Xí Xoọng (see - song) Ceramics is my small-batch ceramics project, which began on September 28, 2022. After finishing college, I embarked on a transformative journey to tend to my wounds from war, white supremacy, and internalized capitalism and I learned from being an “overscheduled overachiever kid.” A couple sessions into a Wheelthrowing 101 class, I caught the clay bug!

As they wedged their first balls of clay, Claire felt an ancestral connection to the material and art form. They are interested in how ceramic villages in their ancestral lands sourced materials from the geography around them and how these practices were disrupted by war and imperialism - similar to how these forces severed them and their family from their ancestral lands. Their art seeks to capture the resilience of handmade ceramic pots that continue to stand the test of time and memorialize their beauty and function by their makers throughout history.

I named this project Xí Xoọng after my childhood nickname, given to me by my parents for my 3-year-old self’s sassy charisma. Xí is also a descriptor in Vietnamese language, and xoong translates to “pot.” The name xí xoọng (as misspelled by my parents) stuck and captures the playfulness and history behind my ceramic practice which symbolizes my rediscovery of play and joy through art-making.