February 2025: Amy Raimer - Ceramics

Kim Raimer is a self-taught artist and Portland native working in clay. Her work comes from a place of curiosity and exploration which is expressed in the range of materials, textures, and firing methods she uses. From mid to high-fire clay bodies, light and dark, smooth, and silky to rough and gritty, she explores it all in unexpected ways. Her pieces are heavily influenced from the shapes and textures found in nature, and expressed as they resonate with her own internal landscape and sense of place and belonging. Working with clay, and in nature, invokes conversations within herself that haven’t always been accessible to her otherwise. Her creation process involves spontaneously letting emerge what will, without much forethought, and then learning to let go. She further releases control of the outcomes in her work by her choices for firing the pieces, often using wood, soda, and raku, which are very unpredictable compared to an electric fire. With these methods, she never really knows what will come out of it. Current themes in her work explore a sense of place and community, as seen through the smaller pieces, shapes found in nature nestled together, and textures of an internal and external world, in dying or decaying trees.