Meet Yiu Keung Lee | Ceramic Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Yiu Keung Lee and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Yiu Keung, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I have been teaching at different schools in the area since 1995. I often wanted a place, a school, of my own so I can teach my follow my own teaching style and what I would like people to learn in a non-traditional 4-year program or a more traditional way of learning through an apprentice/ mentorship program. I find this is a more effective way, in my view, to teach the craft.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I pick this topic becasue I am first and foremost an artist. I was trained to be an artist but my passion is not only to be an artist but be someone who can pass on the knowledge I have learned and be able to coach individuals who would love to learn what I know best. Being a teacher is what I love to do most and see others succeed under my mentorship.
Coming from Hong Kong in the late 1980s to the United States for school wasn’t a really well planned out decision at the time. I just wanted to some change in my life turned 21 years of age. I wouldn’t say it was easy, but it took me sometime to realize that I should stick with art as my career path no matter where it would take me. Working hard to get the BFA was not something I had to think about everyday, but to do the best I could at that time and see. There was really no other plans. Like any other college students, I worked multiple job to pay my tuition and bills. That was a struggle. I have earned my BFA then two and a half years later, I have earned my MFA. I met my wife right before I graduated from y undergraduate program, and largely thanks to her, I was able to go graduate school and finished it with relatively less debt than I anticipated. Still at that point I owed quite a lot of money to the bank for the money I had to put up for tuition over the six and a half years period. I was just very glad that I got the Master’s degree and able to find a job teaching in higher education institutions and also practice my art at the same time.
Years passed, I decided that having my own studio/school would be a better way for me to do what I do best. Thanks to some funding/loan from my parents, I was able to find a place very close to where I live and opened the studio/school I have been able to maintain a growing business since the Fall of 2013. Even though I designed the studio as an alternative school of craft, it is still a business in many ways. I have to make sure that people know about the studio, offer classes and programs cater to what most people want to learn yet upholding the quality of their work. To find a balance between being a business and a school is probably the most challenging aspect of this studio/school! I don’t really have a solution for it, becasue I am still learning and trying to find a solution for it. There maybe no solution for it, I do what I do best to make sure whom wants to learn will get as much help from me and others at the studio.
Clay Work Studio is the name of my studio/school, it has become my brand. Branding is not something I even thought about that I have to do as a business. It’s sort of slowly emerged as the studio grows from having a small handful of students and who I called Independent Potters to an average of 120 “bodies” a month both students and IPs working at the studio! I am very proud of the community of students and potters that I have been building up over the last ten years and I believe, at least, most of them feel attached to studio as if this is place to come to chat, create and learn.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
This is a question always coes up when relatives and friends are visiting the area. My best friend did visit us once over 26 years ago! I would take him to the parks and drive around to see the greater Detroit area. If he comes again, I would probably take him for a camping trip up north. I would like to him Gallup Park, Delhi Park or take a short hike around the nature trail off Dhu Varren Road. There are any restaurant to choose from here in Ann Arbor, like Dalat Vietnamese restaurant, the new Peridot, Slurpping Turtle, Bellflower in Ypsilanti, Blimpy burgers, ect…. My best friend doesn’t drink, but I would still take him to HopCat for a drink. Most of the friends and family who came to visit think Ann Arbor is like a park!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
This question never came up and if I have to come up with an answer, I would say that I owe my professors John and Susanne Stepenson for being my mentor for so many years and still supporting me in many ways so I can be who I am today. There are many others that I am very thankful to be in my life supporting what I do as an artist but it is a very long list of names and I think they know who they are even without naming them here. Last but not least, my family has been putting up with me all this time and I think they deserve the most of the credit,

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