Caitlin Prince is a Vancouver-based artist and ceramicist making functional and sculptural work in clay. We had the chance to visit her studio this summer and get a glimpse of her instantly-recognizable, naturally-hued cups and vases. We also tested out those iconic dimple cups to see if they live up to all the Instagram hype - they do, and the morning coffee routine hasn’t been the same since. We caught up with Caitlin and her art school BFF, Liv, over Zoom to talk shop, the value of functional art during COVID, and getting ripped off by one of the Real Housewives of Vancouver.

Maya Hassa for Also Cool: What does your work look like and how do you approach your art practice versus making pieces for production? Does your attitude change for those different types of work?

Caitlin Prince: Because it's consistent work, it's a privilege to actually be producing art that you enjoy making - and have people be receptive to it and want to buy it. My vases are definitely my main creative outlet. Cups are just production work, but there's been a lot more interest in that lately, so my policy is to make everything one-of-a-kind. They're all uniquely marbled and the dimple or shape is always slightly different.

I don't ever want to be a production potter that's making a thousand of the exact same piece. I don't want to be a factory - you can have ceramics produced in a factory pretty easily. Even the stuff that I make could be manipulated [for mass production].

MH: That's part of the value of what you're making as well - that it's one-of-a-kind, that it's only been produced in small batches.

CP: With the vases, it's exciting to be able to make each one different, but then people are like, "Oh, I saw this one here - can you reproduce this for me?" I don't even think I have the skill to make something identical!

There's a lot of other stuff that I’d rather do. I've been really interested in collaborating with different artists - people who do painting or metal work, putting different crafts together.

I would actively like to do it, but I just feel like I don't have the time now during COVID. It's even harder to coordinate than usual - everyone's kind of scattered. Some people are hyper-productive, but most of the time , if you ask someone to do something, they'll get back to you in three months. I can't even respond to an email for work!

It has definitely affected my ceramics practice because I don't feel like I'm really making art anymore. I'm making consumable goods. Its weird because sometimes I feel like I'm compromising of my artistic integrity.

Olivia Meek: Do you find that there are other ways to make the production work more creative? What methods can you use as a creative outlet? I imagine you'd have different glazes and things, but is that the only way to spice it up?

CP: In terms of spicing things up, there are other objects that I want to make. I want to make really big pieces. I like pushing the limits when I'm making a big pot - like a powerhouse pot.

OM: What about miniatures?

CP: Miniatures are fun too - those are more when I'm trying to flex, or when I'm procrastinating, I like to make like really tiny things.

OM: You could could break into the dollhouse market…You could carve out a whole new market for influencers who are downsizing.

CP: The miniature scene is actually huge!

CP: There are actually a lot of people who have tiny [pottery] wheels the size of a dollar and throw on them. It's total TikTok content, but I'm here for it.

Going back to the topic of COVID, I don't know how it's affected me as far as production goes, but I feel less motivated than before. It's like that doom where you think, "What am I even doing? I'm just making things." Thankfully people get a lot of joy out of my work - and that recognition feels so amazing.

I've met so many kind and wonderful people throughout this, too. Meeting with my clients and hearing how much they appreciate not only supporting a small artist, but also the actual pieces themselves, I realized that maybe I'm not even looking at my work as much of an art practice right now. The people who receive it really seem to appreciate it as such, though.

MH: Now especially, people are turning to art - consuming it almost as a coping mechanism.

OM: Living through COVID really opened people's eyes to the importance of supporting artists - realizing, "Oh, if we don't support artists, they can't actually do anything!" When people are spending so much time alone in their homes, having objects that bring them happiness and make their living space tolerable is important.

MH: How did you find the role of social media playing out in this time?

CP: Most of the traction I've received with my work has been through certain influencers posting it on social media. Also through stores within my community, like one in Gas Town that did a wonderful job of putting a spotlight on the work of local artisans.

Online sharing is super beneficial, but I think it's funny too, because I am such an "un-aesthetic" person. I'm not posing with my minimalist little cup of coffee in my sparse home. I definitely have an aesthetic, but there's this whole culture that my work really fits into that I'm just the polar opposite of.

A lot of people expect that I'm going to be this quaint, linen-wearing, flower-picking person - whereas I'm actually just sitting here in my gym clothes, sweating at the studio. It's interesting how I can curate my style of work to a certain audience. I don't think people would necessarily connect my lifestyle and the way I present myself with the pieces I produce - I think that's pretty funny.

Curating an online presence isn't natural for me. I'm 29 years old - if I were three years younger, I would have had that [self-marketing] ability. Living through so many weird Internet times - like Myspace and Tumblr - I have no shortage of an internet persona. I have a presence, but it's just not necessarily one that would be appealing to the demographic buying my work.

MH: Tell us about "The Peasant" - your current online persona. Where does that come from?

CP: I think it was just the toil of life and being constantly just like, "Oh, like, I can't..."

MH: Life led you to feudalism?

CP: Yeah...

MH: Does "The Peasant" serve as a contrast to that influencer lifestyle of the people you mentioned before?

CP: Probably - the peasant persona is just representative of the shitty side of me where I acknowledge that this is life, we're doing it, we're working for the man.

OM: Maybe "The Peasant" is Caitlin Prince - in the context that you're making goods for a demographic that you don't feel like you personally fit into. I mean, you could fit in if you wanted...

