Sea Bay Ceramics<\/a>. Prices range from $45 to $400, depending on size and how much 18-karat gold is used for the piece.<\/p>\n ![\"At](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785352105_479_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
At her home in Silver Lake, Chelsea Bayouth shares some of the porcelain figures she recovered from the Eaton fire.<\/p>\n
In her studio, surrounded by shelves of porcelain figures she recovered from Altadena and refired, she fashions whimsical sculptures imitating feminine figures and feline forms. \u201cWhich are the same,\u201d she said, laughing. \u201cThose two energies are very similar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most are small enough to fit into the palm of her hand.<\/p>\n
![\"Porcelain](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785352106_652_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Porcelain sculptures made by artist Chelsea Bayouth at her home studio in Silver Lake.<\/p>\n
On some pieces, she writes lines of poetry. On others, handwritten spells manifesting joy or health dance across the white surface.<\/p>\n
Art became a spiritual practice for Bayouth in her 20s, when she experienced \u201ca massive existential crisis\u201d that left her paralyzed by the \u201cbig\u201d questions: \u201cWhat\u2019s beyond our world? What\u2019s the point of everything? Why are we living here? What\u2019s governing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t eat. I was the thinnest I\u2019d ever been. I was just so anxious every day, not having answers to these questions,\u201d Bayouth said. \u201cI didn\u2019t understand how anybody could be going about their lives, just driving and making plans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Art became her way of processing those anxieties. She crafted large, ethereal paintings of nude figures floating through space who chanted phrases confronting the universe\u2019s greatest mysteries.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo exist is beyond rationality,\u201d Bayouth recalled one saying. \u201cWe are made from humming triangles,\u201d she remembered of another. Those paintings burned in the Eaton fire.<\/p>\n
When she recovered her porcelain figures from her Altadena home, with bits of her studio forever glued to their surface, she wondered what would happen if she refired them. She knew they would melt and change form, and she wanted to see how.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you see how it\u2019s got all of these runs in it?\u201d Bayouth said from her Silver Lake studio, turning over a horned cat figure smaller than a strawberry. \u201cThis is iron that was in my studio that, after I fired it, melted and vitrified and became part of the piece.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some pieces in Bayouth\u2019s studio have faint, yellow colorations to them that weren\u2019t there before, she said. She reapplied their gold luster, which burned off in the fire. That \u201cshould give you a clue as to how hot the fire was,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
![\"Some](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785352106_230_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Some of artist Chelsea Bayouth\u2019s porcelain sculptures.<\/p>\n
The resulting effect stirred Bayouth to use more outside elements in her glaze application. One humanesque figure in her studio, with tears glistening below its peacefully closed eyelids, has iron-rich sand from Big Sur fused to the surface, making it look like it was \u201cunearthed in a river or taken out of a house fire,\u201d Bayouth said.<\/p>\n
She collects material from other places, too, like dirt from her daughter\u2019s preschool yard or sand from local beaches \u2014 anything elemental that \u201cwill really alchemize and change form in the kiln.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bayouth\u2019s love for ceramics goes back to childhood. Growing up in Woodland Hills, she comes from a family of Angeleno artists. Her father, a classically trained oil painter, kept a potter\u2019s wheel in the garage, throwing pots as a hobby. Her mother went to school for art \u2014 as did Bayouth, a 2008 graduate of California Institute of the Arts. And her brother is also a puppet builder. The siblings collaborate on walk-around suits and puppets large and small.<\/p>\n
Despite taking ceramics classes as a kid and loving it, Bayouth didn\u2019t return to the art form until many years later, when two life-altering events rattled her sense of self: the COVID-19 pandemic and, within it, the birth of her daughter.<\/p>\n
When the pandemic hit, Bayouth found herself hooked on mudlarking YouTube videos, a practice in which people hunt for treasures on beaches, lakes and \u2014 in Bayouth\u2019s case \u2014 England\u2019s River Thames. Scavengers would dig up artifacts like gold coins and porcelain doll heads, and Bayouth admired their aged, archival qualities, a theme that takes shape in her ceramics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just an energy to things with a history,\u201d Bayouth said.<\/p>\n
![\"Chelsea](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785352107_995_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Chelsea Bayouth at home in Silver Lake.<\/p>\n
![\"Bayouth](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785352107_557_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Bayouth stands in her home studio, as seen through an adjacent bedroom window.<\/p>\n
Then, in 2021, Bayouth became a mother \u2014 an experience that \u201cirrevocably changed\u201d her.<\/p>\n
When her daughter, Valentine, was born, \u201cit was a double whammy of like, who are you and what are you offering this world?\u201d Bayouth said. \u201cIt was a real annihilation of self.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a new mother, Bayouth struggled to find a way back to art. That changed when she rediscovered ceramics. She found she could make sculptures relatively quickly, in small batches, and that had emotional value, all while caring for a small child.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a doorway into my art practice again,\u201d Bayouth said.<\/p>\n
At markets like the Renegade Craft Fair, Bayouth\u2019s work often draws women across many ages. Bayouth finds older women respond frequently to her female-figured sculptures, while a younger crowd is drawn to her catlike creatures.<\/p>\n
Occupational therapist Wendy Self, 57, purchased a number of Bayouth\u2019s creatures. Some she gave to family members, and others she keeps on her windowsill, dining table or desk at work.<\/p>\n
An Altadena resident, Self also lost her home in the Eaton fire. She finds a protective quality in Bayouth\u2019s sculptures, almost as if they\u2019re a \u201clittle guardian.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s sort of magical,\u201d Self said of Bayouth\u2019s style. \u201cIt has a lot of whimsy in it, but it also has a balance of light and dark in terms of how it makes you feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Chelsea](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785352108_669_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Chelsea Bayouth shows the porcelain sculptures she recovered after the Eaton fire.<\/p>\n
Like Self, many of Bayouth\u2019s customers have been affected by the fire. One woman from a recent fair stands out in Bayouth\u2019s memory. Her house burned down too, and shortly after, her husband died.<\/p>\n
The customer bought an angel figure, fashioned with tears on her face and arms holding her chest. It would become the first piece of art in the customer\u2019s new home, Bayouth recalled.<\/p>\n
Bayouth doesn\u2019t make designs for her ceramics. She might add images or poems to the work, not knowing why until she meets the person who buys it.<\/p>\n
She remembers the woman holding the angel, saying, \u201cShe is me.\u201d<\/p>\n
They embraced each other for a long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text”> Chelsea Bayouth remembers returning to her Altadena home on Jan. 11, 2025. \u201cNo, no, no, no, no,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[267],"tags":[257750,257751,595,207273,365,362,363,364,51178,257747,366,257748,18,117,2598,19,17,2577,28654,134806,7601,2649,9223,257749],"class_list":["post-610421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-3-year-old-daughter","tag-altadena","tag-art","tag-art-studio","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-ceramic","tag-chelsea-bayouth","tag-design","tag-eaton-fire","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-home","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-painting","tag-piece","tag-porcelain","tag-sculpture","tag-self","tag-woman","tag-work-center"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117004843223568869","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a> <\/p>\n