(bright music) - [Host] Sketch the day away with Ottavia Huang.

Talk ceramics with artist Mariah Kitner and catch a performance by Heard.

It's all ahead on this episode of AHA, A House for Arts.

(percussive music) - [Announcer] Funding for AHA has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi and The Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts and we invite you to do the same.

(bright music) - Hi, I'm Matt Rogowicz and this is AHA, A House for Arts, a place for all things creative.

Today we're taking a trip to Arlene's Artist Materials in Albany to meet up with watercolor and sketch artist, Ottavia Huang.

(upbeat music) - My name is Ottavia Huang.

I'm a watercolor artist.

I'm currently an artist in residence at Arlene's Artist Material in Albany.

I was born and raised in Indonesia and for some time I was studying and working in Taiwan.

And then I moved here with my family.

Actually my boyfriend at the time.

Gossip.

Gossip.

No I'm kidding.

He got like a job transfer to Malta.

At first I was so excited because I thought it was Malta, Europe but then it's small New York and I was like, oh, I Google it and then oh okay.

It is something completely different than I thought.

But then I ended up really loving it here because I met like many new friends.

And then the art scenes is amazing in the capital region.

We moved here in 2018.

I didn't really have like a formal education in arts.

My background was civil engineering, business and the closest to art I got was my doctoral study in creative industries research.

So when we moved here, I took a career break.

So I got the chance to really explore art.

I found a watercolor class by Kevin Kuhne who happened to be like a regional watercolor artist.

He's amazing.

I was lucky that I stumbled into his class in a local community center.

And then since then I met people who connected me to other things.

One thing led to another, and here I am.

In my work, it usually depicts those scenes from daily lives.

It could be landscapes, it could be urban scenes.

The one that I love to capture the most is special little moments that happens in our everyday life that makes it special.

For example, it could be like an afternoon in a coffee shop and then the light coming through the windows and stuff.

Tender moments for example, like an older couple doing crossword puzzles together or like friends catching up.

Those are the things that usually are in my sketches.

With watercolor, it gives me the flexibility that you can use it to paint on the go.

You just need like a small palette, like a cup of water and then you can just lock it in your backpack and then go to places.

I love how fluid it is and how there's some sort of unpredictability in it.

(peaceful music) I really love this one piece that I did of a mural in North Pearl Street.

What drew me first to that mural was the colors.

It's like bright yellow and then with a lot of details.

So I was just there sitting in the corner of the street drawing with a couple of local artists.

And then as I get into working on the detail of that piece, then I realize there's so much more than what you see because they have like a little message here and there.

And when I go back and learn more about the mural and the artist and the message they're trying to convey is it's just beautiful because from that work, they want to show that, oh, I see you, I see every one of you and everyone is important.

So that is probably one of my favorites.

And another one would be, I think it was in Uncommon Ground in Stuyvesant Plaza.

They just newly opened.

And then what attracted me at first was like this work by a local artist.

She's doing an exhibition there, so there's like a pop of red on the wall and I loved it.

So I just sat there and just start sketching.

But then I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I overheard a conversation of like two friends just sitting just not too far from me.

And she was sharing like some happy moments in her life.

Oh, I just met a new person and I thought that was beautiful.

Art, it grounds me.

It gave me the chance to really just immerse myself working on something.

You can call it like a meditation if you like, but with more work.

It also connects me with other people because coming from a different area of the world, there's so many differences probably that creates barriers while connecting to others.

But through art, it seems like all those barriers just broken down.

And then we just connect through what we love.

- Mariah Kitner has held a number of jobs within the arts.

Everything from studio assistant to curator, to art dealer and more.

But it wasn't until she began to work in ceramics that she truly found her calling.

Here's Jade Warwick with more.

- Hi Mariah, welcome to AHA.

- Hi Jade.

- Happy to be here.

- I know.

I'm thankful for you to be here.

Very excited to talk to you.

To dive in, I wanna give the audience a little bit of your creative background.

So would you mind expanding on that a little bit?

- Sure.

So I studied fine arts with a focus in painting, mixed media and art history in college.

And I lived and worked in New York City for about eight years working in the arts.

I was a curator.

I worked in a gallery for a couple years.

I managed other artists' studios.

Just kind of like learning the ropes of how to be an artist, a working artist in New York City.

- It's a grind.

- It is a grind.

It took a lot, but it was probably a better education working than it was actually going to school and learning.

- Oh god, I bet.

And what has been your like past artistic focuses?

Like print, like?

- Yeah, so mixed media actually.

So my thesis was all about context versus content and how we consume that content.

So personally I love going to museums.

I grew up going to museums and I noticed that people weren't really going to museums and seeing these grand, massive, beautiful paintings.

It was mostly students and tourists.

So I was like, where are all the people?

So I had to think about where everyone was and they're all on the internet.

So I took these paintings and recontextualize them into this blog where I put humorous drunk text messages over them so they would be more relatable to contemporary society.

And it blew up.

It was one of the top trending blogs of 2014 on Tumblr.

