About

Maia Danks is a 20 year old ceramic artist from Berkeley, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. She now attends Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota as a studio art and biology double major. She has been making art her entire life, and has been working with clay for the past 12 years. Maia was a Scholastic Art and Writing Awards regional winner in their 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 competitions. She received the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards national award in 2018. Maia is an annual vendor at The Crucible's annual holiday sale, called Gifty, in Oakland, California.

In addition to the gallery of her work included on this website, Maia also maintains an active Instagram account @OctopusCeramics and she can also be reached by sending an email to: maia [at] octopusceramics.com (maia@octopusceramics.com).

Artist’s Statement

I make ceramic art for people to use. Although there is much debate about whether or not functional work is art, I strongly believe that it is art. It takes the same skill, the same foresight, the same need for an artistic vision, but ends up in somebody's hands rather than untouchable in a gallery. I feel so fulfilled when my work becomes a part of everyday life. The act of using a mug or a bowl made by hand in a daily routine connects the user and the artist regardless of physical distance or relationship. This has become especially clear to me during the COVID-19 pandemic as physical touch has become so removed from our society. Through functional art, people can be deeply connected in many ways without being in the same physical space. The act of drinking from a mug is so intimate; placing lips to a ceramic rim, drinking the morning tea or coffee, and holding it in between hands. Every part becomes art in itself, and it brings me so much joy to be involved in it as the artist.

My preferred medium is ceramics, but I enjoy working in 3D space in general. The moment an idea appears in my mind, I want to create a tangible object, something I can hold and show the world. Although I have experimented with 2D art and do enjoy the process, for me it just doesn’t compare to something I can use, wear, or hold. I am also a very process-based artist; as much as I am interested in the life of the piece after it has left my hands, I am also fascinated by the temporality of making. The unpredictable and wild nature of ceramics continues to draw me in and encourages me to keep working with the medium. In a lot of types of firings, there is no way to know exactly what will happen and how the artwork will look; the artist needs to have a very thorough understanding of everything that goes into the work, and what can cause different effects. The remnants of process that shine through a ceramic object, like throwing rings on inside of the mug or evidence of an edge being smoothed over by my fingers, allow me and the user to appreciate even more of the work that went into such a supposedly simple object. I have loved getting to know the medium and what is possible within it, and am excited to continue to explore the limits of clay!

I am also very intrigued by how people view functional art, and what feels “right” to hold for different people. As an amputee, the way that I hold a mug and the handle that feels best to me with three fingers and fairly small hands will be very different from someone with large hands and five fingers. It’s such a personal decision for every person to make - which mug is the “right” mug to use every day? What will every person reach for every day for their morning coffee or tea? I love being a part of this decision as the artist and helping people find their own intimate functional object to use every day, regardless of their varying physical abilities and body shapes.

In a way, the artwork is never a “finished” piece. Even when it has left my hands as the artist, it will change in the hands of the new owner. It may chip along the rim from the dishwasher or discolor from the coffee and tea that it is filled with, but it will not be a stagnant work of art on a shelf. Even these seemingly mundane changes in the everyday life of the user allow the piece to stay “alive” and “in process” regardless of any future interactions that I have with it as the artist. 

My work has been influenced by many different people and environments. I am constantly influenced and inspired by artists that I follow on Instagram. I have had a ceramics Instagram account since I was 16, and being a part of that community has really helped me to gain confidence in my own work and to make connections with other artists. It’s almost like having thousands of (very positive and supportive!) critics every time I post, and while it was a bit stressful at first, now it’s helpful and exciting to see what people think of my work. At the last in-person NCECA ceramics conference in Minneapolis, I was able to meet many of the artists that I knew from Instagram and it was so exciting and reassuring that behind the social media, they were still real people that still want to help and educate others. I have found that artists that are active on social media are also much more open to sharing their process, which has really helped me to experiment and develop my own work in new ways.

I look forward to continuing my work as an artist, and can’t wait to see how my personal style evolves!