Today we’d like to introduce you to Samantha Choo.
Hi Samantha, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I feel like I am just beginning my story. But here’s the beginning… I was born in March 1994 to a Jehovah’s Witness family. The only thing I did religiously was watch HGTV, which inspired me to become an interior designer. To leave the religious group, I needed to leave home so I went to college. First arriving in LA fall of 2012 to attend the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. I majored in Environmental Design, which is a study of spaces, all the little things that can make up a room or environment. Everything from an object to furniture, lighting, temperature, sounds, smells, touch affects the way you experience anything. Anyway, at the end of the program, you get a Bachelor of Science and a love for Bauhaus design. My senior project was called Beacon, it was about a tea house in Muir Woods. I used CAD to design the tea set, then sent an .stl file to a company that would 3D print and cast my designs.
After a few weeks, I received a box of ceramics not realizing there were things called pottery studios and they were in my area! By 2017, I was working my first design job in LA. I worked on such a wide range of project types there, such as: commercial retail projects, luxury resorts, urban planning and design projects, etc. The 9-6 grind wore on me and wondering what else could be out there for me once Covid hit. Eventually, I was laid off too. A blessing in disguise. I lived off savings, severance, unemployment, stimulus while I did some soul-searching. I used that time to recenter myself. Then, eventually, I was admiring a vase at a friend’s house and she told me she made it, that she went to this magical place where she took pottery classes and became a member and had a little shelf, and I immediately signed up for a class, my first lesson was on my birthday. Anyway, After my first class, I was hooked, a wheel addict. Absolutely obsessed. I would spend my whole day at the studio, I would pack lunch and dinner and just sit at the wheel and practice for hours and hours. I was awful. That was March 2021.
After a couple of months of obsessive practice, there was a sign at the studio calling for members to teach some beginner wheel classes, I figured I would be pretty good at teaching a couple of beginners since all the beginning learning curves were still fresh in my mind and body so I began teaching with The Pottery Studio by November 2021. While teaching, I saw more improvement in my own throwing. I signed up for a market with Maum, it was their Chinatown market in Spring 2022, and things started to gain some momentum from there. I met a community of makers and artists who inspire me to keep going. They gave me great feedback and encouragement. So signing up for more markets eventually lead to teaching workshops, lead to a few custom art jobs, lead to consignments at cool shops. It’s hard to keep up with everything while also working my day job and that leads us to here now in March 2023.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Well, I grew up as a first-generation Korean-American in a strict Jehovah’s Witness community and then left so the tension is intense whenever I visit my childhood home. We are civil but not close anymore and since I left, I think my sister is shunning me and I try not to think about it. We used to be best friends but the last time we talked was on her wedding day in 2018. Lots of feelings of loss and loneliness from that. I struggle with my mood most days. I was on antidepressants for a few years but since this year we have weaned off and are trying to find more natural and sustainable ways to not fall into depression holes. My solutions thus far have been to take 10,000 IU of Vitamin D every morning. Exercise, I know I hate it too. I go to hot yoga and that’s all I can manage. Go outside and immerse yourself in your community at least three times a week. And when I enter the hateful hole and begin to hate myself and my work, usually after the sun goes down, I eat some food, drink water, walk my dog, and go straight to bed. I usually am in a better mood by the morning. I know I need therapy. TikTok tells me so. But so far art is my therapy, my dog is my therapy. Besides, isn’t pain supposed to be an artist’s greatest weapon?
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am currently focusing on sculptural pieces and home decor. I am still relatively new to this so I still have so much to discover as I develop my creative voice. I think since my Bauhaus background I am enjoying creating with no plan, function follows form. I don’t really know what I will end up making, although; I start every project with a loose idea, most of it is a day-by-day process of working with a piece until I am happy with it enough to share with the rest of the world. When it is time to share, I enjoy sharing my work through still-life photography almost like painting through objects. A nod to the first explorers of light and composition. I am inspired by baroque-era paintings, it’s so dramatic and sultry for no apparent reason and I love it.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
I feel like my childhood was so long ago I barely recall much of it…I remember feelings…like the warm feeling of being held by my father when I was five, poking his Adam’s apple, completely amazed at how he could move it up and down on command and feeling mine trying to move it with my mind, not realizing it’s just your body swallowing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.studiojii.com
- Instagram: @studio_jii
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/studio-jii/
Image Credits
All photos all taken and edited by artist: Sam Choo (me)
