Moz Rude: one artist versus the world in the Twin Cities

Enthusiasm shimmers in Moz Rude’s eyes as they talk with visitors of Northern Clay Center, a studio in Minneapolis that holds classes and exhibitions, all of which focus on the ceramic arts. One of these classes is Northern Clay Center’s ART@Hand Winter Open House Workshop, where visitors of all skill levels can sculpt small, holiday-themed decorations from clay and have them fired. Two stencils are available: a polar bear and a Christmas tree, but Moz Rude is quick to remind the amateur ceramists that these are far from the only possibilities. “Anything can happen in a studio,” Moz says. “Reality doesn’t exist here.”

Moz, who is 25, and is queer and non-binary, is one of Northern Clay Center’s teaching artists, and one of its newest. They have been teaching at NCC for about a year, and the ART@HAND event is one of the first workshops they have helped to direct. Studio C, which houses the workshop, is what Moz calls a hand-building studio. For an outsider to the ceramic arts, the room is chaos, a collection of tables, fans, sinks, and buckets, boxes of all shapes and sizes, and walls upon walls of shelves and drying racks, all crammed together beneath bright fluorescent lights. To a ceramist like Moz, however, the layout makes complete sense.

The shelves and racks are filled with more boxes–paper, supplies, and clay–as well as dozens, if not hundreds, of unnamed artworks, each one distinct from the rest. In the corner of the room, behind a massive sink and another metal rack, there’s a wall of ceramic paints, showcased in a mosaic of tiny sections of clay. There are hundreds of them, with names like ‘Seafoam,’ ‘Taffy,’ ‘White Crawl,’ ‘Deb’s Copper Green,’ and ‘Lizardskin.’ In an adjacent studio, several kids sit at a series of pottery wheels, forming cups and bowls in a process known as throwing. “We have three throwing studios and then one handbuilding studio,” Moz says. It’s evident that the studios aren’t just well-used, but well-loved, as any studio should be.

The front of Northern Clay Center houses the sales gallery, where a variety of items–pots, cups, jewelry, vases, plates, sculptures, and more–are on display for visitors to inspect or purchase. The gallery’s bright lights and warm, yellow-orange colors accentuate the colors of the artworks themselves. As I walk through the gallery, it blends into Northern Clay Center’s far more functional space. The contrast seems to say, ‘This is where the art happens. This is where the creativity exists.’ This space, the studios, is Moz’s world, or at least, a part of it.

Moz’s world: that’s what I set out to explore when I met Moz a few weeks before. In March 2023, Moz received their BFA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, and, a few months later, in June, was commissioned by the city of River Falls to direct the creation of a street mural. In Nov. 2023, I interviewed Moz for a news story on the project. While Moz focused on ceramics in their BFA, they love to paint as well; “Only the people who are closest to me know that I paint just as much as I make ceramics,” Moz told me in the interview. This was one reason that they decided to take on the project. Another reason: “[The mural] was an opportunity for me to learn and grow, and also to engage in the community,” Moz said.

At the workshop, Moz instructs me on my project, a polar bear that, by the end of the workshop, has transformed into a rat. “This slab’s a little small, so I’ll stretch it out,” they say, and, “Put newspaper underneath so that the clay can hold itself up,” and “When you scratch up clay and mix it with water… it’s called slope.” Moz’s passion for creativity, and especially unorthodox creativity, is evident. “You can put wings on your bear if you want,” they say. “There might be experiments that don't work out the way you want them to, but that doesn't mean it was a bad idea.” Failed experiments, Moz tells me, are where much of the magic happens as an artist.

Also evident is Moz’s love of teaching. When I arrived at the workshop, at noon, no other visitors were in Studio C, but by 12:30, a few have arrived, and Moz moves to help them with their projects as well. Two women sit down at our table, and Moz greets them and asks, “Are you making a bear?” One of the women tells Moz that she has a rat named Luna and wants to recreate her pet out of clay. “That’s so cute!” Moz exclaims. “I’ll do the critter, too,” the woman’s friend says. She says that she wants to recreate a bear statue that is outside of her home. “I love teaching,” Moz says. “It’s definitely where my passion is. If people have an idea, I love helping them nurture it.” That’s the purpose of the workshop, Moz says: “to get people interested in clay, and taking a class if it’s something they want to get into.”

