Fall Issue - C Magazine
“I love the magic of the earth. It feels powerful and spiritual.”
Lois Samuels’ work as a ceramicist isn’t a second career.“It could be a fifth”, she says with a laugh, and that pretty much hits the mark. Born in Jamaica and raised on a farm, Samuels (whose first name is pronounced Loy) was discovered by a modeling agent while in high school. She went on to appear on the covers of Essence and German Vogue and walked the runways of such designers as Alexander McQueen, Issey Miyake, and Thierry Mugler.“It lasts like the blink of an eye”, she recalls of her modeling days.
In 2009, she designed a clothing line, Vessel, for nearly a decade and also published a book of her photography, Jamaica Through My Eyes, chronicling everyday scenes in her home country. But five years ago, when her son moved to San Diego for college, Samuels decided to relocate to L.A. and start her newest creative endeavor working in clay. “One of my first dreams was to be a farmer. I just love the magic of the earth. It feels really powerful and special and spiritual,” she says of her material of choice. “Something about L.A. reminds me of Jamaica. There’s something about the light and the topography of the land. It really feels more like home here.”
Samuels hand-builds her ceramic works (as opposed to throwing them on the wheel), a process she prizes because she feels it adds more imperfection to her sublimely earthy yet beautifully ornamented vessels. “I think they reflect the experiences that you have in life — it’s not always perfect”, says Samuels, who this year joined the roster of designers and artists at L.A.’s esteemed Twentieth, founded by Stefan Lawrence.
For her latest collection, Open, Samuels used items like vegetable skewers, spatulas, and pieces of fabric to add patterns to the forms, with the end result looking in some cases like beadwork. While she works primarily at a communal studio in Cypress Park, Samuels says that she also likes to have clay at home“, because if I just roll out of bed and I want to touch the earth, I know it’s there.”•
Ceramicist Lois Samuels at Twentieth in the Hollywood Hills with her Portal No. 1 ceramic piece from her Portal series, (below) and Open No. 30 from her Open series.
PH: CHRISTIAN ANWANDER FOR C MAGAZINE
WORDS BE: DEGEN PENER
