Inspired by her dog, this L.A. ceramist makes beloved pets 'eternal'

Ceramic characters, each with their ain whimsical charm, regard from assorted angles successful Rami Kim’s studio. Built by hand, their faces look from planters, ceramic dishes and slip-cast mugs similar the formed of an animated Hayao Miyazaki movie. On a shelf, a customized canine figurine — a client’s beloved terrier — lies connected its tummy atop a lilac-colored food dish. Nearby, a retriever, successful a seated position, rests connected a woman’s head.

“I similar the thought of giving beingness to the objects I create,” Kim said, lasting successful her store studio. “They’re my imaginary friends.”

In this series, we item autarkic makers and artists, from glassblowers to fibre artists, who are creating archetypal products successful Los Angeles.

Some of her sculptures person names, each a tribute to the inspiration down them. There’s the Penelope array lamp, wherever a mysterious, astir melancholy look basal is adorned with a solid globe. And there’s Gus, Kim’s beloved achromatic Maltese, who was her changeless companion for 17 years until his decease successful 2023.

“I spent my 20s, 30s and portion of my 40s with Gus,” she said softly earlier adding, “I miss him.”

Kim was sculpting a life-size Gus lamp astatine her enactment array the different time erstwhile a grin abruptly illuminated her face. With each item of his fluffy coat, she seemed to beryllium acknowledging the canine who brought her truthful overmuch joy, infusing the lamp with the aforesaid warmth and happiness arsenic her changeless companion.

“Gus was my family,” said the 43-year-old creator arsenic she painted the dog’s eyes and nose. “He was a saccharine lad with a gentle personality. During the pandemic, it was truthful adjuvant to person him adjacent maine erstwhile beingness was truthful uncertain.”

Born and raised successful Seoul, Kim studied quality animation astatine the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). After earning a maestro of good arts from the UCLA Animation Workshop, she secured a occupation arsenic a inheritance creator for Nickelodeon’s “Dora the Explorer” and the autarkic animation institution July Films, wherever she worked connected her erstwhile CalArts prof Mike Nguyen’s 2D-animated diagnostic movie “My Little World.”

Gus accompanied her.

“I privation to marque enactment that radical tin interaction and hold,” said Kim, a erstwhile animator.

Kim smiled, remembering however her colleagues embraced Gus. “I would bring him to enactment with maine each day,” she recalled. “Everybody liked to greet him and was truthful blessed to spot him. He would beryllium nether my table connected his canine furniture portion I worked astatine the computer.”

Kim was inactive moving successful animation erstwhile she archetypal tried ceramics astatine Ball Clay Studio successful Highland Park, which is present closed. “I started making these small figurines arsenic a merchandise for stop-motion animation,” she said, holding 2 floating faces. The modulation from the integer satellite to the tactile process of ceramics was a turning constituent successful her creator journey.

“I inactive retrieve erstwhile I archetypal touched the clay,” Kim said. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God. I request to support doing this.’ I loved moving with my hands. The possibilities seemed endless. I conscionable knew that I would beryllium doing ceramics for the remainder of my life, arsenic I would ne'er get bored with it. And I get bored easily.”

It grew from there.

Coming from an animation background, wherever she learned the creation of bringing characters to life, Kim said she “always wanted to make characters successful a antithetic form. That’s however I springiness beingness to my ceramic creations.”

Adding faces to her vessels made Kim consciousness similar the pieces “now person a life.”

She started to crook her integrated vessels into faces, implicit with eyes and lips. “That made maine consciousness similar they had a character,” she said. “The sculptures present person a life.”

When she grew weary of sitting astatine a machine each time agelong doing animation, Kim decided to prosecute ceramics afloat time, moving retired of a workplace successful Atwater Village and aboriginal a store workplace adjacent to her rental location adjacent La Crescenta.

Nguyen, her erstwhile CalArts professor, isn’t amazed to perceive she has an affectional attachment to the characters she creates.

“We arsenic humans are precise overmuch funny successful each others essences, thoughts and feelings,” helium said successful an email. “Character-driven enactment is 1 absorption facet of the wide experiences of being alive. It is not needfully coming straight from her enactment arsenic an animator, but from the radical she has met, the friends successful her beingness and her family.”

A ceramic location depicts Kim and her dog, Gus.

With radical disquieted astir a imaginable recession, Kim has seen customers hesitate to walk wealth connected her works, which outgo betwixt $50 for a mug to $1,800 for a customized lamp. So she started creating customized carnal figurines for clients, galore of whom, similar her, person mislaid their pets. “People stock their stories astir the past,” she said of the process. “They stock photos of their favored and archer maine their favourite poses, which helps maine sculpt them. I consciousness similar I cognize the pets. It’s precise special.”

Eileen O’Dea — who commissioned Kim to plan a figurine of her precocious dog, Owen, a mixed pup she recovered connected the thoroughfare adjacent her West L.A. woodshop — talked astir the profound affectional resonance of Kim’s work. “It’s the benignant of entity that blurs the enactment betwixt quality and memory,” O’Dea said of the food crockery Kim made her. “It looks conscionable similar him; adjacent his floppy receptor is perfect. Every clip I usage it, I’m reminded of him.”

Another lawsuit ordered 2 customized figurines arsenic a acquisition for her sister who had conscionable completed nursing schoolhouse astatine the property of 60. “Her dogs had helped her get done it,” Kim said. “It was specified a touching communicative to beryllium a portion of.”

“Hopefully Gus is moving astir with different dogs having a bully time,” Kim said of her precocious dog, Gus.

The tactile quality of her enactment is thing she hopes to stock with others. “I privation to make enactment that radical tin bask and interaction and hold,” she said, adding, “I anticipation my enactment gives radical a lukewarm feeling.”

Yes, it’s hard moving for yourself, she said, but Kim likes the flexibility of being capable to enactment anytime she wants oregon instrumentality a time disconnected to rotation a depository oregon spot a movie. However, aft she relocated her workplace from Atwater Village, wherever she shared abstraction with different artists, to her location successful La Crescenta, she admitted to feeling isolated.

“I miss having a assemblage and visiting with workplace mates. I consciousness similar I larn truthful overmuch from different people. That’s wherefore I big workshops present successful my studio,” said Kim, who enjoys teaching. “As an autarkic creator moving alone, it’s pugnacious due to the fact that I don’t privation to enactment excessively overmuch successful the wholesale concern due to the fact that past I would request a squad and much orders, and past I would person to run similar a factory.”

“It makes maine blessed erstwhile radical stock stories astir their pets with me,” Kim said.

Kim’s quality to seizure the unsocial property of each favored successful her ceramics provides solace to clients who person mislaid their pets. (Rami Kim )

Still, she can’t spot herself going backmost to machine work. “I’ll ne'er get bored with this,” she said. “I tin bash this until I’m 90. I’m having truthful overmuch fun.”

Kim’s knowing of the comfortableness her ceramics supply to those grieving the nonaccomplishment of a favored is not conscionable nonrecreational but profoundly personal. She has experienced it herself successful her studio, location and garden, wherever she is surrounded by the “friends” that she has created.

“When I enactment the Gus lamp connected a array successful my surviving room, it feels similar helium is sitting adjacent to me,” she said. “He’s eternal now.”