People’s Pottery Project’s mission is to employ and empower formerly incarcerated women, trans and non-binary individuals through paid job training, access to a healing community, and meaningful employment in our collective non-profit ceramic business.
Our flexible programs allow participants to earn a living wage at every point of involvement with the business, from training, to fabricating, to ongoing employment. We provide opportunities to build technical skills through creative ceramic fabrication work, running the ceramics studio, and teaching ceramics classes to local artists and families, as well as develop business skills such as inventory management, writing and promotions, developing our business strategy, marketing, and sales.
Through our collective work, members gain a platform to connect to others, share their stories, and ultimately transform dominant narratives about those who have experienced incarceration.
People’s Pottery Project
Los Angeles, CA
she/her
What music, audiobooks, or podcasts are filling your studio airtime lately?
Ne-Yo or R&B
Share the most significant thing that happened to you and your work/studio practice in 2024?
We were able to build more security by acquiring a grant which allowed us to offer 4 permanent full-time positions with benefits. We have been able to build our infrastructure system and stabilize payroll. We have recently added a restaurant line with the People’s Pho Bowl and we’ve had an immense growth in orders since we launched our restaurant line.
What big plans do you have for 2025?
Our big plans for 2025 are to expand our employee intake. We would like to open more permanent full-time positions and look for a bigger space so we can employ more individuals and also offer bigger community classes.
Why Clay?
Why not? We didn't pick clay the clay picked us. After being incarcerated for a long period of time you become so fearful of human interaction. Your only human interaction while incarcerated is negative, staff constantly remind you that you are a number with no worth, you are dehumanized, desensitized, defeminized and degraded on so many levels that you start to believe you are worthless and not worthy of anything good. Upon release we are more scared of society then society of us. We are shameful and hide our truth about where we came from. When we first worked with clay we didn't realize the healing properties clay had. At first you are given a blob of clay the texture is rough and no form to it. As you start kneading the clay and trying to form it as much care you put in it the clay softens and reacts to the energy your putting in. When you are done you made something beautiful. The irony is we here at People's Pottery Project are like that piece of clay once we put in we can become so beautiful and loved.