I found a ceramic artist named Amy Sanders de Melo. She’s a Colombian-American artist, educator, and arts advocate based in Tulsa. Her practice explores themes of disability, identity, and healing through tactile storytelling. She has ongoing vision and hearing loss and incorporates Braille into her work to represent the liminal space between disability and perceived ability.

I want to talk to her about having urns made for my dif/Fused Ancestry project. The idea is that, once all the different soils for a person’s ancestors have been transmuted into art, a pinch of each would be placed in a single receptacle that looks like an urn. This urn would be a tangible representation of the integration of soils and ancestors by the living family member.

Update: I swear, you ask Tulsa for something, and you shall receive. The entire state of Oklahoma may be like that. I never would have guessed I’d be able to source something like this for my project with such ease—and have what I imagined in my hands seventeen hours after imagining it. The talent in here is incredible. The resources are incredible. The community is incredible. I found the miniature vases shown below by Amy Sanders de Melo at a local store. I can’t wait to find out if I can commission her to make similar vases for dif/Fused Ancestry.

Image: A set of five one-of-a-kind custom-made 1″ x 1″ porcelain vases, each with celadon (gray and blue) hues and glaze. Reduction gas-fired.