Noor Rahimi spent much of the evening on failure — the pieces that crack, slump or simply come out wrong, and what she’s learned from resisting the urge to hide them. A second firing, she explained, is never a guarantee; it’s a second chance to lose the piece entirely, which is exactly what makes the surfaces that survive it worth keeping.
Youssef Amrani, a longtime collector of her work, spoke about living with pieces that carry visible cracks and repairs — and why he now seeks those out rather than the flawless ones. The room agreed, more or less, that the interesting part of a vessel is usually the part that almost didn’t happen.
“The kiln doesn't care how much you loved the piece going in.”