Ariana Kier is a ceramicist and soil catalogist based in San Diego, California. She leads wild clay workshops for artists in the region, focusing on foraged materials, and works from her studio in the mountains, where she collects salts, stones, ochres, clays, ash, and other pigments from around the world.

Her work explores innovative approaches to ceramics, investigating how collaborations between indigenous land stewards and modern material engineers can foster sustainable practices in a field that increasingly impacts the natural world.

Ariana regularly teaches at nonprofit community spaces in San Diego and is currently conducting research with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography on the effects of high temperatures on marine sediments, with a focus on their potential artistic applications post-research.