A Journey Of Growing | Yael Braha | Episode 1026

Yael Braha | Episode 1026

Yael Braha is a ceramic artist of North African descent who applies her formal studies in Graphic Design (BA) and Cinema (MFA) to ceramics. In 2021 Yael received the Multicultural Fellowship Award from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA). Yael’s work has been exhibited in Museums and Art Galleries in the Usa and Japan, and is part of permanent collections in the Usa. Yael has been a Ceramic Artist in Residence in the United States (Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Starworks Ceramics) and in Japan.

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How would you define your work?

I would define my work like minimalist. Minimal ceramic objects for daily use with strong, bold surface pattern designs.

Who is your work for? When you are making who are you thinking of, or do you?

I don’t have a particular audience in mind. I have been advised a number of times to make the work that would please me and if I am passionate about it and if I love it then it would eventually transpire and please other people. So this is what I have been doing. Trying to design work that I am passionate about and see if that resonates with others.

Earlier in our conversation you talked about how when you go to shows and people are picking up your work you then know what they are responding to. That has to inform what you make next. How do you balance receiving information from your audience to still being able to make what you are passionate about?

I think when I was referring to that, what I noticed when I was in Japan people didn’t tend to gravitate towards my cup for some reason, In Japan there is a strong history of Yunomis so maybe my style of cup didn’t really resonate with that audience so I decided to focus on different forms , on vases. And just that decision influenced my work in that I dedicated a big chunk of time working on vases and those were amazingly received and now I am back in the United States and now I integrate those forms as part of my rotation of forms. as well as cups. I think the audience’s reception informs my work in a sense of which forms they gravitate toward rather than is going to change my work in substantial way, at this point.

So you are not changing your passion, so to speak, you’re responding through your passion of what they are responding to, then you are saying I will focus more on that or I will add that. Is that what I am hearing?

Beautifully put. Yes.

How would you define creativity?

That’s a big question. For me creativity is a way of life. It doesn’t end when I leave the studio or it doesn’t begin when I enter the studio. It is a continuous flow of inspiration and thought and process that happens on a daily basis. Whether being inspired by a conversation with people or the sight of a particular gesture of kindness from person to person, or a color, or a piece of work, or a sound, or a smell. I think if I try my best in the way that I approach life and be open to what happens even if I don’t necessarily know where I am going and trying to maintain that trajectory, but creativity I think is a way of life.