At an adjacent table, two kids, a brother and sister, work with their slabs of clay; as they do, they carefully study an example project, a polar bear, that sits on the table in front of them. “We try to make our projects simple so that everyone can participate,” Moz says. By 1:00 p.m., two other polar bears have joined the first: the brother’s is black-and-white, and the sister’s is pink-and-white. Northern Clay Center will fire the polar bears, Luna the rat, the bear statue, and my rodent, in one of its many kilns. And, after two weeks, the ceramists will return to pick them up, just in time for the holidays, as NCC’s website promises. “I teach a lot of kids,” Moz says. “I enjoy it because I can introduce them to creative thinking, that every option is possible. When I was growing up, there was a lot of ‘Oh, you’re not doing that right.’”

Besides the workshop, Moz teaches other classes as well. Moz introduces me to Alysha Hill, the manager of Northern Clay Center’s outreach program, which offers instruction and materials to schools, community centers, and other locations in the Minneapolis area. “It's centered on community engagement,” Moz says. “We send teaching artists to their location, and they teach a class at that site.” NCC has ten active teaching artists on its roster, including Moz. Alysha turns to Moz. “I let Ella Baker know that we're starting up our programming,” she says. “I got confirmation from them, and right away, I was like, “I have to let Moz know!”’ Alysha’s excitement matches Moz’s. “It’s a school that I taught at last winter,” Moz says, when I ask about it later. “They reached out and wanted to partner again. I'm so excited!”

“The community,” Moz says, when I ask them what their favorite part of the outreach program is. “I love the community, and I love doing it with my coworkers as well. Community engagement is something that really interests me,” they add. Moz has been working as a teaching artist even before they graduated, and holds two other positions at NCC as well. One is a sales gallery associate, and the other is an outreach technician. Moz loves all three of the positions, but admits that they can be overwhelming: “I have four jobs; it’s a little insane.”

Moz’s journey from university to where they are now is one that Moz admits has been long and winding. “I also just moved to St. Paul two months ago, so there's so much that's happening that it’s been hard to juggle everything,” Moz says. In August, Moz moved into Schmidt’s Artists’ Lofts, a historic structure that was once Schmidt’s Brewery and, now, prides itself on being a “primary source of local artistic and cultural expression,” according to its website. After Moz arrived in St. Paul, they discovered a small coffee shop, Claddagh Coffee Café, which is a four-minute drive from Schmidt’s.

“Ever since I was a kid, I've been making stuff,” Moz says. “Drawing, painting, building things out of paper. That has always been there.” Claddagh Coffee Café has seating in the basement, and the warm ambience of the café drifts down the old wooden stairs as we talk: murmurs of conversation, the soft clink of coffee mugs, and the little bell over the door that chimes whenever someone enters. Moz sketches absent-mindedly in a notebook as they tell me how much they loved art classes in middle school and high school. “I knew I wanted to make art, but I didn't know that was an option,” they say.

In high school, Moz struggled with mental health, and art became more than just a passion, but a form of escape as well. “I only got through high school because of my art classes and my art teachers,” Moz says. After high school, Moz attended Minnesota State University, Mankato, to study psychology, and, once again, art was an escape for them. “I was like, okay, I’ll get my degree in psych and then I'll be a therapist, but I'll minor in art to get me through it.” However, after three weeks at Minnesota State University, Mankato, they dropped out. “I didn't want to go to school after that because I was traumatized and afraid,” Moz says. However, Moz’s parents pressured them to return to school; eventually, Moz caved and went to the University of Bethel. This time, however, Moz took an art major.

