About Olla Ceramics

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 the utilization of foraged materials. She 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 by collaborating with scientists and artists from various disciplines. She investigates how partnerships between indigenous land stewards and modern material engineers can promote holistic approaches in a field that increasingly impacts the natural world.

Olla Ceramics is facilitating the Southern California expansion of Golden Earth Studio, the UK sustainability initiative connecting industries to provide construction waste materials to artists. Collection opportunities will begin Winter 2025.

She is continually conducting research with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography surrounding the effects of high temperature exposure on marine sediments, with a focus on their potential applications post-research.

Name origin: An "olla" is a ceramic form categorized by it's wide belly and narrow neck, observed individually in cultures throughout the world. Used for food storage, plant irrigation, and even burial, the olla represents the scientists, artists and communities before us who have spent lifetimes in a symbiotic relationship with clay.