Hi! My name is Leila and I am 21 years old. (I hope I remember to update the website come this time next year because the old about me page said I was 16 until now). I am a third year Materials Science and Engineering major at Georgia Tech (Go Jackets) and I have been doing pottery since I was in fifth grade.
I just moved to a new school and new community and my mom wanted me to feel better about losing this great art program I used to be in. She took me to this little studio called the McKinney Art House and I got introduced to Sona Knox. My mom swears she thought I would just play in dirt for a little bit and would be done with pottery by the time I hit middle school. I ended up staying at the Art House first as a student, then as a studio potter and lastly a teacher. I taught at the Art House for 2 years and also ran my small pottery business on the side.
Oh! I also taught camps for a bit. It was a fun time all around and I truly had a lot of fun and met so many artists during my time at the Art House. If you want to see the people who I hung around in high school, here is a link to the McKinney Art Studio Tour or MAST http://mckinneyartstudiotour.com/
During high school, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was pretty set on going to art school for a while but I love science and mainly physics. I had partially thought of studying business and even applied to most colleges as a business major, but I had applied to Georgia Tech as a physics major just for kicks and giggles and I ended up being very lucky and got admitted. I ended up switching majors and study Materials which seems pretty tailor made for me. I enjoy learning so much about the materials that make up the world around me, especially the physics and processes behind ceramics. It is a little bit of a niche major and I try really hard to get more people interested in Materials Science.
I am going to a bit on a tangent here and talk a little about Material Science. It is so cool how everything around us is unique in the materials that it is made of and the science behind these processes is truly the most interesting thing I have ever seen in my life. I have done an internship at Lawrence Livermore National Lab researching materials and the application of ceramics blew my mind.
Besides school kicking my butt 90% of the time, I taught at Georgia Tech for about 2 years before they shut down their pottery studio. It was a tough loss for me since part of the reason that I came to Georgia Tech was their ceramics studio and I truly was at a loss for what to do. I ended up finding Mudfire Clayworks Studio and have been at Mudfire since August 2020. I am currently just pushing my limits and developing my style and selling on Etsy.
Its about the first time in 5 years that I haven’t been regularly teaching class and it has given me the space I need to start creating again on my own so here I am. I don’t really know how to end this about me page, so I am just going to thank my mom for being my biggest cheerleader and my most avid collector in my work. She pushes me to never give up pottery and honestly I don’t know if I would’ve kept at it this long without her constant encouragement.
And it doesn’t ever feel right to talk about my pottery without talking about Sona. You can find her work here on instagram (@sona.knox). But she watched me grow up and that to me is kind of crazy to think about. I was tiny when I wandered into her studio and her style still sticks with me to this day. She taught me a huge chunk of what I know and to this day continues to teach me all about throwing, handbuilding and more. Mentors like her are one in a billion, but she is truly one of the best role models who could’ve come into my life and I look up to her greatly.
Here is a picture of Sona when she and I didn’t really want to drag all our stuff to set up and sell, so we threw a wheel into a wagon and took her dog to the center of the square and threw for 4 hours straight. We were just having a good time and kept none of the work. I remember her telling me not every piece always needs to be fired for the work created to have meaning. I still think about it sometimes and how for her, the process of creating art is just as important as the art itself. I try to live by that and enjoy the process of creating pottery even if my pieces don’t turn out exactly as how I imagined.
If you want to get in contact with me for any reason, you can fill this out and I will try to respond as soon as possible.
Leila's Ceramics 