(cup clicking) (drill whirring) - I was trained as a functional potter.

(plastic rustling) I feel that it's kinda limiting when it comes to expression of an idea or of a concept.

(liquid sloshing) But art and making is about putting part of who you are in what you are making, and that's what connects to other people.

(light music) The non-functionality part is trying to help move ceramics from an area of craft and functionality, closer to an object that becomes more like a painting, more like artwork, so that it's deeper than what its form is.

(light music continues) I've always been about the process.

And ceramics, it's a process.

Ceramics, it's one of the very few places that I allow myself to be more curious and ask the question, "What if?"

(machine humming) (bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (machine humming) (torch hissing) I discovered ceramics in what was supposed to be my last year of college.

(torch continues hissing) I went to UW-Parkside and I was studying psychology.

I ended up being three credits short to be able to take that next step.

I ended up trying my hand at Intro to Wheel Throwing 101.

(plastic rustling) By the end of that semester, I was actually spending more time in the ceramics studio, so I ended up changing my major at that point and haven't really looked back since then.

(light rhythmic music) Today, we are at the new House of RAD.

(light rhythmic music continues) We're in the Menominee River Valley.

(light rhythmic music continues) We've doubled our space to take in more artists.

(light rhythmic music continues) Which we already have a waiting list.

(light rhythmic music continues) The name of my studio is Looking Wolf Studio.

My artwork at that point was really focused on my Mexican heritage and my Native American heritage.

(Tony speaking in a foreign language), which basically means looking wolf in Lakota.

(light rhythmic music continues) (plastic rustling) Right now, I'm working on an untitled show for MOWA that's gonna be at the Saint Kate.

(plastic rustling) (breath whooshing) I want to make very intricate individual pieces that, when hung together, almost become overwhelming at the sight of such a gathering.

(ethereal music) As we would look at this composition, we would sort of find individual pieces that would resonate with us, with each one of us.

That thing that we've forgotten, that we're all made out of exactly the same thing.

It's just the composition that we're exhibiting, which is what makes us unique, but not to the point of being better or worse than any of the other pieces in the composition.

(ethereal music continues) The vessels that I chose to make, they're a little bit taller.

They've got a little bit more of a biomorphic shape.

They have a bit of weight to them.

I wanted to kind of make them feel a little bit more grounded.

(ethereal music continues) I started learning about world religions.

And one of the things that resonated with me was Buddhism.

Specifically, Korean Zen Buddhism, because enlightenment isn't the last stop to enlightenment.

So what if you're enlightened, but how do you help this world?

That's the enlightenment part, when you can figure out how you help other beings.

(ethereal music continues) So what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna start out with a small circle in the middle, made by coils, and then I'm gonna make tiny coils.

And I'm going to join them together and then surround that with another coil.

That's the premise here.

I've been teaching ceramics since about 1989.

(bright music) I love teaching, and people love the way I teach.

So what I teach is, we're gonna make shapes that are gonna challenge the way you use your fingers and the tools that are accessible to you, but are gonna teach you so that you can make any shape that you conceive.

You just have to understand how clay and you relate at the moment.

So again, it goes back to that Zen Buddhism idea of, be present, be here now.

That's the beginning of enlightenment.

The next step is, how do I use this to help others?

(bright music fades out) (light music) - Thanks for watching "The Arts Page."

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