Meet The Makers: Claire Ginn

I began selling my items online when I started throwing on a wheel. Learning the wheel required a lot of repetition, and I didn't want to throw all the practice pieces in the trash. While I continued to learn, I was moving often - from New York City to Denver to Berkeley in six years and six apartments. 

I started Claire Ginn Ceramics the second I had the means to have a creative space of my own. When I recently moved to Salt Lake City with my husband, I was able to commit to a regular production schedule.

How long did it take you to come up with your own style and signature look? What advice can you give aspiring artists struggling to find their own voice and look?

It was a slow evolution starting with clean lines, geometric patterns and a love for raw materials. Just in the last year, I really fine tuned my style and stuck with what I thought worked and loved.

I would tell aspiring artists to focus on creating something they love; your work should inspire you. Also, if they aspire to sell their work, creating will become their life. The right creative work should energize you more often than it drains you.  I would encourage them to create a brand identity and to run with it but to always leave room for change and improvement. 

How long does a piece take from start to finish?

Forever. Creating ceramics is a constant practice of 'hurry up and wait'. From start to finish, one piece probably takes about 20 hours. That includes throwing, drying, trimming, glazing, drying, firing, glazing, firing. It’s a true test of patience for me because I've always liked things to happen fast. Luckily, I can fire a lot of pieces at once. All of the other steps, though, are performed by hand one piece at a time.

We love the emphasis you place on your pieces being versatile; drawing a parallel to life, what other artistic outlets do you enjoy when you’re not in your studio creating new pieces?

Thank you! I've grown to appreciate versatile items as a result of small living spaces. I have a love for visual creativity. My husband and I often spend our weekends traveling, hiking or skiing and taking photographs of the places we get to visit.

I also love to cook. I think experimenting in the kitchen and feeding people is a great way to tap into a person's creative side. I try to cook new dishes as often as possible and am never too strict about following a recipe. Although, that hasn’t always proven to be the best approach!  Luckily, you can add a lot to a dish by making it look good on the plate. 

 

Please share 6 random facts about yourself, that not many people would know? 

1- I have mild (but sometimes not-so-mild) misophonia.
2- I can make a voice that sounds like I'm stuck in a bubble.
3- I have a talent for writing catchy, but mostly inappropriate, songs.
4- I have lived in six different states in the past 10 years (CO, MT, WA, NY, CA, UT).
5- It is physically impossible for me to hold up my three middle fingers (making the number three).
6- I once painted my studio apartment with a makeup brush.

At MEUS we’re all about finding a connection with the things we own - choosing things that make an impact on our day-to-day and ultimately have the ability to make our lives more beautiful. We like to call it “inspired living”. Can you share with us something that you’ve recently purchased that inspires you and/or makes your life better in some way?

I have a Chemex coffee pot that I use every morning. I am a coffee drinker. Coffee fuels my studio work, and the Chemex helps me to appreciate coffee more. When I see the Chemex empty on the counter, I want to fill it. I like watching the grounds bloom when I add the first water, and by the time I have the first cup I have already spent 5 minutes falling in love with my coffee.