay also happens to be a very philosophical medium offering up lessons in humility, patience, balance, failure, curiosity, playfulness and above all, letting go.
My love of working with fire and primitive ceramics techniques was only discovered about three years ago while working on the concept design for a restaurant in Sydney where their primary cooking methods are fire, smoke and steam. Researching how fire and smoke translate into materiality got me curious and I eventually began implementing the use of fire and smoke into my work with ceramics.
I moved to Vancouver, BC in 2020 and as the world was shutting down, I opened up my ceramics studio where I have been collaborating with earth and fire ever since.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
I saw the global shutdown of the Covid pandemic as an opportunity to naturally transition into my ceramics practice full-time. My design projects had all come to a halt, we had just moved across the world, and there was nothing else for me to do but the thing I loved the most.
Starting a business is always hard and anyone working with clay will likely tell you that failure is part of the process! You have to be alright with things being out of your control and you learn to quickly pick yourself up when things go wrong while still acknowledging that they happened. It’s exciting and terrifying all in the same breath.
Things blow up in the kiln, work doesn’t always survive the process and increasingly dry weather conditions narrow the window for working directly with fire outdoors. You have to just roll with it and think outside the box. When things do work out, it is the most exhilarating feeling in the world. The hardships make me enjoy it even more and I love that my curiosity is eventually rewarded.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a multi-disciplinary artist and designer currently working with clay as my primary medium. For the past few years, I have been exploring atmospheric firing techniques like raku, horse hair, saggar pit firing, soda firing and wood firing.
My ceramics are minimal in form and often left unglazed to allow ash, smoke/carbon, salt or other organic materials from the firing process to add color and texture to the pieces I create. Using these specific firing methods allows for an unpredictable alchemy between earth, artist and fire acting together to create each piece’s unique personality. My work invites us to celebrate the element of chance, accepting and embracing that which we cannot completely control.
Each piece is one of a kind work of art and can not be exactly reproduced. Every vessel I create gets to become what it wants rather than what I want for it.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
In life, quiet moments make me happy. Life can be so chaotic so any moments of stillness we can gather feel like a real a gift. That can look like a sunny corner in my apartment drinking my morning coffee, that time spent preparing a meal for loved ones or just listening to the sound of the stream that runs outside my studio.
Quiet moments allow me to appreciate the louder times in life and the simple pleasures around me.
In ceramics, there is nothing better than opening up the kiln after waiting for days for it to cool and seeing that “The Kiln Gods” have given you pure magic! And yes. Kiln Gods are a thing. There are so many ways things go sideways potters have been historically superstitious calling on or blaming the kiln gods!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.michellegrimmceramics.com/
- Instagram: @the_mgrimm
Image Credits
Jeremy Wong, Jarusha Brown, Sophia Hsin, Jenny Liu
