My name is Sasha Raiz. I was educated as an engineer and started doing ceramics as a hobby 18 years ago.  Over time I fell in love with ceramics, took multiple classes to improve my knowledge and technique, and dropped my engineering career.  I make functional and decorative items using nontoxic and lead free glazes. Each piece is either thrown on potters’ wheel and altered or hand built from slabs of clay.  I have been an associate member of Mudflat studio for many years and I have participated in numerous art shows including Mudflat studio, Newton Open Studios, and de Cordova Museum shows.  My work has two inspirations: a very new and a very old.

Modern inspiration comes from the natural world around me and is suggested in many of my decorative pieces. As my vision of what I wanted to create changed throughout the years, so did my style, approach and technique. I learned to be adventurous with my art and to let the material direct my creative process, allowing me to craft a new and unique work of art with every piece of clay. For me, each work reflects moment, and carries its own story; each work has a timeless character and a modern look.

In the 1990s I became very interested in Inca ceramics. I traveled to Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia trying to find traces of the disappearing world of Inca art. The more I discovered, the more I was fascinated with it.  Pre-Columbian Inca ceramics were very unique but after the invasion of Spaniards, Inca potters started to make colonial types of ceramics and their work lost its originality and beauty.  I became inspired to invent what I like to call “contemporary Inca ceramics”, - combining old motifs and new techniques, using their mystic creatures, themes and shapes.  My ceramics are an endless adventure and my little tribute to the very talented, imaginative and very original art of Inca people.

Vases	Wall decorations	Bowls and planters