The Clay of Mars
Let's make some plates and cups!
I’ve been part of Mars since the beginning. Back in 2019, my boyfriend told me he and a friend were organizing this project in California about high tech and low cost living and I just wanted to be with him. I had no clear expectations when I arrived and I remember being really impressed by the landscape. I come from a very tropical green land, so watching the desert transform during the season was fascinating to me. We had a few days of strong rain, we had to walk in the mud for a while and then I saw how parts of the ground curled into earthly flakes, they became natural clay sculptures with very interesting shapes. I learned how to do pit fire (the most primitive kind of firing, here you can read about this project) and turned those fragile pieces into durable art. Our martian soil happens to be very rich in clay and we can make as many sculptures as we desire from it.
What I’ve been most excited about our current technological transformation is how it can have an impact in our physical world. We use AI to teach ourselves all sorts of physical crafts, by asking as many questions as we wish, then taking pictures from the process and asking more, so we can learn much faster about so many different topics. We’re very far from being a fully sustainable/regenerative system, we depend on the grid for water, food, deliveries. But we could aim in that direction and eventually some of the Martian camps would get there and then they could work as references, experimentation hubs, for truly self-reliant communities. Thanks to people like Freeman Murray and Sam Smith, aka Solar Sam, solar power is the main energy source used on Mars. We could use our local clay for many more projects and I would like to contribute for that to happen.
So I propose the following: we can make ceramic cups and plates for Martian camps out of local clay. Mars clay is earthware, it’s very porous and cannot withstand very high temperatures, but if we glaze it, then it should be food safe and good enough for daily use. Each piece must carry the name of the person who made it. Each piece should be created with care, some might be created with so much care and meaning that we would consider them to be pieces of art. We can play with decorative glazes, different shapes, sculptural elements, anything we want. Once the pieces are finished, we should make a celebration dinner using them.
Dinnerware has a long history as an art form. It’s functional, it needs to be strong and practical, but there’s so much we can experiment with. And it also has a deeper message: that each object is important and should be treated with respect and love, that the moments we have of communal meals are relevant and memorable. Details matter. Objects done with care are not replaceable. If we care about our objects we make the effort for them to last longer, moving a tiny bit away from a waste economy.
A regenerative economy is an economic system focused on restoring, renewing, and enhancing natural, social, and economic systems rather than just sustaining them. It operates on principles of circularity, waste elimination, resource renewal, and creating net-positive impacts for both people and the planet. This system seeks long-term well-being.
Again, we’re still very far away from being a regenerative economy. But we can try to move in that direction, little by little, one cup at a time.
Some dinnerware references for inspiration!
First of all, we should acknowledge the traditions of the Cahuilla people, as they have been creating ceramics from our local clay for centuries. In this link one can learn a little bit about the Cahuilla Ollas. We can see the originals by visiting the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum, Palm Springs Art Museum, and the Campbell collection at Joshua Tree National Park in Twentynine Palms.
One of my favorite art historians, Giulio Carlo Argan, once used Cellini's salt cellar as a reference point to debate how making things with art gives everyday actions a higher meaning:
Benvenuto Cellini's masterpiece salt cellar, created between 1540-1543 for King Francis I of France, represents the pinnacle of Renaissance goldsmithing as high art. This extraordinary vessel features two nude figures: Neptune representing the sea (source of salt) and Ceres representing the earth (source of pepper), whose intertwined legs symbolize the cosmic union of opposing elements essential to life. Crafted entirely in gold with intricate enamel work, the piece transforms the simple act of seasoning food into a meditation on universal harmony, divine proportion, and the Renaissance ideal that functional objects could embody the highest philosophical and artistic aspirations.
If we look across the world, ceramics often transformed the acts of eating or drinking into ritualistic communion with divine forces. These three vessels represent the sophisticated symbolic systems of Mesoamerican and indigenous American ceramic traditions, where functional pottery transcended utility to become spiritual intermediaries. The left effigy vessel transforms the container into a living ancestral figure, the center Maya polychrome piece uses jaguar symbolism to connect dining with cosmic cycles of the underworld sun, and the right vessel employs geometric feathered serpent motifs to encode cosmological knowledge about earthly and celestial realms.
And to give a non spiritual example: Art Deco Streamline Ceramics Russel Wright's "American Modern" dinnerware (1937) used bold, organic forms and innovative glazing techniques to create everyday dishes that looked like abstract sculptures. His fluid, asymmetrical shapes and sophisticated color palette (coral, seafoam, chartreuse) made ordinary dinner plates feel like pieces from a contemporary art gallery.
At last, above I present a picture showing worldwide examples of one of my favorite ceramics aesthetics. Blue and white porcelain using cobalt underglaze began during the Yuan Dynasty and soon became the most popular of all Chinese ceramics, both at home and abroad, with the finest Jingdezhen examples reserved for the imperial court while coarse varieties were made for export trade. As it spread through global trade networks, each culture transformed its meaning and symbolism. In Holland, Delft artisans adapted the aesthetic to celebrate local Protestant values and domestic prosperity, turning Chinese dragons into Dutch windmills and biblical scenes. Japanese potters refined the technique to embody Zen principles of seasonal beauty and impermanence, while English manufacturers democratized the style through industrial transfer printing, making blue and white synonymous with middle-class respectability and imperial nostalgia. Portuguese colonies blended the tradition with Islamic geometric patterns, creating hybrid meanings about cultural fusion, while modern interpretations have recontextualized blue and white as symbols of globalization itself. A single aesthetic can carry radically different cultural meanings while maintaining its fundamental appeal across centuries and continents.
So what to expect from ceramics during Mars 2026?
In Bombay Beach we have a cultural center called BBAC that has several ceramic kilns. We have partnered with them before to fire our pieces and I would like to do it again. It’s also possible to do pit fires, but using professional kilns makes the pieces much more durable and food safe.
I should organize a few encounters to create the cups in the beginning of the semester. I have personally sponsored the ceramics creations of the previous years, paying for the materials and firing fees. This time I would rather ask for 10-20 $ contribution from whoever wishes to participate.
Hopefully we can excite people to create many more dinnerware and sculptures. And I would be happy to display the finished pieces at Saturn, my home, as an art show during the Bombay Beach Biennale.