Photo by Melanie Risch
About
Vanna Ramirez
Founder & Owner of Vanna's StudioVanna Ramirez is a Baltimore-based artist working primarily with clay to explore the layered, shifting spaces between cultures, memories, and imagined worlds. Born in the United States to Taiwanese and Salvadoran parents, she creates figural and sculptural works that inhabit a place of multiplicity—where identities overlap, histories resonate, and new possibilities take shape. Blending stoneware, porcelain, and light, she uses the body as a vessel for transformation and wonder, grounding her practice in intercultural dialogue and material curiosity.
Vanna earned a BS in Studio Art from Skidmore College and continued her studies through the Special Student Program at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture. Her engagement with broader craft traditions includes workshops at Penland School of Craft and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, as well as participation in NCECA’s Multicultural Fellowship, which deepened her understanding of ceramics across global and diasporic lineages. Residencies at the Red Lodge Clay Center, Arquetopia, and Baltimore Clayworks have been instrumental to her development, offering dedicated time for research, reflection, and the expansion of her conceptual and material investigations.
In 2024, Vanna founded Vanna’s Studio LLC in Baltimore’s Highlandtown Arts District, her first independent workspace dedicated to both personal artistic growth and community connection. The studio provides room for sustained experimentation, supporting the evolution of her sculptural and functional work through iterative making. It also serves as a site for teaching and workshops, where she invites others to experience the tactile, grounding, and connective possibilities of clay.
Alongside her studio practice, Vanna works with the Baltimore Museum of Art Shop, where she contributes to the museum’s creative community and offers a selection of her handmade pieces. This role complements her commitment to fostering dialogue, shared learning, and cultural exchange through the arts.
MY PROCESS
Slow & Steady
I work slowly, forming ideas through making and allowing the process to evolve intuitively. Naturally, clay complements my own creative rhythms, asking for patience, rest, and attention. Clay does not like to be rushed, and neither do I. In a world that rewards product over process, I remind myself that working slowly makes room for care, thought, and presence. This quiet allows curiosity to surface and shape what emerges.
As part of my process, I move between sculptural and functional forms. Working in both helps me stay balanced, mentally and physically, and keeps my curiosity active. Across all my work, I care deeply about the tactile experience, often letting texture lead the way. I experiment with surface and form as a way of challenging my past work and my own expectations of what clay can do. This way of working keeps the process open, attentive, and responsive, allowing the work to unfold over time rather than rush toward resolution.
Making art is how I stay engaged with the world and imagine how I want to move within it. Clay gives me a way to do this slowly, with care and attention. Each piece becomes a mindful commitment to shaping personal values, intentions, and ways of being.
