Another Dimension

Ceramic artist Jolie Ngo was in her final semester at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) when the pandemic struck. Until then, she hadn’t given much thought to 3D clay printing, a fairly new technology in ceramics. “Covid happened and we all got kicked out of the studio,” recalls the Philadelphia-born, California-based artist. “But my professor offered to 3D print and fire models for us, and it became the only way I could continue pushing my practice.”

Those pieces—left for her to collect from a box outside the locked studio—were the seed for the work that now defines her: kaleidoscopic, otherworldly objects designed on a computer and realized using a 3D printer, a practice that makes her one of the few ceramists working at the intersection of traditional craft and emerging technology.

Her style is delightfully unruly: some pieces feature shapes that look like flower petals, snail heads, and industrial wheel cogs, while others resemble nothing from this world. Free-form shapes comingle with intricate detail, and rawness with delicacy. Whatever time she saves by using a machine to mold clay, she spends by adding layer upon layer of color (usually airbrushed) and finishes, such as metallic glazes, that are applied to tiny spheres, globules, and other protrusions added to her vessels.

The winged silhouettes in the Memory Palace series (and other works) give a nod to one of her favorite potters, the late, iconoclastic Betty Woodman. Another touchstone is Brian Rochefort, whose volcanic, gloopy forms so impressed Ngo that she cold-messaged him, offering to come out to Los Angeles to be his studio assistant. He said yes. That was in 2016, while Ngo was taking time off from school. Working with Rochefort cemented her decision to return to RISD and switch to the ceramics program.

For years, functionality was an afterthought—Ngo’s vessels might hold water but were never meant to be vases. Recently, however, she’s turned her attention to lighting. These pieces are larger and more complex than anything she’s made before, requiring printing in sections and then a painstaking assembly. Some of her lamps were recently exhibited in her solo show, Power Clash, at R & Company’s Downtown Manhattan space.

This October, Ngo heads to Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado, to learn to use a CNC router. Her plan is to make dining room furniture. Is this a shift in direction?

“The center of my practice will always be ceramics,” says Ngo. “But I feel like being able to work with digital tools has cracked it wide open, because having the 3D modeling skill set can translate so easily to other materials.”

Paola Singer, a freelance writer in New York City, is a frequent contributor to American
Craft.