Ayla Mullen
I see pots as vessels for storytelling; they can invoke thoughts, memories, and emotions which enliven a moment or an entire day. Clay iss my canvas and my collaborator, and together we explore how to convey the poetry of the natural world within the limits of a vessel. What is the formal vocabulary of emotion, and what voice does the clay have in the storytelling? Is it possible to give growing things a voice of their own, through artistic representation? These questions guide my making and still leave me wondering and curious. Each plant and pattern is inlaid into the clay with my own nostalgia, hope, and reverence for the lives and stories of the green and tendrilled world. My hope is that these stories, carved in clay, will expand and individualize within the home, taking on a life of their own like the best folktales, through the accrued layers of meaning which use and touch bring to everything familiar.
I grew up in a tight knit community of farmers and environmental activists in Olympia, Washington. Formative experiences exploring the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, and growing plants on our family farm, molded my aesthetic sensibilities and became the source of my inspiration. I have always loved the long, organic lines of grass stalks and leaf venation; the sense of both groundedness and upward movement in plant forms. For me, clay is a medium to capture these feelings, to tell the stories of the plants and landscapes around me as I perceive them, in line and form and image.
I went to college initially for environmental studies. At Marlboro College, a tiny liberal arts school in Vermont, I took ceramics classes as an elective every semester. Two of my teachers there, Martina Lantin and Megan Mitchell, profoundly influenced my dedication to clay. They helped me realize the subtle yet powerful effect that ceramic objects can have on the world. I began to see ceramics no longer as a mere hobby but as a language I could learn, a language that could communicate with depth and nuance the feelings and stories that I knew and cared most deeply about.
Thus I finally came to pottery with serious intention in my last year of college. Since that decision I have followed opportunities in clay all across the country: from Marlboro College in rural Vermont to the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, and most recently to apprentice with Ellen Shankin in Floyd, Virginia.
In 2017 I completed my apprenticeship, and in 2018 I became a full time studio potter.
The year 2020 brought change and upheaval to so many of us, and I decided it was time for me to return to my home state on the West Coast. So, in early 2021 I packed up my life and my studio, drove it across the country, and put it in storage. Then I packed a small backpack and spent 5 months thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail; 2650 miles of walking, from Mexico to Canada. After the trail, I settled down to make a new life in Bellingham, WA, where I live and work to this day.
I grew up in a tight knit community of farmers and environmental activists in Olympia, Washington. Formative experiences exploring the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, and growing plants on our family farm, molded my aesthetic sensibilities and became the source of my inspiration. I have always loved the long, organic lines of grass stalks and leaf venation; the sense of both groundedness and upward movement in plant forms. For me, clay is a medium to capture these feelings, to tell the stories of the plants and landscapes around me as I perceive them, in line and form and image.
I went to college initially for environmental studies. At Marlboro College, a tiny liberal arts school in Vermont, I took ceramics classes as an elective every semester. Two of my teachers there, Martina Lantin and Megan Mitchell, profoundly influenced my dedication to clay. They helped me realize the subtle yet powerful effect that ceramic objects can have on the world. I began to see ceramics no longer as a mere hobby but as a language I could learn, a language that could communicate with depth and nuance the feelings and stories that I knew and cared most deeply about.
Thus I finally came to pottery with serious intention in my last year of college. Since that decision I have followed opportunities in clay all across the country: from Marlboro College in rural Vermont to the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, and most recently to apprentice with Ellen Shankin in Floyd, Virginia.
In 2017 I completed my apprenticeship, and in 2018 I became a full time studio potter.
The year 2020 brought change and upheaval to so many of us, and I decided it was time for me to return to my home state on the West Coast. So, in early 2021 I packed up my life and my studio, drove it across the country, and put it in storage. Then I packed a small backpack and spent 5 months thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail; 2650 miles of walking, from Mexico to Canada. After the trail, I settled down to make a new life in Bellingham, WA, where I live and work to this day.