“It was just a kind of middle finger to my parents,” Moz admits. “I didn’t even want to go to school… but if I was being pressured to go, I was just going to draw and do what I wanted…. I didn’t see a future in art.” However, after Moz took their first art class, an art history course, they “fell in love so hard,” they tell me. In particular, they fell in love with art history, which opened up a new horizon of passion for Moz. “I have a catalog of hundreds, probably thousands, of years’ worth of art history from taking so many art history classes,” they say. Despite this, however, Moz didn’t have many friends at Bethel, except for one. “His name was Adam, and we were in Intro to Ceramics together,” Moz says. “We were each other’s cheerleaders.” Adam is one of the reasons Moz fell in love with ceramics.

Moz’s voice shifts, and turns quiet. “He ended up committing suicide.” Moz’ sketch takes shape: an abstract depiction of a face with a spike protruding from the side of its head. Amidst continued mental health struggles, Moz dropped out of Bethel University after three years. “I took a long break to take care of myself and my mental health and figure out what the hell I was doing with my life,” Moz says. “I had no direction and didn't think I was going to make it that far. I never saw myself making it to 20.” After a year and a half, Moz returned to school for the third time, to UW-River Falls, for art, once more, and, this time, for ceramics. Eventually, Moz plans to earn their master's in ceramics and become a ceramics professor. “That’s my long-term goal,” they said. One of the reasons Moz wants to become a professor is because of Michael Helke, an Assistant Professor of Art at UWRF who was a major influence on Moz. “[Michael] was a big advocate for us students,” Moz says. Aspiring artists must connect with their local art communities if they want to succeed, they add. “[Michael] already had all of those connections, and he was super happy to let us know about opportunities.”

Moz’s apartment in Schmidt’s Artists Lofts reminds me of a children’s cartoon episode where the characters enter the brain of one of the characters. Here, we’re stepping into Moz’s brain. The apartment almost feels alive; it’s covered with paintings–created by Moz themself or obtained in art swaps with friends–and multitudes of abstract faces stare down from the walls. An artificial tree sits in the center of the room, beside two rugs: one is an all-seeing eye and the other says “F**k.” In a corner by the window, is Moz’s studio: a nook crammed with canvases, a shelf of art books, and shelves and tables covered with supplies, vases, and more paintings. The window is lined with plants, and on the sill are two cushions, a Yoshi plush, and a Pride flag.

Moz’s philosophy on art and the artistic process leaks into our conversation. “Some people feel very trapped by conventionally ‘good’ art,” Moz says. “They have these conventional ideas about art, which, from what I’ve seen is, ‘How good you are at art is how good you are at realism.’ This isn’t true at all. It's interesting to see people's interpretations of things, even if it doesn't make sense or it's not deemed as ‘good.’” Moz expresses a vendetta against the different, and, as it turns out, often disproportionate perceptions of artistic media within the industry, including ceramics. “A mug doesn’t get the same type of recognition as being ‘avant-garde’ art like an oil painting does. An oil painting will get into the Met so much easier than a mug.”

Moz tells me the reason they went to Mankato to study psychology: pressure from their parents, and from themself, to find a job that would be well-paying and secure. A stereotype exists that art students are doomed to become ‘starving artists,’ or will be forced to work minimum wage, service industry jobs, and many other young artists feel the same pressure that Moz does. “It kills some of them; kills their drive or kills their art,” Moz says of nine-to-five burnout. “It's a ferocious beast that we have to be in the face of every day.”

Moz sits in the studio, and, in the faint November light, works on a new painting on one of the massive canvases. “I quit my outreach technician position,” Moz told me at the Cafe. “It was way too much; I had no life. I had no energy for art; it was draining me.” While Moz feels the decision was the right one, they’re still conflicted. “I crawled my way up from being a volunteer at [NCC],” Moz says. And now, they’ve given it up. “It felt like a betrayal, but also liberation for me.” The outreach position isn’t the only thing that Moz has sacrificed for their art. “I will sacrifice groceries to be able to afford material for an idea that I want to execute.”

