Ceramic characters, each with their own whimsical charm, gaze from various angles in Rami Kim’s studio. Built by hand, their faces emerge from planters, ceramic dishes and slip-cast mugs like the cast of an animated Hayao Miyazaki movie. On a shelf, a customized dog figurine — a client’s beloved terrier — lies on its stomach atop a lilac-colored butter dish. Nearby, a retriever, in a seated position, rests on a woman’s head.
“I like the idea of giving life to the objects I create,” Kim said, standing in her garage studio. “They’re my imaginary friends.”
In this series, we highlight independent makers and artists, from glassblowers to fiber artists, who are creating original products in and around Los Angeles.
Some of her sculptures have names, each a tribute to the inspiration behind them. There’s the Penelope table lamp, where a mysterious, almost melancholy face base is adorned with a glass globe. And there’s Gus, Kim’s beloved white Maltese, who was her constant companion for 17 years until his death in 2023.
“I spent my 20s, 30s and part of my 40s with Gus,” she said softly before adding, “I miss him.”
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Kim was sculpting a life-size Gus lamp at her work table the other day when a smile suddenly illuminated her face. With each detail of his fluffy coat, she seemed to be acknowledging the dog who brought her so much joy, infusing the lamp with the same warmth and happiness as her constant companion.
“People like to have something functional that they can use every day,” Kim said of her character-driven works.
“Gus was my family,” said the 43-year-old artist as she painted the dog’s eyes and nose. “He was a sweet boy with a gentle personality. During the pandemic, it was so helpful to have him near me when life was so uncertain.”
Born and raised in Seoul, Kim studied character animation at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). After earning a master of fine arts from the UCLA Animation Workshop, she secured a job as a background painter for Nickelodeon’s “Dora the Explorer” and the independent animation company July Films, where she worked on her former CalArts professor Mike Nguyen’s 2D-animated feature film “My Little World.”
Gus accompanied her.
“I want to make work that people can touch and hold,” said Kim, a former animator.
Kim smiled, remembering how her colleagues embraced Gus. “I would bring him to work with me every day,” she recalled. “Everybody liked to greet him and was so happy to see him. He would sit under my desk on his dog bed while I worked at the computer.”
Kim was still working in animation when she first tried ceramics at Ball Clay Studio in Highland Park, which is now closed. “I started making these little figurines as a product for stop-motion animation,” she said, holding two floating faces. The transition from the digital world to the tactile process of ceramics was a turning point in her artistic journey.
A selection of works inside Kim’s ceramics studio near La Crescenta.
“I still remember when I first touched the clay,” Kim said. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God. I need to keep doing this.’ I loved working with my hands. The possibilities seemed endless. I just knew that I would be doing ceramics for the rest of my life, as I would never get bored with it. And I get bored easily.”
It grew from there.
Coming from an animation background, where she learned the art of bringing characters to life, Kim said she “always wanted to create characters in a different form. That’s how I give life to my ceramic creations.”
Adding faces to her vessels made Kim feel like the pieces “now have a life.”
She started to turn her organic vessels into faces, complete with eyes and lips. “That made me feel like they had a character,” she said. “The sculptures now have a life.”
When she grew weary of sitting at a computer all day long doing animation, Kim decided to pursue ceramics full time, working out of a studio in Atwater Village and later a garage studio next to her rental home near La Crescenta.
Nguyen, her former CalArts professor, isn’t surprised to hear she has an emotional attachment to the characters she creates.
“We as humans are very much interested in each others essences, thoughts and feelings,” he said in an email. “Character-driven work is one focus aspect of the overall experiences of being alive. It is not necessarily coming directly from her work as an animator, but from the people she has met, the friends in her life and her family.”
A ceramic home depicts Kim and her dog, Gus.
With people worried about a possible recession, Kim has seen customers hesitate to spend money on her works, which cost between $50 for a mug to $1,800 for a customized lamp. So she started creating custom animal figurines for clients, many of whom, like her, have lost their pets. “People share their stories about the past,” she said of the process. “They share photos of their pet and tell me their favorite poses, which helps me sculpt them. I feel like I know the pets. It’s very special.”
Eileen O’Dea — who commissioned Kim to design a figurine of her late dog, Owen, a mixed pup she found on the street near her West L.A. woodshop — talked about the profound emotional resonance of Kim’s work. “It’s the kind of object that blurs the line between beauty and memory,” O’Dea said of the butter dish Kim made her. “It looks just like him; even his floppy ear is perfect. Every time I use it, I’m reminded of him.”
Another customer ordered two custom figurines as a gift for her sister who had just completed nursing school at the age of 60. “Her dogs had helped her get through it,” Kim said. “It was such a touching story to be a part of.”
“Hopefully Gus is running around with other dogs having a good time,” Kim said of her late dog, Gus.
The tactile nature of her work is something she hopes to share with others. “I want to create work that people can enjoy and touch and hold,” she said, adding, “I hope my work gives people a warm feeling.”
Yes, it’s hard working for yourself, she said, but Kim likes the flexibility of being able to work anytime she wants or take a day off to wander a museum or see a movie. However, after she relocated her studio from Atwater Village, where she shared space with other artists, to her home in La Crescenta, she admitted to feeling isolated.
“I miss having a community and visiting with studio mates. I feel like I learn so much from other people. That’s why I host workshops here in my studio,” said Kim, who enjoys teaching. “As an independent artist working alone, it’s tough because I don’t want to work too much in the wholesale business because then I would need a team and more orders, and then I would have to operate like a factory.”
“It makes me happy when people share stories about their pets with me,” Kim said.
Kim’s ability to capture the unique personality of each pet in her ceramics provides solace to clients who have lost their pets. (Rami Kim )
Still, she can’t see herself going back to computer work. “I’ll never get bored with this,” she said. “I can do this until I’m 90. I’m having so much fun.”
Kim’s understanding of the comfort her ceramics provide to those grieving the loss of a pet is not just professional but deeply personal. She has experienced it herself in her studio, home and garden, where she is surrounded by the “friends” that she has created.
“When I put the Gus lamp on a table in my living room, it feels like he is sitting next to me,” she said. “He’s eternal now.”
