Today we’d like to introduce you to Maek Ceramics.
Maek, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
It was the first session of a ceramics class at Point Loma Nazarene University when this cute girl I only recognized from the soccer team walked up to me and said: “Hi, you don’t know me, but I’ve been to your house before.” It was just weird enough to pique my interest, maybe only it because it was accompanied by a flash of panic when she realized how many social constructs she had just obliterated, and that was the beginning of a friendship turned ceramics company turned marriage. It’s pretty wild to think that was about three-and-a-half years ago now, three-and-a-half years of devastating failure, steep learning curves, college graduations, wedding planning, living with parents, and uncanny almost happenstance successes.
Maek Ceramics was born out of a sort of post-grad paralyzation for me (Ryan Shoemaker). I studied philosophy and sculpture at PLNU and wasn’t quite sure how to metabolize all I had learned without selling my soul to corporate marketing/video work. When the boys at OB Beans Coffee Roasters asked me to create their in-shop mugs for their new brick and mortar location, I didn’t really think twice. About half-way into that project Michaela Maes (the formerly mentioned soccer player) realized I was in over my head and helped me complete the job. We had a lot of fun and felt good making things for our friends that would get used in a community-oriented space. As Michaela spent the rest of that year completing a masters in business, I spent more and more time trying to talk her into taking a shot at a ceramics company… that she could run.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
Ceramics is a pretty unique process historically. It’s foundationally important to the development of our species actually. Clay had a big part in helping people make hot food, and in every corner of the globe, there is a different ceramic tradition. And often times those ceramic methods and pieces speak to the history and priorities of their culture. Pretty much every day since I was given an iPhone in 2005 my life has become more dependent on the internet and its instantaneous mode of operation. The more philosophy I read and the more I paid attention to the traditions of my culture and religion, the more problematized the internet culture around me became. I saw it showing up in the way I devalued the people who produced our goods, in diminishing attention spans, in the oversimplification of everything from language to politics to cars. More and more I was being conditioned to trust nothing besides my own social media feeds, which ironically, were chosen for me by algorithms.
This whole phenomenon showed up for me as a general skepticism of any large scale operation haha. Talk about philosophy kid angst. Michaela was constantly rolling her eyes at my impassioned rants and non-participation in relatively harmless activities. But here I was with no plan of action, and plenty of half-baked ideas to show for it.
Ceramics kind of dropped into our laps in a series of fortunate events. After a few months, Michaela and I began to realize how much impact small-business could have. It never felt like the answer to all my problems or a soapbox from which to preach, but more like a puzzle that had to be finished in order to eat the next day, and depending on how you assembled that puzzle it could become a transparent model of production, valuing materials, people, ideas, and ethics to whatever degree we chose or committed to.
In a more straightforward sense, we hope to create an accessible craft. Quality, handmade goods have become seen as bougie and pretentious due to factors like the skyrocketing of the art market over the last 70 years and the bombardment of big-box stores using slave labor and mechanized production to put cheap disposable goods in our hands. We wanted a platform to tell our friends that supporting small-scale production and owning non-disposable goods is a viable if not beneficial way of life.
What do you think it takes to be successful as an artist?
Michaela and I would probably define this differently, but for me, it’s probably something like the ratio between reach and integrity. Often I attribute my desire to share ideas with people because of my evangelical background. There is nothing quite like the gratification of seeing someone interact with my art and incorporate a new perspective into their own world. Something really powerful happens when a group of people are collectively invited into a foreign perspective. It can be disarming in all the right ways to see a story or truth as only the artist can pose it. I think it’s a wonderful critique of social media culture to enter into a communal awakening. But in order to foster this collective experience the artist must work to present the work as non-threatening, appealing to the values of the audience sprinting in the opposite direction of any pretend grandeur. For me, I really am motivated by being able to stand by my work, to see it as an extension of the world I see around me whether or not its supportive of that world.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
Find out about new work, upcoming pop-ups, classes, and zines on Instagram:
@maekceramics, or find us at www.maekceramics.com.
Contact Info:
- Address: Brick and Mortar opening this spring at 1918 Bacon Street San Diego, CA 92107
- Website: www.maekceramics.com
- Email: info@maekceramics.com
- Instagram: @maekceramics
Image Credit:
Ryan Shoemaker, Caleb Coy
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