I’M AN ARTIST.
I spend my days making art.
My focus has been ceramics for the past three or four years now. I don’t really want to call myself strictly a ceramicist, because I just see myself as an artist, and I don’t want to put myself in such a small box. I love working with a variety of mediums, but I really love ceramics. I view ceramics as my soulmate, as a medium. But that’s what I do.
I took a ceramics class in college, which was over a decade ago, I think, 2012. I just took one class, and I loved it. I almost went into the intermediate ceramics course, but the problem was, you had to go talk to the teacher to sign up, you couldn’t just sign up online, and at the time, I was really shy. The teacher, he wasn’t mean or scary, but his vibe was kind of intimidating to me, because he was very confident, and I just was very, you know, meek. I was like, “I don’t really want to have to talk to him to get into this class”. I’d rather just not sign up and miss out, rather than be uncomfortable and talk to him.
THE CLAY WILL TELL ME WHAT IT WANTS TO BE AS I’M SCULPTING
Anyway, fast forward to 2022, and everything’s opening up after COVID. Around that time, I was getting back into my handmade, DIY roots, because, up until that point, I had been making more merchandise-type stuff, like enamel pins and t-shirts of my own design, and I just really wanted to get back into making things by hand. I found this local art co-op makerspace, and they had ceramic classes, and I was like, “You know what? I think I’m gonna sign up and do this”.
So I did. I almost quit by the third day.
It was a six-week course, once per week, and on the third week, I almost quit because I thought I really sucked at it. I was miserable. This was a nighttime class, and I’m a morning person. Every class was three hours long. I didn’t get home until 9:30pm, and I was just like, “I hate my life right now”. Everybody else in the class looked like they could understand how to pull, and how to make sure everything’s level, and how to throw properly, because this was a wheel throwing class. And I just couldn’t get it, you know? But I had this thought that was, like, “You know, you’re not always going to be perfect at everything that you do when you start out”, and so I felt like it was important that I just stick with it and finish the class, so that way I could say, “Hey, at least I tried!”
By the end, I enjoyed it, and I was glad that I stuck with it. I was like, “Well, now that I know how to work with the clay a little bit more, I can start hand-building stuff”. So that’s when I started making little animal figurines and things, but I was tempted to stop working with the wheel, because it was just so difficult and I thought, “Well, I’m really good at hand sculpting, why not just stick to what I’m really good at?”
But I want to try new things and push myself. I don’t want to just stick with what I’m good at, because then I feel like you kind of get sedentary, or, like, just kind of… you stop growing, you know? I was like, “I’m gonna stick with this, I’m gonna keep practicing and try as best as I can, you know, to make cups and things.”
It took me a while, and a lot of clay, but, last year, I finally mastered centering the clay and being able to properly throw cylinders, so now I can make even more stuff, and not just little animals. I just fell in love with it, and I thought, “This feels like it’s meant for me”, and I’m so glad that so many people adore them, because ever since I started getting into ceramics, my career has been blossoming and blooming. I’m glad that my passion for the medium is being matched and reciprocated by the reception that it’s getting via, like, galleries and sales and people just liking it online.
You would think I’ve been doing this for a long time, and people are shocked when they learn it’s barely been 5 years. But, all of the prior work that I had done over the years as an artist made it so that when I jumped into ceramics, I could take all those skills and translate them into making a three dimensional object, which is kind of cool and interesting to me. When I was working with 2D mediums, I really struggled with drawing things to make them look 3D on paper. So I thought, “Well, if I suck at drawing it and making this look dimensional as a drawing, I’m probably not going to be very good at sculpting”.
But it’s actually been really easy. I find drawing more difficult, because with drawing, you kind of have to think of the composition of a piece. With sculpting, I just grab a block of clay and start manipulating it, you know, and I don’t have to worry about how it looks with the rest of the space that it’s within. I can just start manipulating and touching it, and, sometimes, the clay will tell me what it wants to be as I’m sculpting.
the creative, artistic spirit gets beaten out of you. You’re either told you suck, or you’re not gonna make money doing this, and people drop it, or they grow up feeling like they’re terrible at it, when it’s really just a skill you develop over time.