Got a bunch of publications.

And this concept of context versus content was really something that inspired me to keep going with my art.

- All right, so Maria, I know you have a current endeavor that I'm excited to speak about.

So what are you working on right now?

- Right, so my current project is Context Clay, which is my ceramics business.

Again, from my thesis, this whole idea of context and the content and how we consume the content.

So I find that depending on the situation, context is decisive and each perspective can shift.

It's moldable and clay is moldable.

- There we go.

- Yeah.

So I get to create new worlds and new possibilities with my business, with the ceramics, with the clay that didn't exist before.

And I like to create it with a lot of whimsy and bring in my own personal experience and spirituality into the clay.

- Hm, and now what drove you to ceramics?

Like what was the aha moment?

- My aha moment was I was actually during COVID, so I never touched ceramics before in my life.

Maybe take a couple courses in high school, but I've never touched a wheel.

And I was deep in meditation during COVID, I had a lot of free time.

I was unemployed at the time and I was just asking myself in these meditations like what do I wanna do?

What's my greater purpose?

Where do I wanna go with my art?

'Cause I wasn't really practicing my art when I was working in the city 'cause I was just so focused on everybody else's businesses and art, and ceramics really kind of just like popped into my head because it was full body.

Like I get to use my whole body.

It's very centering.

It's all the elements.

Like I use fire, water, earth, air to create it.

I just wanted to be like the avatar in the last airbender basically with my art.

And yeah, three months before I ever touched a ceramics wheel, I decided I was going to make a ceramics business, which is kind of crazy.

And then as soon as I got on the wheel, the different creative ideas just kept coming out and I wasn't good at all to begin with.

Like ceramics is really hard and it is a mastery and I really love it too because the more I practice it, the more the easier it gets.

It does become a flow state.

It does become this kind of mastery where, you know, practice doesn't make perfect, it makes permanent and you get to be the master.

And so it's a lifelong journey of me learning this medium and learning other applications and things you can do with it 'cause it is, you can build it, you can cut it, you can carve it, you can paint it.

Like there's so many different ways you can apply techniques to ceramics.

- Now I know you're very intentional about your spiritual practices and healing practices.

So how do you use ceramics as a healing device and what led you down that route to understand that sculpting and ceramics for you is a healing device?

- Yeah, so I do practice a lot of yoga and meditate and I find that to be a lifelong journey for me as well.

It's like I'm just a person journeying in this world and my art and my spirituality and my business practices are kind of the core values of that.

So with ceramics, yeah, I literally throw myself into it, pun intended.

And I really find it all kind of molds into each other.

Like if there's days or weeks I don't practice yoga, I find it more difficult to do my ceramics.

Like it's all about alignment and flow.

- And how do you, I guess, practice that alignment?

Like what makes everything aligned for you to flow?

- I think it's a clear head space.

Like really getting to a place where nothing is in the way.

Like this kind of space of empty and meaningless, which is hard to get to, especially when we're consuming things in all different areas.

But I don't know, I lose myself in it.

Like it's not me.

It's like some-- - Some like force, right?

- Some spirit that like comes through me and I even some of the work that I make, most of the work that I make, I am like not aware as I'm making it.

Like what I'm making.

And then I take a step back and I'm like, wow, I can't believe that came out of my hands.

- That's amazing, but sometimes you really do have to get to that meditative mindset to put out your best work 'cause you're not overthinking it.

You're not over critiquing.

You're not overworking.

You're just really letting kind of your lose your brain kind of take control, you know?

- And then it's muscle memory at that point.

Like the same thing with yoga.

It's like every move you stop thinking about how do I do this move?

You just go into the move.

- Just go into the flow.

- And you go into the flow.

Exactly.

- So I know you have a really awesome project going on right now.

I would love to talk about that.

You wanna break it down for me?

- So right now I'm working on a year long astrology collection.

I'm making eight limited edition mugs per Zodiac and I'm making them within the season, which is definitely a challenge just 'cause ceramics, it takes minimally three weeks for a piece to, you know, from a ball of clay to finally being fired in a kiln, a complete piece to be done.

So I am just month after month making special pieces for each zodiac and I'm collaborating with a local astrologer, Izzy Vassilakis, First House Rising Astrology, to really embody these pieces and to learn all I can about each zodiac so I can put as much of that essence into the pieces.

- Well, awesome.

Well, you heard it folks.

Feel free to check out that website and thank you Mariah for taking the time to tell us what's going on.

- Thank you Jade.

- Appreciate it.

- Please welcome Heard.

(peaceful music) (bright music begins) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music ends) (singing in foreign language begins) (singing in foreign language continues) (bright music begins) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (singing in foreign language) (percussive music begins) (percussive music continues) (percussive music continues) (bright music begins) (bright music continues) (bright music ends) (peaceful music) - Thanks for joining us.

For more Arts, be sure to visit wmht.org/aha and be sure to connect with us on social media.

I'm Matt Rogowicz, thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for AHA has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi, and The Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts and we invite you to do the same.