While pursuing a master’s degree in fine arts at Arizona State University, ceramicist Nicole Ponsart—an international student from Canada—had the quintessential American “broke college student” experience.

Unable to work due to her student visa, Ponsart’s resources were limited, while the cost of supplies for her ceramics program was mounting.

Turning scarcity into sustainability, Ponsart developed an innovative clay recycling program that would allow her to continue her studies debt-free. Since then, Ponsart has become a budding artist using 100% recycled, free clay while also providing free supplies to fellow ceramicists. Even after graduating, the “recycled clay pipeline” she created lives on.

Q&A With Ceramics Artist Nicole Ponsart

What first drew you to ceramics?

Growing up on the West Coast of Canada—in Coquitlam, British Columbia—the ocean was always nearby, and the rain was ever-present in my daily life. Using the heel of my boot to create channels to redirect water on the beach, in the garden or on the fields during lunch break at school was certainly a top childhood pastime. I would drain the contents from one puddle to the next or unclog storm drains, create dams and carve out rivers for the water to move through.

It was in this act of creation, where I could use my body to shape and form the sediment and earth around me, that my love for clay was born. This hands-on type of tactile learning and understanding comes through the action of doing. Later in life, when clay found its way into my life through the pedagogy of art teachers, I discovered a lot of it had overlaps with the actions and habits I formed as a child, making ‘rivers’ in the dirt and structures on the shores.

As I got older, the scale to which I wanted to build increased quite significantly, and I found myself constructing these same metaphorical rivers, rocks and mountains well into my adult life, and now in another country as a graduate student. What drew me to ceramics was the ability of clay to illustrate concepts and ideas in somewhat real-time. I was able to sketch in three dimensions, physical objects or scenes, and transform them through the alchemy of ceramics into more permanent objects and scenes to build off of.

What type of ceramics do you make?

Mostly large-scale sculpture or installation-based work. I don’t typically make work for everyday consumption or use.

• 

• 

Can you tell us more about your clay recycling initiative?

In August 2022, when I first moved to Arizona to start graduate school at ASU, I quickly realized that access to affordable ceramic materials and supplies was severely limited—far more limited than it was for me in Canada. I found that the price point for clay locally in supply stores was far higher than I was used to, and in another currency, making it even more expensive. I didn’t want money to hinder making what I wanted to make—as most artists can relate to—while on my new American clay adventure. So, I reached out to my then-advisor, Sam Chung, for help. He connected me with ASU alumni who were a part of programs across the Valley. From there, I created a network of clay artists whom I could reach out to and inquire as to what they did with their scrap clay.

This sparked a very fruitful and generative relationship between me and Phoenix College, where I would go and collect dry, discarded, clay scraps every six to eight weeks from their ceramics department and recycle the clay back at my studio space. During my time at ASU, I was able to create all of my work from 100% discarded, recycled clay that I reconstituted myself with the equipment at ASU’s Grant Street Studios.

This recycled clay pipeline has now been passed on to the new graduate students working in clay and provides free materials for those who want to try ceramics for the first time, work at a larger scale, or for those who have just moved to the country and are starting from scratch, like I did three years ago.

How does the concept of recycling and repurposing influence your own work?

I think it helps my day-to-day operations as a maker by instilling awareness for the material and systems to help along the way that save every scrap, piece, chunk or broken object to be ground down and repurposed back into material. As an educator, this habitual process allows me the opportunity to pass it forward to my students and share with them the best practices I work with through the pedagogy I bring forward in my classrooms. Sharing with others, teaching them, and showing them different approaches and creating an environment of collaboration is what ceramics is all about.

Learn more about Ponsart at nicoleponsart.com