Nurturing a Creative Practice
Nurturing a Creative Practice
Michele Quan in her Brooklyn studio. Photo by Bobby Fisher.
Quan, who spent 12 years as a jewelry designer before studying ceramics and starting her own studio practice in the mid-2000s, has figured out what works for her. Today, at MQuan Studio, she works with a small and talented team to create objects for home and garden, including beads, bells, and wall hangings, all adorned with her confident and precise geometric designs applied in vibrant hues of red, magenta, orange, yellow, blue, and black. Though she still has a toehold in New York City, she recently moved north to Saugerties, New York, where she has a spacious new studio surrounded by trees.
Quan spoke to American Craft about her practice, how she takes care to nourish her creativity, and how the pandemic has shifted priorities and ways of working for her in the past year.
“A lot of the symbols that I am drawn to relate to the idea of connection, reverence, and impermanence. Words and symbols spark my imagination,” she says. “I have a long document of quotes, excerpts from books, poems, movies, interviews, and songs that have inspired me over the years. I love how words resonate and spark.”
![Miscellaneous photos and cutouts spread on a glass table](https://craftcouncil-images.imgix.net/website/articles/20210401-nurturing-creative-practice/michele-quan-inspiration-work-courtesy-mquan-studio.jpg?fit=crop&ar=1:1&auto=compress,format&cs=srgb)
After tagging images, Quan creates inspiration boards in her sketchbooks. She calls them “my studio in a book.” Photo courtesy of MQuan Studio.
When she began working in clay, she encountered the Japanese phrase mono no aware, which translates as “the pathos of things.” Quan says she thinks of it as “the beautiful sadness of things passing,” which is an acknowledgment of impermanence and our reactions to change or loss—something that comes up often for an artist at work.
While it might be easy to put off the process of learning and connecting to what’s important, Quan says it can be an inroad to getting into the groove in the studio.
![Wall art by Michele Quan featuring hanging discs](https://craftcouncil-images.imgix.net/website/articles/20210401-nurturing-creative-practice/michele-quan-PTL10-disc-white-courtesy-mquan-studio.jpg?fit=max&w=840&auto=compress,format&cs=srgb)
PLT10 White Discs with Featherbones measures 41 x 25 in. and includes stoneware, porcelain, walnut, and hemp. Photo courtesy of MQuan Studio.
![Various ceramic work by Michele Quan inspired by Hilma af Klint](https://craftcouncil-images.imgix.net/website/articles/20210401-nurturing-creative-practice/michele-quan-hilma-af-klint-by-allison-chipak-courtesy-guggenheim-store.jpg?fit=max&w=840&auto=compress,format&cs=srgb)
Quan is inspired by Hilma af Klint. She created this collection of pieces for the Guggenheim’s retrospective show Hilma Af Klint: Paintings for the Future in October 2018. Photo by Allison Chipak, courtesy of The Guggenheim Store.
“It was an intense, sad, eye-opening, heart wrenching year,” Quan says of 2020. “It feels like the rug was torn away, laying so much bare. I hesitate to speak of silver linings when there is so much sadness and uncertainty in the world. I’ve always embraced and given my limitations their respect and due. In my work, limitations are a part of what I make and keep me grounded. Yet this past year we’ve all been confronted with many harsh new limitations. We each have to transition within the shifting boundaries of our life, linked to our community, our world. It can be very difficult to reconcile it all together while keeping the bridges open, our selves clear and the connections flowing. We are always in transition.”
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