Emily Becker is a ceramic artist working out of her home studio in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas.

She spends her working hours arranging words for other people as a copywriter. The clay is the other half of that trade, a practice where nothing gets revised endlessly and the material decides how much it will give.

Emily started making ceramics regularly in 2022 and found her footing in 2023, taking classes in Costa Rica. The practice took hold in 2024, when she moved back to San Cristóbal and built a studio inside her home. Having the wheel a few steps from her desk changed things. What had been an occasional pull became daily work, and the years since have gone into honing the craft, expanding her technical range, and learning what each clay body is willing to do.

Her work moves between two poles. High-fired functional pottery is made to be handled and lived with. Earthenware sculptural pieces answer to nothing but form. She keeps both practices close to her heart, as both have a lot to teach her.

She has also gone looking for the work in other places, including a ceramics residency at Sachaqa Art Center in Peru, where she learned tinaja pottery from a potter named Petrona. She also took her skills to Brazil, giving ceramics workshops to a community in Santa Catarina.

Now, she hopes to continue expanding her practice by making bigger, more sculptural pieces that reflect her inner dreamscape and love of nature.

More to come