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Oh, You Beautiful Thing

Kristina Batiste

November 1, 2023

What makes a beautiful pot?

The same thing that makes a beautiful person. Confidence. The beautiful pot must have, know, and genuinely live its reason for being. The beautiful pot has a soul-deep purpose – and yes, of course, the beautiful pot has a soul.

The purpose doesn’t have to be functional, but it needs to be. It could be whimsy, or functionality, or anger, or green. It could be porcelain, or delight, or grace, or shame – volume, or lightness, or comfort. The pot’s purpose could be to decorate. To shine in a particular way. To hold just the right amount of coffee.

Whatever it is, the beautiful pot is about something, and it fully embraces that thing. Any lack of commitment or failure in execution would betray a lack of authenticity, and the potential for beauty would be lost.

Just like with people, that kind of confidence and actualization is sometimes present at the point of making and sometimes grows over time, through use, context, and exposure, through the vision and admiration of others, through experience.

Not every pot is beautiful or even has the capacity for it. But. When the unrealized potential for beauty exists, that’s alright. If there’s one thing a pot has, it’s time.

Oh, you beautiful thing.

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Author BioKristina Batiste

Kristina Batiste

Kristina Batiste became an artist later in life; prior to ceramics, she worked as a writer and editor, served in the graphic design industry, and worked in higher education. She is currently a part-time librarian. The throughline of her career has been distilling information and complex ideas into simple, accessible, and memorable forms.

She is a Tacoma-based ceramic artist who started her ceramics education at Tacoma Community College’s Community Education program but is primarily self-taught; age and experience inform her practice. Inspirations include modernist art and architecture, literature, and nature. She incorporates wheel-thrown and hand-built techniques into functional and sculptural projects.

She is featured in the newly released book Contemporary Black American Ceramic Artists and has work in the accompanying traveling exhibit to be shown at Sacramento's Crocker Museum.

Kristina was the subject of a segment in Hulu’s Your Attention Please documentary series and is a guest artist at the Northern Clay Center's 2023 American Pottery Festival. She has been written about in Ceramics Monthly, The Seattle Times, The Strategist, and the Craft Industry Alliance, and she is the co-founder of the Tacoma Pottery Salon.

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Oh, You Beautiful Thing

Kristina Batiste