I have so many things that I want to share with you! I suppose though, I can start with what my name is and what it means, and how I sign it on my pieces. As for who I am...well, that's for you to piece together yourself if you would like to keep checking in on this site.
Chai is one of my many names and what I decided to name my ceramics practice. Much as I enjoy tea, it is does not come from a love of chai. It is actually one of the characters in my Chinese name, 「齊」, romanized in Cantonese, my mother tongue. This character has multiple meanings, many of which resonate with who I try to be in work (school psychology) and in play (ceramics):
What's in a Name
Humility and self-awareness
My namesake is actually a proverb from the Analects of Confucius 見賢思齊焉， 見不賢而內自省也 - "On seeing a man of virtue, try to become his equal; on seeing a man without virtue, examine yourself not to have the same defects" - this is something I strive to put into practice in both my work, play and life in general
Unity
As in 齊上齊落 - literally to "go up and down together", or to move as one, or 齊心協力 - to work together in pursuit of a common goal), and to gather in a group 齊集、人齊 This is one of the things I value most both in my work (school psychology) and play (ceramics), I love the communities I am part of, and the way we support each other, whether its in pursuing equity for neurodiverse and/or disabled persons, or beauty and craftspersonship in our ceramic arts.
Togetherness/Neatness
...in the sense of being neat and tidy (整齊) - honestly, this is a concept totally unrelated to me - especially in the clay studio, as you can see from these photos! But I suppose that can be a goal of mine, to have my desk more organized at my office and my splash pan to actually contain my splashes at the studio, heheh
Constantly trying...
Another obvious reason for naming my practice Chai Creations was that I had been documenting my ceramics pieces under chai_alilharder on Instagram, as in "TRY-a-lil-harder".
That is all I'm doing in the studio - trying, and trying, and trying some more. That is one of the many reasons I started playing with clay, to try new things, and reacquaint myself with the curiosity and cluelessness of learning a new skill from zero. I was an early career school psychologist at that point, not quite the newly minted, bright-eyed-bushy-tailed eager newbie, but not quite seasoned either. I was in the tricky spot of having learned the ropes just enough to feel like a fraud whenever I did not know the answer (imposter syndrome at work and in the studio deserves its own blog entry!). Rewinding back a decade, I was the stereotypical high-achieving, people-pleasing Asian kid for a lot of my formative years, which meant that struggling was an unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling for me. Realizing this fear of failure held me back in multiple areas, I signed up for pottery classes to tackle it head on. And I'm still battling with it some days, and learning to accept that trying continuously is more than enough, regardless of the outcome.
And that is why, after brainstorming some names that sounded smart or catchy, but not personalized, I settled on Chai Creations as the name of my pottery practice.
What's on My Pots
When it comes to putting my name on my pots, my "maker's mark" has evolved quite a bit over time, from my initials, to a quick little rainbow I make with the scoring tool, to just the word "chai". For a while, when I was not making to sell or gift my pieces, and I had started making more unique pots that I could easily pick out amongst the many pots in my community studio, I did not even sign the post at all, because I could very easily recognize my own pots amongst others'.
Usually I hand-sign my pieces with an embossing tool and/or an underglaze liner. Depending on the size and style of the piece, I either use the entire logo for Chai Creations, or the top section of it. The full logo is a combination of the Chinese character and the English spelling for Chai. Those are the languages I grew up speaking, moving back and forth between my families in Canada and Hong Kong, so I like the idea of incorporating both parts of my identity in my signature. It also looks a bit like a stick figure skipping/dancing in a carefree way, arms open for an embrace, which is how I feel most times in the studio, and how I hope my pieces make others feel. The full logo is more expressive and flamboyant.
As you can see in this gallery, in smaller pieces, or when I want a more subtle signature, I use the top portion of the logo, usually along the curve of the footring. The stroke/dot and horizontal line on top of the word "chai" looks like the number one over a line, with "Chai" on the bottoms as denominator. I like how it becomes a fraction, just like these pots are a part of me or part of my life. Sometimes, if I feel like doing something a bit more playful, I put little line beneath it so it looks like a smile, or a lidded pot. Apart from variations in the presentation of the simplified logo, I also vary how I sign, with underglaze liners, glazes that show up in different tones or shades on texture or carving, or sgraffito.
Signing vs Stamping
Many potters have pottery stamps for their maker's mark, which makes for efficiency, more standardization, and sometimes a more "professional" official look. I also have some custom-made acrylic pottery stamps for both the larger and simplified logo. So far, I have mixed thoughts about signing vs stamping my pieces.
On the one hand, the full logo for Chai Creations is quite elaborate, so stamping does shave off 6-7 seconds per pot. It also gives sharp edges and minimal clean-up to do compared with signing by hand. When I make batches of the same item for commissions, this can be pretty efficient. While I have not tried metal or wooden stamps, one advantage acrylic stamps have in particular over them is that you can see exactly where the logo is going and in what orientation.
Despite the convenience of stamping, I find myself pivoting back to hand-signing for a number of reasons. Firstly, stamps (particularly acrylic ones) do require the clay to be a certain level of dampness/softness, whereas signing by hand can be even on harder clays. Another thing I've noticed is that because my acrylic stamps are square shaped, it's hard for me to put to logo on the edge of a foot ring without damaging the foot ring. Most of all, though, I appreciate the flexibility that handsigning affords to integrate my maker's mark into the design of the pot. I can vary the size, shape and style to match each piece. It's like writing a personal note to whoever is going to adopt my clay babies, and making a small yet unique mark in their lives, just like I do on clay. I might rely more on stamps if I ever need to scale up and produce larger volumes of pieces.
Until then keep Chai-ing (and hand-signing pots) !