I went to a state school, Weber State University, up in Utah, and they had an art department, and originally I was actually studying to be a vet, but I immediately got out of that, because I didn’t feel smart enough to be a vet. Which I realize now was a lie, because I can do anything I put my mind to, but I mainly tried to be a vet because there’s job security there, everybody needs a vet.
But something in my soul was just saying: No, this isn’t the right path for you. You need to dump being a vet and just pursue art, regardless of whether you end up making it or not, because there’s just something within me that says I really love art, I love creativity and creating, and I just love being an artist.
So, I got into the art program. I specifically went into Visual Communications, which they later renamed to Graphic Design. I went with it for job security, thinking maybe I could be an illustrator. But I was also able to take all the other art classes along the way: printmaking, 3D design, 2D design, painting, etc.
I’ve always wanted to be an artist, even as a kid. I was always drawing, painting, making stuff. I remember, as a little kid — my mom doesn’t remember this, but I do — she had this nail polish collection, and there was one color I was obsessed with. This neon magenta pink. As a kid, you know, you don’t touch mom’s makeup, but one day, I just got possessed. I had to touch this nail polish. I got it, and I didn’t paint my nails; I started painting on the hallway wall. My mom caught me before I went too far.
It’s just always been within me to create.
As I’ve gotten older and worked as an artist, I feel like art and creativity is a part of not just my nature as a person, but human nature in general. It’s something within everybody — similar to how fish naturally swim or birds naturally fly. But as we get older, the creative, artistic spirit gets beaten out of you. You’re either told you suck, or you’re not gonna make money doing this, and people drop it, or they grow up feeling like they’re terrible at it, when it’s really just a skill you develop over time.
The COVID shutdowns were kind of proof of it. So many people leaned toward doing something creative when they had the time. People want to create. We’ve been doing it since we evolved and became human beings. I really wish we could have a world and culture more centered around that.
when I think about it, people are similar to animals; we’ve got arms, legs, a head, similar shapes. And yet, for some reason, when I try to draw one, it just doesn’t look right. But animals? I can draw any of them.
I love animals. I’ve always loved animals and nature. I find them easier to draw than people. I have started a couple of experimental sculptures where I’m starting to incorporate people. They’re very simple, but it’s interesting getting into that, because when I think about it, people are similar to animals; we’ve got arms, legs, a head, similar shapes. And yet, for some reason, when I try to draw one, it just doesn’t look right. But animals? I can draw any of them. I’ve just always loved them and connected with them, and that’s why they’re such a big staple in my work.
My printmaking background definitely comes through in how I carve and create all these lines to fill in the space of a piece. I get told all the time they look Neolithic — just kind of old. I’ve always been fascinated with that kind of art. I remember loving that style in art history class, but I never pulled it into my 2D work, interestingly enough. But suddenly, working with clay and creating 3D objects, I’m able to, without even consciously thinking about it, create similar forms and shapes to what people made way back when.
I see parts of my life, as they’re changing, somehow seep into my work — before I got into ceramics, because of my printmaking background, I always stuck to very limited color palettes. I hated using more than three colors in a piece. Even with my enamel pin work, I tried to stick to the color of the metal plus two other colors. I love black, white, and gold, or black, white, and red. There’s just something about them. I always feel like if you can design something in black and white then it can stand on its own, that’s a successful design. That’s probably my graphic design background talking. If you’re creating a logo, it needs to stand strongly on its own without any color at all.
But as I got into ceramics, there’s just a whole rainbow of colors available. I love the black and white look with a pop of orange from the poppies. I just started playing with other colors, and it’s just fun. That started showing up in my personal life too: I’ve added more colorful pieces into my wardrobe, and I repainted my kitchen cabinets this beautiful bright turquoise, blue-green color, subconsciously adding more color into my life. Then, suddenly, I’m doing the same in my artwork, and actually liking it. I love gig posters, and with screen printing, you limit yourself color palette-wise to create more visually interesting designs. That’s what I’m drawn to.
I still find myself limiting myself to only two colors plus the color of the clay itself, because I’m kind of scared of doing more since I struggle with color theory. I recently had a piece, a panther, and I wanted to make the spots slightly different than the black, because in real life you can kind of see them, but kind of not. So, I tried this shade of blue underglaze. But I also had a big yellow crescent moon on its back, and when it was done, the blue was clashing with the yellow. I thought about adding gold details — that could have tied it all together — but something about that blue just felt icky. It wasn’t resonating with the whole thing. I ended up doing some test tiles to see what would happen if I repainted the flowers, repainted the moon, or just repainted over all the spots.
