Ceramic figures that sit between stone and body.
Mahsa Masjoudi hand-builds ceramic figures whose surfaces are left open and porous, closer to river rock and pumice than to glaze. Nothing is added to make them expressive. The face is only what the clay already suggested.
Each figure fits inside two hands. The weight is real, the surface catches on skin, and the face is found by turning it slowly toward the light.
Eyes are pressed with a single tool, once. Whatever mood the pressure leaves is the mood the piece keeps.
The kiln decides the last of it: how far the speckle blooms, where the grey goes to green, which pores stay open.
Fine iron speckle, open pores, a skin that reads as volcanic stone. It is unglazed on purpose, so the figure looks found rather than made.
The figures are made in company and tend to leave that way. Set two together and the space between them starts to carry a small conversation.
Pieces are made singly and in small groups, for homes and for commissions.