Meet Osa Atoe

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Osa Atoe a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Osa, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

My work ethic comes both the passion I feel toward my medium and the practical demands of life and having to pay bills. I am fortunate that I get to do what I love for a living. This means that even when I’m pushing toward a deadline, I find pleasure in my work. I get to experiment and chase ideas in the studio. My motivation for working comes from wanting to see new ideas come to fruition. I have never experienced a creative block in the ten years that I’ve been working with clay professionally.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I create handmade ceramic pieces for daily enjoyment that serve as decorative objects when not in use. I’m inspired by my Nigerian heritage, historical ceramics from around the globe and the Florida landscape. Some of my pieces incorporate different clays that I have foraged locally as well as on my travels to bring a direct sense of connection between the finished piece and our natural surroundings. Community engagement is central to my work since ceramics are cultural objects and we can’t have culture without community. This holiday season, I have donated a handmade Unity Cup to our local Kwanzaa celebration and will be leading the libation ceremony. I am also hosting an open studio event on December 6th at my home studio here in Sarasota. The event is open to the public. I will have some finished pieces for sale and I will also show the tools, materials and process that go into the creation of my pottery. Additionally, I am working up to a solo exhibition in early 2027 at the Art & History Museum in Maitland, Florida.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1. A “DIY” mentality: Coming from the world of punk rock, I knew how to create my own opportunities when it came to ceramics. In punk, we set up our own shows, release our own music, create our own tape & record labels, etc. I’ve done the same in the pottery world. I’ve set up my own pop-up events with local businesses, I host my own online workshops, I self-publish via my blog, print articles and zines and more. Punk rock taught me that I don’t need to wait for opportunities to come my way–I can create them myself.

2. Obviously, creating the pottery itself is the most important skill needed to succeed in my field. Focusing on my love for clay and the long, global history of pottery-making has motivated me to hone my skills as a potter over the years. I’ve done a ton of self-educating thanks to books and the Internet. I’ve also taken a couple of workshops and sought out different educational experiences along the way. The biggest thing is repetition, practice and commitment. Again, the motivation to continue to refine my work comes from my love of the material itself.

3. Curiosity. I’m always interested in learning more. I began experimenting with wild clays (aka natural, unprocessed clay found in nature) about 8 years ago. I did not immediately use the clay I found in my work, but I did play with it and test fire it to learn more about it. Experimenting with the clay and being curious about its qualities would open up new creative avenues for me that I had not anticipated. Years of play and experimentation eventually led to my Earth Tone series of work–richly decorative surfaces achieved through the application of a variety of wild clays.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

Both of my parents, but especially my mom, taught me to be decisive and confident in my decision-making skills. You can’t be an effective business owner if you are indecisive or make decisions based on the fear of missing out. One of the things that has served me the most over the course of my career is knowing when to say no. I was raised in a household in which no one feared saying no, and where “no” is a complete sentence on its own. My parents are the kinds of people who don’t use ATMs because they don’t understand paying a fee to use their own money. They never pay bank fees. In this way, they’ve taught me to mind my best interest. They’ve showed me through their example how to be decisive and discerning and to avoid being taken advantage of.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.potterybyosa.com
• Instagram: https://mastodon.social/@potterybyosa/media
• Youtube: https://makertube.net/a/potterybyosa/video-channels
• Other: In January 2026, I migrated from Meta apps to non-corporate alternatives. I used Mastodon for social media and MakerTube as a YouTube alternative.

Image Credits

Headshot by Yoleidy Rosario-Hernandez
Underwater springs photos: Shoog McDaniel
Pottery Still Life: Jesse Clark

all others by me