ANK
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ANK Ceramics is the working name of Ariela Nomi Kuh, a studio potter whose hand-thrown tableware and sculptural vessels are produced from her studio in Maine. ANK Ceramics is the acronymous name for a line of sculptural vessels made by Maine-based potter Ariela Nomi Kuh. Her practice grew out of an early interest in painting, and that background continues to inform her approach to color and surface treatment on clay. She got into ceramics from painting, which is evident in her use of colors, glazes, and shapes.
Kuh's output began with simple, functional forms before expanding into more ambitious work. ANK Ceramics is an evolving line of hand-thrown tableware, designed to be dynamic, timeless, and contemporary, and what began with mugs and bowls eventually expanded to include more complex one-of-a-kind vessels that moved beyond roundness and symmetry. Each piece is finished with glazes she mixes herself in small batches, a process that yields subtle variation from one work to the next. Her pieces are turned on the wheel or hand-built, trimmed, sanded, and fired in an electric kiln, and glazes are mixed in small batches to allow ultimate control and specificity of finish, which may vary from batch to batch.
An injury in 2021 prompted a shift in her studio practice, after which standard tableware items moved to slip-casting while she continued to make one-of-a-kind pieces by hand under her own name. In 2021, an injury necessitated stepping away from the labor of tableware production and the pottery wheel, so the mugs and bowls are now slip-cast, while she spends most of her time in the studio making one-of-a-kind platters, bowls, vases, and sculptural vessels under her own name. This combination of small-batch, hand-finished production and individually developed glaze surfaces is part of what makes her one-of-a-kind vessels appealing to collectors of contemporary studio ceramics, since no two pieces are ever quite identical.
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