m.bueno Pottery

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Meet Mariella Luz, of m.bueno Pottery {Mariella's middle name starts with 'B', and sounds similar to bueno}. She is based in Olympia, WA, and is a self-taught ceramicist. When she started selling pottery she decided she couldn’t put her full name on all of her work so she came up with m. bueno.

A graduate of Evergreen State College, Mariella founded the Olympia All Ages Project and worked as the general manager of K Records, an independent record label for almost two decades. She also ran an all ages venue in Olympia. In 2014 when the venue decided to close its doors, she took a ceramics class. After one lesson of throwing, she decided to buy a wheel.

Just one pottery class was all it took for her to get hooked. “Honestly, it was love at first sight/touch,” she shared. “I love making things from clay – the transformation it goes through, the meditation of making things over and over again.” A year after that some friends invited her to sell at a craft fair and that is where she sold some of her first pieces of work.

She serves as a board member of several arts organizations including Artist Trust in Olympia. “I think it is really important to be an advocate for art and artists,” she explained. She is also on the board of the Washington State Arts Commission and Olympia Artspace Alliance.

Mariella tries to make her work affordable enough to use every day and simple enough to mix with things you already own. The impression that she wants people to have of her ceramic pieces is that they are simple and beautiful objects. “It seems like there is so much disposable stuff and my work is the opposite of that. I don’t want people to think it is too precious to use every day. Use it! It might get cracked, but it will still be useful and lovely in a new way.”

Welcome to m. bueno Pottery!