CLAY: Silly Ceramics and Calaca’s Creatures

“I rarely need to explain myself: this is a blue elephant, he wears a cylinder and smokes a pipe ─ what is unclear here?”

When it comes to ceramic art, it’s often hard to tell where artistic form ends and quotidian function begins. The work of Nastia Calaca makes this distinction quite easy with a unique mix of clay and whimsy, fantasy and glaze. Writing from Barcelona, Amelia Johannsen - herself a ceramic artist - pens an introduction for Cannopy’s profile of Calaca with an insider’s look at the art of the kiln.

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Nastia Calaca

Words by Amelia Johannsen
Issue 15 | Paris | Materials

Born in Ukraine and now based in Paris, Nastia Calaca never planned to become a ceramic artist. She initially dreamed of becoming an illustrator, bringing her characters to life on paper. It was a summer art camp that led her down a path where her childhood doodles of mythical creatures would find new life as tactile, three-dimensional forms. Her ceramic sculptures feature whimsical and charmingly absurd characters that might have wandered out of a children’s book. The balance between function and fantasy plays a key role in her practice, where each object is imbued with a personality and whimsical warmth that’s been unpredictably transformed in the kiln through the alchemic mix of heat and glazes.

“Croc”

As an artist working with clay myself, I find her process intriguing. Her approach seems spontaneous and fearless, letting the clay guide her rather than imposing rigid structure. Yet, her characters seem to land on the right side of quirky—they’re playful, unapologetically odd, and they invite us to suspend our expectations, leaning into a world where imagination takes center stage. In her work, I can see how small, unexpected observations spark her creative instinct. Like her, I’m drawn to the strange beauty found in everyday moments and objects, where something as simple as the moss on a tree or a stranger’s unusual hat can inspire entirely new forms.

L-R: "Rhino", "Parrot", "Blue Elephant"

And then there’s the element of surprise. The unpredictability of the kiln, a space I know well, where a glaze can make or break a piece, sometimes literally. I appreciate the thrill she embraces in this, where the process itself introduces a touch of chaos that adds to the character of her sculptures. Her style might not fit neatly into everyone’s taste, and that’s part of the joy of it. In a world where ceramics often lean toward sleek, polished finishes, her approach is wonderfully organic, embracing the unpredictable. Calaca’s work reminds us that art can be an invitation to savor the playful, tactile nature of clay without taking it all too seriously.

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CAN | How did you get into ceramics?

NC ─ I am trying to remember where exactly my journey started; maybe it was a magical coincidence or proof of the determinism theory, depending on what you believe. But, my grandmother took me to the nearest educational institution, which happened to be an art school in the neighborhood, with the hope I could finally stop vandalizing our tiny apartment with doodles on the wallpaper, furniture, a neighbor’s cat, several hamsters, and other objects that looked boring to me and needed aesthetic improvement.