Rebeca Milton
2020, Hand-built ceramic, stoneware with glaze, fired to cone 11 in a gas soda/salt kiln, Dimensions vary
Describe your artistic style in three words.
Instinctive, unfolding, variegated.
What's inspiring you right now?
Other contemporary ceramic artists, historical ceramic arts, fundamental shapes, patterns in nature, patterns in the home and domestic spaces, utilitarian objects and necessities, flowers always, everyday commodities and human interaction with them, still-life paintings, clay as clay and what clay can do.
What do you do when you're feeling uninspired?
Most of my time is spent at East Side Pot Shop, either working on Nom Ceramics or doing shop tasks. When I'm feeling uninspired, sometimes it makes the most sense to focus on duties like loading a kiln or cleaning the studio. If I'm in a place where I want to make something, but don't know what to make, I'll prep a batch of clay coils and get myself set up for a new piece, and sometimes that's just enough to get the creative waves flowing again. Sometimes I have to come back the next day... or week :)
Tell us something unique about your process.
I work collaboratively with my partner Scott Proctor. It's fun and inspiring to have a person to share technical and conceptual ideas with. We are always bouncing ideas off one another's and aiming to create a body of work that is expansive and forever evolving.
The glazing process of Nom Ceramics is unique in that Scott and I developed a glaze that works perfectly for our technique. We can draw with it and it will stay in place at the high temperature we fire to. The chemistry of it all is fascinating. When glazing, we have to always consider and assume how glazes will react in the firing, and there is always a surprise. We spend so much time making objects, then glazing them, then we put them in a huge fire box, blast them with flames and salt around 2000 degrees, and then we will finally know how they will look 12 hours later. Some pieces don't survive, and that's just part of it. I feel that, with ceramics, it is sometimes more about the process than it is about the final object. There are so many lessons in this field; it's a constant learning curve.
What advice do you have for other artists?
That idea you have in your head that you justify reasons to not create... just do it. Just make it. It's the biggest relief and greatest satisfaction to make a piece that's been in my head, even if I've been coming up with so many reasons why I shouldn't. Sometimes they look slightly different in real life, but it always feels like a step in the right direction.
2020, Hand-built ceramic, stoneware with glaze, fired to cone 11 in a gas soda/salt kiln, Dimensions vary
2020, Hand-built ceramic, stoneware with glaze, fired to cone 11 in a gas soda/salt kiln, Dimensions vary
2020, Hand-built ceramic, stoneware with glaze, fired to cone 11 in a gas soda/salt kiln, Dimensions vary
2020, Hand-built ceramic, stoneware with glaze, fired to cone 11 in a gas soda/salt kiln, Dimensions vary
2020, Hand-built ceramic, stoneware with glaze, fired to cone 11 in a gas soda/salt kiln, Dimensions vary
2020, Hand-built ceramic, stoneware with glaze, fired to cone 11 in a gas soda/salt kiln, Dimensions vary
2020, Hand-built ceramic, stoneware with glaze, fired to cone 11 in a gas soda/salt kiln, Dimensions vary
2020, Hand-built ceramic, stoneware with glaze, fired to cone 11 in a gas soda/salt kiln, Dimensions vary
Rebeca Milton is a ceramic artist living in Austin, Texas. She received her BFA from UT Austin, and now runs East Side Pot Shop with her husband Scott Proctor. Most recently, Rebeca's making hand-built ceramic vessels and sculptures for Nom Ceramics, a collaborative ceramics practice by her and Scott.