Member Interview
Lyra Dela Rosa Dietrich
Hello there! I’m.. Lyra Dela Rosa Dietrich
My everyday occupation is.. I run a small beverage catering company. We provide bar service for all types of events across the Bay Area. Corporate happy hours, weddings or festivals. I have been in food and bev my whole life and am very proud of my small but mighty work family.
I’ve been doing pottery since.. 2017. I took my first class at Laney Community College in Oakland. I learned to throw pots on a kick wheel and took advantage of as much studio time as possible. Anna Vaughan & Leah Pollock were my first teachers & both encouraged me to get on the TPS waitlist. It was long back then – I think I waited a little over a year!
I would describe my work as.. Playful, exploratory and continuously evolving. Currently my shelves have renaissance inspired wine goblets, flashy wood fired vases and pinch pots with pattern and texture. I have a lot of ideas I’m trying to work out at the same time and I’m hoping one day they slowly come together into a body of work that's a little more cohesive. The goal (for now) is to create functional pots that are elegant, whimsical and lighthearted.
What inspires you the most- Form, Glaze or Firing? Form & Firing. The recent Stuart Gair workshop inspired me to think intentionally about making pots for the fire & flame. Learning how a vessel can act as a canvas to showcase how flame travels within the kiln really moved me.
A piece of advice for working in ceramics that helped me a lot was.. When I started learning ceramics I was too focused on throwing “perfect” pots on the wheel. Watching demos of people altering, darting and carving into pots inspired me to move away from the rigid circle. Even if you’re passionate about throwing on the wheel, take a hand building class. I believe that practicing different making processes can deepen your knowledge of the material and help you make more interesting pots.
Now my favorite days at the studio are when I throw, hand build, carve & pinch. If I can incorporate all those skills in one pot – my happy place!
Potters I admire.. Melissa Weiss, Tara Wilson, Nancy Fuller, Michelle Im, Maggie Boyd, Western Aranda Potters from Hermannsburg Australia, and Jonathan Yamakami to name a few.
If I could pick only ONE clay tool for the rest of my life, it would be.. Rasp or Death.
"What is the least practical pot you made?" A lidded salt jar that lives on the dining room table. The knob on top is so small you can barely lift the lid. It's very impractical but it's one of the first pots I made so it’s quite sweet and sentimental. I also have a really bad habit of over-salting my food so maybe it's secretly very practical for me.
What are your thoughts behind giving a percentage of revenue to nonprofits? Donating a percentage of sales is a very small act of reciprocity. When someone resonates with a pot enough to want to buy it; that feels like a gift. It feels good to pass some of that gift along to causes that I care about.
Interview article by Inhae Lee
Photographed by Younglan Tsai & Inhae Lee