What I ended up doing was repainting all the spots with a different black underglaze to cover the blue, and all of a sudden, everything tied together.
I have one piece sitting in the garage right now that I sculpted, and it looks fine, but there’s something about it where I’m like, “You’re not what I envisioned in my head”.
Starting this year, I thought, “Why don’t I treat gallery shows as a place to be more intentional about my designs and what I’m making?”, versus, like, making for my store, which can be more experimental and whatever I feel like. A lot of it just boils down to: “Why am I making this? Is it for the store? Is it for a specific themed gallery show? What am I trying to say, or show, with this piece? What is its purpose for being brought into the world?”
I have a show coming up with Giant Robot at the end of August, and for that, I really want to pull from that more personal well of inspiration. The inspiration has just been finding me like never before, it’s been crazy. I’ll write something down in my sketchbook or quickly scribble it out, then try to sculpt it. It’s been fun, pulling from that well and making 3D objects inspired by these concepts, which I would have struggled with trying to do as 2D illustration. But somehow, with 3D, I’m able to just intuitively bring it to life.
Sometimes, if I just want to make something, I’ll grab the clay and start. I usually start with wolves, that’s my fallback. If I don’t know what to do, I’ll just start sculpting one. Other times, it’s more like, well, what haven’t I tried making? Lately I’ve been sculpting whales, because I’ve never really sculpted a whale before, and I’ve been trying different birds.
The clay can dry too fast. Summertime is difficult because it gets so hot here in Fresno. And if you don’t keep the clay wet, it’s gonna dry out on you, which is bad for me because the majority of the work I do with the clay is in the greenware stage — basically unfired clay. I do all the coloring and carving before it ever gets fired. I found that it’s hard to remove your mistakes when you’re painting bisque ware, and I didn’t like working with it at that stage anyway.
I have one piece sitting in the garage right now that I sculpted, and it looks fine, but there’s something about it where I’m like, “You’re not what I envisioned in my head”. And I just don’t have the heart to put it in a bucket of water to make it all soft and squishy again. Most of the time, I try to work with what I’ve made and manipulate it to get to what I pictured, versus scrapping the whole thing and starting over. But there have been times where I’m just, like, it would be easier to start with the lump and mush and sculpt from there than to try to fix whatever I’ve already made.
BUT, LATELY, I’VE BEEN THINKING — WHAT IF I COULD?
I used to make pins, prints, stickers, things like that. I would sell my stock most of the time, although enamel pins, I still have quite a few. I’m thinking about sending them to the metal recycling plant. I have a giant box of them.
People would still buy stuff, and it was at a certain price point, which was nice because I like my work being accessible. But with ceramics, people love them so much, it’s crazy. I try to offer a variety of price points because I want to keep my work accessible to everybody, but some of the stuff, there’s just no way I can price it too low, because I’ve got to pay the bills, and it took so long to make, and the materials can be expensive. But I love the response. It’s way, way more than when I was solely doing 2D stuff.
My focus right now is my upcoming solo show, because that feels like a really big deal. I’ve never had that kind of show, at, like — I would consider Giant Robot a legit, big deal gallery. They’ve been around for a long time, so it feels very prestigious. That’s where my focus is.
I’m typically a planner. I would usually be like, this is where I want to be in five years, this is what I want to accomplish. But I haven’t been able to do that, because it almost feels like I don’t need to. Things are chaotic right now, which is good and bad — bad in some ways, but it also means anything can happen—including good things. I just want to keep doing what I’m doing. My brother has said to me before, “Shirley, your work could be in a museum one day”, and I’d be like, “Yeah, when I’m dead”.
But lately, I’ve been thinking — what if I could get into some of these places like the MoMA or LACMA? I think that’d be a pretty interesting thing. It’s something I’m putting out there.
I don’t know how I’m gonna get there, but I’m open to it.
Go check out Shirley’s work at LIONINTHETREES, and, if you’re in Los Angeles, please go check out her show at Giant Robot from August 16th, 2026 through August 31st, 2026.
GOLIKEHELLMACHINE 