ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a cancer doctor, researcher, ceramic artist, and Chinese immigrant from Malaysia. As a physician-scientist, I have witnessed the healing powers of modern medicine. As a ceramic artist, I have witnessed the same for art. As fascism and hate have metastasized throughout the country, clay has become my freedom—freedom to create, resist, and speak up while scared. Through hand built ceramic resistance art made in the San Francisco Bay Area, I write truths into stone(ware) so they cannot be erased. In my resistance frame series, I combine defiance with text and humor to help us feel less alone in our dissent.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Melisa of MWY Pottery is a cancer doctor, researcher, and ceramic artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was born in Malaysia and grew up in Southern California. While Melisa only started her pottery journey in 2023 as a 40th birthday present to herself, she’s been creative her whole life—sewing tiny clothes for her knockoff Barbies and exploring different forms of craft while trying not to burn her fingertips with hot glue. In ceramics, her favorite step of making is stamping “IMMIGRANT MADE” next to her maker’s mark.
Melisa’s work has been exhibited by the Charlie Cummings Gallery, Palo Alto Art Center, Sausalito Center for the Arts, Faultline Gallery, and Woman Made Gallery. She is a member of the Asian American Women Artists Association, Association of Clay and Glass Artists of California, and Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art. Melisa has been interviewed about her approach to pottery as a side saunterer—her term for a side hustler but without the hustle—on The Maker’s Playbook Podcast.
© Melisa of MWYPottery