Ana Shioshita (Web Exclusive)

Medium/Technique: Ceramics/Pottery

Location: North Vancouver/Squamish, BC

Website: https://www.shioshitaceramics.com/

Ceramic figures by Ana Shioshita. Photo courtesy of the artist.

1. How would you describe your art and artistic practice?

This is something that feels like it’s changing constantly. I’ve done ceramics for a long time, but have only very recently been able to transition to full time. I’ve definitely noticed since I’ve had more time to do my ceramics work my ideas have been growing and evolving faster than they did before. I think it’s pretty common for me to feel like most of my pieces are just tests to see if I can make my idea work. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to the point where I don’t feel like things are tests any more, and if I do, I think that may feel a little boring.

Artist Ana Shioshita working in her studio. Photo courtesy of the artist.

2. How did you first get into ceramics?

I was really lucky to grow up around a lot of clay. I think my first pottery class was around age four with my Aunt. In my preschool we would go on field trips to dig up local clay, sift it, sculpt it, and pit fire it in the preschool yard. I did pottery classes all throughout school (I had a really excellent high school pottery teacher). I had probably almost a decade during university and after where I didn’t interact with clay much. Around eight years ago I finally got back into the pottery studio. I was living in New York at the time and it was crazy expensive, or else I probably would have sooner. At that time I mostly just wanted to throw for stress relief, but I’m so glad that ceramics are something that I tend to circle back to again and again.

3. Your work is so whimsical and playful. Where do you find inspiration?

My main inspiration is often just thinking about the way things work in the natural world, and the invisible forces at play all the time. Invisible forces can be something like magnetism or gravity, as well as less observable things such as attraction and repulsion amongst people. I’ve been enjoying playing with how I position forms and how that makes people automatically anthropomorphize them. There’s a lot more exploration I’m excited to do there. I also have a tendency to want to keep pushing and pushing to see what I can do, so I find that my work is getting more precarious as time goes on.

Cartwheel, ceramic sculpture by Ana Shioshita. Photo courtesy of the artist.

4. Can you walk us through your creative process, from initial idea to sourcing materials

to the physical act of making?

I have a lot of initial ideas... Most of the time I can’t get to them immediately, (I have to fight the desire to stop whatever I’m doing and start on a new idea as soon as I have it) so they go into my sketchbook. When it’s time to start a new project I normally know what I’m most excited about, but I review my sketchbook just to make sure I’m not forgetting anything. Some of my ideas require a little more engineering than others, so sometimes there’s more of a plan and sometimes it’s more freeform.

Materials are another area where I consciously have to reign myself in. At one point I think I had 13 different clay bodies. Now I’m down to three, each with their own purpose. So I just pick the right one out of the three.

Many of my pieces start off as a thrown form or a set of thrown forms, so I make those first, once those are hard enough to be handled I carve or construct the rest of the form around them. Sometimes this way of working in separate stages causes issues, but often I just have to accept them and be extra careful. I do as much as I can sculpting and carving the clay, and then dry it and bisque fire it. There is always some sanding to be done in the bisque phase. I then apply glazes, which can either be relatively easy or really tricky and time consuming depending on what I’m going for and how well I’ve planned. During the glaze firing I just cross my fingers that I like the results, I can do some amount of re-fires and fixes, but it always feels best to get it right the first time!

Black Gravity Stretch, ceramic sculpture, 2024. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Floating Drippy, ceramic sculpture, 2025. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Left to right: Black Gravity Stretch, ceramic sculpture, 2024 // Floating Drippy, ceramic sculpture, 2025. Photos courtesy of the artist.

5. You also work as a graphic designer. How does that type of work influence your

ceramic work, if at all?

I think that working as a graphic designer in film has helped me think about not only a design

itself but also the context around it. How will it actually work? How will it interact with light? I also think that the speed of design and amount of research that comes along with film graphics have been really helpful with how I look at things as well as having knowledge of a bunch of stuff that I otherwise wouldn’t.

I’ve been wanting to work graphics into my ceramic work for some time now. I have some ideas that I am super excited about involving graphics, but I just seem to have other ideas that I’m more excited about that don’t.

6. Tell us about a favourite piece or collection you’ve created and why it’s so memorable.

Is it cheating to say, the piece I’m working on now? I’m just glazing, so it could be a complete

disaster, but the sculpt is definitely my favourite. It’s a multiple piece wall hanging comprised of orbs stretching away from their anchors. When I originally planned the piece I was intending to have all six pieces pulling away and “escaping” from a centre point. Now that I have the pieces built and I’m able to move them around I’m seeing that while I do like the initial planned composition, there are a bunch of really interesting ways to have the individuals relate. I get really excited by that.

Kraken vase, 2024. Photo courtesy of the artist.

7. What have you encountered in your career so far that readers (or other artists) might

find surprising or unexpected?

I think this less of something that I encountered, rather than something that just sort of unfolded. I went to art school. I was really excited to have access to all of the resources, but after a year, I really felt that it was not for me. I ended up switching schools and changing my major to biology. I then got offered a design job when I had one year left in school. I decided to leave and take it. I’m not saying that this is the right path for everyone, but I’ve been really happy about the decisions I’ve made, and where they’ve led me even if at the time there was quite a bit of pressure against making them.

8. In what ways do you hope your own practice continues to evolve?

I hope to have opportunities to work larger, I would also like to start incorporating non-ceramic

elements into my pieces. Along with working larger, I would love to have the opportunity at some point to work on site specific installations. On a smaller and more personal development note, I want to continue getting better and having a better relationship with glazes (both commercially available ones and ones that I make).

Blue Tilt Drip Donut, ceramic sculpture, 2024. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ceramic light sculpture, 2025. Photo courtesy of the artist.

"Cell division" ceramic vessel, 2024. Photos courtesy of the artist.

Left to right: Blue Tilt Drip Donut, ceramic sculpture, 2024 // Ceramic light sculptures, 2025 // "Cell division" ceramic vessel, 2024. Photos courtesy of the artist.

9. Pay it forward -- tell us about something or someone our readers should know about.

I’m probably not the first to say this, but Matt Katz has a lot of great resources for learning about glazes. Coming from an art and science background I really appreciate the attention given to chemistry.