The Quiet Expressions of Minsoo Yuh Joe Molinaro

Appears in the January 2022 issue of Ceramics Monthly.

A challenge of functional pottery is to link aspects of both utility and personal expression, a task many potters consider regularly when working in their studios. Making pieces that meet the criteria of their intended functions while simultaneously conveying the voice of the maker often requires years of experience. With this framework in mind, the pottery of Minsoo Yuh serves as an example of how daily production is achieved by an artist who has a keen sense of individuality and understands the role pottery plays through process, product, and personal identity.

Authenticity and Vitality in Ceramics

For Minsoo, a Korean-born ceramic artist, a memory from early on in high school fueled her inspiration and desire to one day work in clay. She had arrived at school before morning classes began and peered through the cracked door of her art teacher’s personal studio where she saw silhouettes of large moon jars in a room filled with bright, warm, morning light.¹ Her interest in studying art, something highly encouraged by her mother, led to taking private art classes in drawing and design before later enrolling in art school. In her second year of study, she had an opportunity to finally take a course in ceramics. During the pursuit of both her BFA and MFA degrees in art from Hongik University in Seoul, South Korea, Minsoo found herself continually drawn to the beauty of traditional Korean art, craft objects, and architecture.² She discovered pieces that were simple and bold, elegant and sophisticated, yet rustic and unpretentious. The authenticity and vitality of forms shown through the lines, volume, and colors of Korean art and craft inspired her then and continue to do so today. 

During Minsoo’s time as a graduate student at Hongik University, an encounter with professor Inchin Lee led to a two-year apprenticeship (1991–93) while she also worked to complete her degree.³ During this period, Lee became an influential artist and mentor, and Minsoo observed firsthand how a dedicated potter lived and worked. Her time working closely with Lee taught her how to immerse herself in the understanding of materials, processes, and other aspects of working in clay, including the firing of both gas kilns and wood-fired noborigama. In addition, a deep understanding and appreciation for the purpose of domestic ware became a major focus within her own body of ceramic work. It was during this apprenticeship with Inchin Lee when she began to fully appreciate and insist on high craftsmanship using traditional materials along with a high-firing process for her own personal work in clay. 

Developing a Style 

Upon completion of her MFA degree, Minsoo married fellow Korean ceramic artist, Sunkoo Yuh. They moved to the US in 1993, where she later continued her training in clay by taking independent study classes with Tony Marsh at California State University at Long Beach. After a move to Alfred, New York, for two years, and then later back to California and then Illinois, she and her family eventually landed in Athens, Georgia, in 2005 where Sunkoo began teaching at the University of Georgia. It was here that Minsoo slowly began developing her own pottery style with a primary focus on function and utility. Working in her home studio using a dark cone-10 stoneware clay, she produces pieces that are primarily wheel thrown, often with some manipulation to create new shapes, while other work is made using molds that allow for slight alterations to create more organic forms. She then applies both Helmer and Grolleg kaolin slips for orange color tones, along with a clear glaze together with small dots of colored stains. 

The influences of traditional Korean pottery remain present in both her thoughts and work, which include a strong sense of beauty, simplicity, vitality, and an appreciation of imperfection. As Minsoo comments, “This intrinsic beauty, which requires time, dedication to mastering techniques, and an understanding of the materials and the unintended process of creation, is what I value and strive for in my work.” Her ceramic works often search for an equilibrium between contrasting elements such as soft/sharp, calm/vigorous, bold/subtle, intentional/conscious, static/dynamic and more, each expressing her vision on how disparate aspects of form and surface can harmonize into a successful, utilitarian piece. 

Creating a Balancing Act

The forms Minsoo creates are simple in their designs, allowing her to embellish their interior spaces using a traditional Korean stamping process with a white slip inlaid into the recessed patterns. This technique creates a look of petals floating gently on the surface of the clay. On the exterior of forms, a time-consuming glazing process produces a sense of simplicity through design despite a complexity of image. After pouring, brushing, and dipping white slips onto a piece, Minsoo manipulates the thickness to create interesting variations on the surface of the pots. Afterwards, she draws delicate images of branches, twigs, and leaves that sit on the surface of bold forms in a manner that simultaneously suggests both a detachment and integration. Unglazed areas that act as drawings dance around the forms, with both slips and glazes serving as background. 

The delicacy of the drawings offers a sharp contrast to the strong forms, thus reinforcing Minsoo’s careful balancing act among differing characteristics. Small drops of pigment placed on top of a thinly applied clear, water-like glaze provide depth and color onto the otherwise dark clay forms. Finally, the earthy clay color, along with forming processes that encourage a spontaneity often revealed through surface and shape, contribute quietly to an overall statement, a vision of how Minsoo sees the world. Like the art of the Impressionists, the decorative approach to her ceramics is not trying to create a sense of real life, but rather what nature looks like to her using lines, forms, and spaces found in nature, all of which additionally serve to help illustrate the passage of time.

With a particular love and attention given to the utilitarian aspects of Minsoo Yuh’s work, something she values from her education in Korea, the pottery she creates allows the user to appreciate functionality while simultaneously experiencing an abstracted sense of the beauty found in nature. Her pottery meets the demands of daily use and personal expression, while embracing a cultural reference through both design and process. These quiet expressions of form and surface empower her work and provide users with intimate objects for daily use.

the author Joe Molinaro, professor emeritus at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky, lives and maintains a studio practice in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. To learn more, visit http://joemolinaro.com.

1 A moon jar is a type of traditional spherical form made from Korean white porcelain and was first made during the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910 CE).

2 Hongik University is a private university in Seoul, South Korea, known for its programs in architecture and design. Founded by an independence activist in 1946, the university is in Mapo-gu district of central Seoul, South Korea, with a second campus in Sejong.

3 Inchin Lee (b. 1957) is a leading Korean-born ceramic artist who immigrated to America as a child, and then later returned to Korea to focus his studies on traditional East Asian ceramics. Lee has expanded his study into Bizen ware, a tradition from Japan that uses clay with high iron content and wood firing for a natural ash glaze.