Nyssa Mariah Barrick

How many of us lose sight of our child-like enthusiasm for whimsy and the beauty to be found in nonsensical magic? Or of joy to be had in the odd that sparks happiness deep in our souls?

Ceramics excites me because it is nothing if not process driven, and I find I am a process driven individual. The ebb and flow of the making process helps me on my journey towards centering myself and healing from past traumas as I grow through my work and learn to try to not take Life too seriously and my work does not take Life too seriously either. Living with beautiful objects that pay tribute to the pain of healing is soulful and a reminder of our humanness. My goal is to inspire and invite those that see my sculptural and functional work to look more closely at the world around them and rediscover their childlike enthusiasms and the joy in the beauty to be shared in the unusual, messy, and sometimes odd that can be found in all of us and reconnect to that inner child.

The purpose of my tableware is to be accessible to everyone. To bring beauty to the most simple, mundane, and repetitive of actions that we all partake in in our daily lives, eating and drinking, and to bring to those actions a bit of ritual and magic.

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*Raku is a traditional Japanese firing technique that results in fiery coppers and bright turquoises usually. These are produced by firing a piece of pottery at a low temperature, but removing the piece from the kiln while it is still glowing red hot, and then placing it in a combustion chamber that is filled with a material that would catch fire such as saw dust, newsprint, pine needles, etc. and then “flamed out” at which point the pottery is removed and cooled, thus resulting in the Raku carbon trapping blacks on the raw unglazed clay body and the copper flashing on the glazed turquoise, and a variation of other colors within the glaze.