The woman being interviewed is named Naomi Clement, a Canadian artist and educator. Clement has been involved with the arts since she was young: she grew up in an artistic family, and went to an art school in high school, which offered 2D, print- making, ceramics etc. Clement started off as doing theatre, and in high school started taking ceramic classes.
After high school, Clement wanted to broaden her community and network by going to grad school in the USA. Clement received her MFA from Louisiana State University, and finished her degree at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design.
Clement’s style involves incorporating graphic letters into her work, Her ideas for incorporating text into her work started before she got her graduate degree: her inspiration first came from her grandparent’s love letters, which she received when she was in her 20s.
Clement also uses letters from her family's recipe books: she feels like those moments aren't honored as often as they really should be. Clement also asks her family to write words for her so she can use it in her work, because she likes to be able to recognize her family's handwriting. In making her artwork Clement takes the text and moves them around or flips them. It’s important to her that the love letters are not obvious. She wants them to be subtle.
In addition to using text, Clement works a lot with color. Her parents started collecting artwork in the 60s, so Clement grew up with a lot of color. For her, colors are comforting. The colors that she uses are primary colors, but she also likes to play around with warm and cool colors.
With all the color, Clement uses a neutral base which is a chocolate brown clay. Clement feels like she connects to her pots more than she connects to the outside world and that pots are good facilitators for the community. But, Clement believes that social media has had a positive influence on her career, letting her share her artwork with the world.
The biggest takeaway for me from this episode is how Clement used her grandparents' love letters to create artwork. To me that's interesting because it directly shows her motivation and inspiration to create artwork. It's an effective way for her to add her own unique style to her work. Her work stands out as unique, which is important since there are so many other ceramics artists.
In listening to the podcast I learned that I could remake some of her work. I have a diary that I have had since I was a little girl, and there are a lot of hidden secrets in there. Maybe I can make a sculpture and put some of the words and emotions that I was feeling at that time on to the art work. That way I can combine my emotions and artwork together. Additionally, I felt like I could really apply her methods to my life. I like it when artists integrate their life into art because then I feel like I can really relate to both their art and their life. For me, a piece of artwork has to have a meaning in order for me to connect to it. I find artwork with meaning inspiration and the need to go out and bring my emotions to life. 
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