Ceramic characters, every with their very own whimsical allure, gaze from varied angles in Rami Kim’s studio. Constructed by hand, their faces emerge from planters, ceramic dishes and slip-cast mugs just like the solid of an animated Hayao Miyazaki film. On a shelf, a personalized canine figurine — a consumer’s beloved terrier — lies on its abdomen atop a lilac-colored butter dish. Close by, a retriever, in a seated place, rests on a lady’s head.
“I like the idea of giving life to the objects I create,” Kim mentioned, standing in her storage studio. “They’re my imaginary friends.”
On this collection, we spotlight impartial makers and artists, from glassblowers to fiber artists, who’re creating unique merchandise in Los Angeles.
A few of her sculptures have names, every a tribute to the inspiration behind them. There’s the Penelope desk lamp, the place a mysterious, nearly melancholy face base is adorned with a glass globe. And there’s Gus, Kim’s beloved white Maltese, who was her fixed companion for 17 years till his dying in 2023.
“I spent my 20s, 30s and part of my 40s with Gus,” she mentioned softly earlier than including, “I miss him.”
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Kim was sculpting a life-size Gus lamp at her work desk the opposite day when a smile all of a sudden illuminated her face. With every element of his fluffy coat, she gave the impression to be acknowledging the canine who introduced her a lot pleasure, infusing the lamp with the identical heat and happiness as her fixed companion.
“People like to have something functional that they can use every day,” Kim mentioned of her character-driven works.
“Gus was my family,” mentioned the 43-year-old artist as she painted the canine’s eyes and nostril. “He was a sweet boy with a gentle personality. During the pandemic, it was so helpful to have him near me when life was so uncertain.”
Born and raised in Seoul, Kim studied character animation on the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). After incomes a grasp of high quality arts from the UCLA Animation Workshop, she secured a job as a background painter for Nickelodeon’s “Dora the Explorer” and the impartial animation firm July Movies, the place she labored on her former CalArts professor Mike Nguyen’s 2D-animated characteristic movie “My Little World.”
Gus accompanied her.
“I want to make work that people can touch and hold,” mentioned Kim, a former animator.
Kim smiled, remembering how her colleagues embraced Gus. “I would bring him to work with me every day,” she recalled. “Everybody liked to greet him and was so happy to see him. He would sit under my desk on his dog bed while I worked at the computer.”
Kim was nonetheless working in animation when she first tried ceramics at Ball Clay Studio in Highland Park, which is now closed. “I started making these little figurines as a product for stop-motion animation,” she mentioned, holding two floating faces. The transition from the digital world to the tactile means of ceramics was a turning level in her creative journey.
A choice of works inside Kim’s ceramics studio close to La Crescenta.
“I still remember when I first touched the clay,” Kim mentioned. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God. I need to keep doing this.’ I loved working with my hands. The possibilities seemed endless. I just knew that I would be doing ceramics for the rest of my life, as I would never get bored with it. And I get bored easily.”
It grew from there.
Coming from an animation background, the place she realized the artwork of bringing characters to life, Kim mentioned she “always wanted to create characters in a different form. That’s how I give life to my ceramic creations.”
Including faces to her vessels made Kim really feel just like the items “now have a life.”
She began to show her natural vessels into faces, full with eyes and lips. “That made me feel like they had a character,” she mentioned. “The sculptures now have a life.”
When she grew weary of sitting at a pc all day lengthy doing animation, Kim determined to pursue ceramics full time, figuring out of a studio in Atwater Village and later a storage studio subsequent to her rental residence close to La Crescenta.
Nguyen, her former CalArts professor, isn’t stunned to listen to she has an emotional attachment to the characters she creates.
A ceramic residence depicts Kim and her canine, Gus.
With individuals apprehensive a few attainable recession, Kim has seen clients hesitate to spend cash on her works, which price between $50 for a mug to $1,800 for a personalized lamp. So she began creating customized animal collectible figurines for purchasers, a lot of whom, like her, have misplaced their pets. “People share their stories about the past,” she mentioned of the method. “They share photos of their pet and tell me their favorite poses, which helps me sculpt them. I feel like I know the pets. It’s very special.”
Eileen O’Dea — who commissioned Kim to design a figurine of her late canine, Owen, a combined pup she discovered on the road close to her West L.A. woodshop — talked in regards to the profound emotional resonance of Kim’s work. “It’s the kind of object that blurs the line between beauty and memory,” O’Dea mentioned of the butter dish Kim made her. “It looks just like him; even his floppy ear is perfect. Every time I use it, I’m reminded of him.”
One other buyer ordered two customized collectible figurines as a present for her sister who had simply accomplished nursing college on the age of 60. “Her dogs had helped her get through it,” Kim mentioned. “It was such a touching story to be a part of.”
“Hopefully Gus is running around with other dogs having a good time,” Kim mentioned of her late canine, Gus.
The tactile nature of her work is one thing she hopes to share with others. “I want to create work that people can enjoy and touch and hold,” she mentioned, including, “I hope my work gives people a warm feeling.”
Sure, it’s arduous working for your self, she mentioned, however Kim likes the pliability of with the ability to work anytime she needs or take a time off to wander a museum or see a film. Nonetheless, after she relocated her studio from Atwater Village, the place she shared area with different artists, to her residence in La Crescenta, she admitted to feeling remoted.
“I miss having a community and visiting with studio mates. I feel like I learn so much from other people. That’s why I host workshops here in my studio,” mentioned Kim, who enjoys educating. “As an independent artist working alone, it’s tough because I don’t want to work too much in the wholesale business because then I would need a team and more orders, and then I would have to operate like a factory.”
“It makes me happy when people share stories about their pets with me,” Kim mentioned.
Kim’s potential to seize the distinctive persona of every pet in her ceramics supplies solace to purchasers who’ve misplaced their pets. (Rami Kim )
Nonetheless, she will’t see herself going again to pc work. “I’ll never get bored with this,” she mentioned. “I can do this until I’m 90. I’m having so much fun.”
Kim’s understanding of the consolation her ceramics present to these grieving the lack of a pet isn’t just skilled however deeply private. She has skilled it herself in her studio, residence and backyard, the place she is surrounded by the “friends” that she has created.
“When I put the Gus lamp on a table in my living room, it feels like he is sitting next to me,” she mentioned. “He’s eternal now.”