CP: I'm fitting in more now - at least no longer being a broke art student. Literally being so broke and spending outside of my means constantly - and not even having a studio for so many years. I was just working whack jobs to support having a practice and not wanting to give up on it. I'm actually surprised that I didn't! That's something that I'm ultimately proud of. You have to f*cking love art as a hobby to put in your extra time and money, to stick with it, but I'm glad I did.

OM: Tell us a bit about your work during art school.

CP: A lot of my early work in university - especially with ceramics - was just testing the limits of the medium. I was interested in learning what was possible - like when I was making ceramic Jesus toasts. That was a play on existing Jesus figures, but also [the infamous Jesus toast relics] that you can purchase on eBay. I literally dipped pieces of bread in clay slip and fired them in the kiln so the bread would fire out. With every Jesus toast made (until I made a mold of it) bread was sacrificed.

OM: The toasts had Jesus decals because at the time there was a whole thing on the internet about a lady seeing Jesus in her toast.

CP: I made that mostly because I thought it was funny, but also just wanted to put clay-covered bread in the kiln.

OM: When did you realize that ceramics was your thing?

CP: Probably in my second or third year of university - that was when I really fell in love with clay. There are so many ways to manipulate it, and so many materials you can use to beat it, mold it, and make it into weird stuff. The experimental aspect is really exciting - and it's also a kind of escape.

MH: Do you have a preferred style of working with clay?

CP: I really enjoy throwing on the wheel and then adding hand-built elements. A lot of my pots are partially thrown and partially done with coil building. I like mixing both. I could throw the entire pot, but it would be too perfect-looking. I like when it appears more organic, and less like it's just been made on a production line.

There are many cool ways that you can manipulate clay, but glazing has never been my thing. I'm more into the clay bodies themselves. I use a clear glaze for food safety and water retention, but all the color variations you get are through the natural clay bodies themselves. I like to mix different brown and black clays, whites, speckles, grays - all that.

Another thing I like about ceramics is that you can work with the chemistry behind it - you can add different elements when you're firing it to produce new textures, colors, or different effects on the body. Then there are all the options for structure - mold-making, hand-building, and wheel throwing - and the surface design elements. It's this limitless medium. It's also cool to be able to work on something and then just reset and be like, "Oh, I'll just recycle it, use it next time."

OM: Tell us about the Lohan plates!

CP: That was back in art school when we learned a new technique called the decal technique. I thought it would be so funny if I made a set of commemorative plates. I think Lindsay Lohan's fifth mugshot had just been released.

A commemorative plate as an object is so bizarre to me. It's pretty useless, yet there are so many of them celebrating royalty or celebrities. I wanted to commemorate someone very controversial - a mess.

OM: Lindsay Lohan was one of the biggest celebrities of our generation and then was just in jail constantly.

CP: Maybe there was something comforting about it - the buildup and beat-down of a celebrity. Now they don't get torn down the same way. The Kardashian-Jenners are loved and hated, but they're still so influential. Our generation had Paris Hilton getting built up, torn to shit, and then built up and torn to shit again. Amanda Bynes, too. We witnessed really weird demises of people.

The Lohan plates were really well-received, and funnily enough, led me to the Real Housewives of Vancouver. They were entered in a show at school and this woman who runs a gallery in Vancouver really liked them - she was working for one of the Housewives whose husband was a big art collector in Vancouver. The Housewife decided she wanted me to make commemorative plates of her, so I ended up making some 50 plates with pictures of her and her cat on them.

MH: Did she end up selling them?

CP: Yeah, so it didn't go as well as she thought it would. I went to the show - I was mostly there for the free wine and to see who was actually going to buy these plates - and at the end of it, they didn't even pay me! She was like, "Oh, we'll be in contact with you about payment," and literally avoided paying me for months.

That was my first commission and first experience being screwed over as an artist. When she finally came around to paying the last $50, she met up with me downtown pulled out her big designer purse, and actually tried to give the plates back - she was like, "We have some left over, would you want to be paid with those? Do you want these back?"

It was definitely a wacky experience, but also an interesting first foray into life as an artist showing and selling my work. She works at a car dealership now.

OM: Decorative arts and ceramics have always been pushed to the side, where it's like, "Oh no, that's not art, it's craft." That was one really annoying thing about going to art school - the idea that there are two types of people - the "crafts" people and the "artists". The fine art and design programs were so elevated, while ceramics fell through the cracks. Ceramicists were made fun of constantly - it was actually crazy.

CP: I have this internalized self-loathing for production pottery that is rooted in that schooling experience and having to put meaning to work . Not everything has to have a "concept" behind it. Some things can just purely be enjoyed.

MH: Do you think that what you're doing now, working with boutiques, is a result of being taught to make technically perfect pieces for commercial success? Or is it the other way around - do you attribute your popularity to the unique imperfections of your work?

CP: At Emily Carr, there was no emphasis on being commercially successful. We didn't learn how to market ourselves as a business. We didn't learn any of those skills. I would have probably benefited more from going to a business school and just pursuing ceramics as a hobby, if that was my goal, but I also like making work that people can afford and own. Work that isn't completely unattainable. I don't need to have my pottery on a pedestal.

I think that art should be accessible. Especially now, creating affordable art that you can get out to people - there's something to be said for that.

https://www.caitlinprinceceramics.com/