One of the reasons I wanted to interview Moz weeks before was because their story felt like a success story. Moz is someone who had just graduated, and had found footing in the Twin Cities art community, which is no easy feat. However, “I don’t feel very successful on the inside,” Moz admits. “I’m insecure about my path.” Moz will sometimes hunt for nine-to-five salary jobs in moments of uncertainty. Some artists are able to work a nine-to-five job while remaining dedicated to their art, but Moz says that this is very difficult. “It's hard to walk the balance because art is a full-time thing. If you want to drive it all the way, you have to be in it all the way.” Moz describes the relationship between art and the artist as sometimes resembling a toxic relationship, which is an expression that I’ve heard other creatives say. “Honestly,” Moz tells me. “I think that wrestle is one of the biggest components of why it's so hard to be a creative.”

One way to survive that wrestle of the artist’s journey is to have a mentor, someone who has found their way through the challenge and emerged on the other side. For Moz, that person is Joseph Samuelson. Joe has been painting and making pots since 1981, after receiving an MFA in ceramics from the University of Minnesota, and now, he runs a studio in Stillwater, Minnesota, called Terra Incognita, which can be translated to Unknown Earth. Much like Moz, Joe loves teaching just as much as he loves creating art. He also loves coffee, and prepares a pot for himself and me as we wait for Moz to arrive at the studio to fire some pottery in Joe’s kiln.

“Pottery is at least 10,000 years old,” Joe says. “The first pots, they think, came from human beings needing something to hold water. They used clay–which you can find almost anywhere, especially by rivers–and put it in the inside [of a bird’s nest] as a kind of bowl. Somebody was around the campfire, got too close… and fell in. And lo and behold… the bird's nest burns away… and the clay turns to a ceramic piece.” Joe’s studio connects almost his entire Stillwater property. There’s a shed where Joe houses two electric kilns as well as completed pottery and paintings for Terra Incognita, and a basement area where he stores clay, glaze, and other supplies. Outside, there are three downdraft kilns, attached to a chimney that Moz and another of Joe’s students repaired after it was damaged in a storm.

It had been two weeks since I had talked with Moz at the Café, and, as Moz’s life is a turbulent one, the winds had shifted even in this short time. Now, Moz is planning to work at the St. Paul School of Northern Lights as a paraprofessional, and assist students who have special education needs. “I want to teach art at a public school,” Moz says. Outside, on a table by the downdraft kilns, Moz applies glaze to their pots as we talk. “I love working with students in the school setting,” Moz says. “I can relate to them on pop culture.” Moz mentions anime, Gravity Falls, and other cartoons. “When you work with kids, how much you can relate to them is how much they respect you. If they don't respect you, they're not going to grasp anything that you teach them.” While Moz qualifies for a teaching license in Minnesota, it’s difficult to translate a license into an actual teaching position, and Moz intends the paraprofessional job to be a foot in the door. “I'm still going to teach [at Northern Clay Center], but I'm just kind of ready to move on. I don't want my roots to get too deep so that I can't leave.”

Moz has advice for anyone who is seeking to follow their passion for art in a career. “Don’t go to school right away,” Moz says. “Hold off for at least a year and save up money, because you’re going to need so much money to make your ideas happen…. I one hundred percent recommend going to school for art, because you’ll meet people that will give you critique and advice that will change your approach and make you a better artist.” Moz adds, “If you have a loose idea of what you want and it’s in the creative field, I would take it slow. Sometimes the longer road is [what you need]. That’s what I had to [take], the longer road.”

Moz told me that they still want to become a ceramics professor. They mentioned a professor they know, and how this professor’s experience teaching in public schools helped prepare him for teaching at a university. “Professor jobs are competitive,” Moz says. “Very competitive.” It’s an ambition for not the near future, perhaps, but the future, and Moz has many years ahead of them to achieve it. Not everything in the world has to be accomplished at once. “It’s the route that I'm taking because it aligns with what I want to do and what makes me happy,” Moz says. In the shed, Moz places several items into one of Joe’s electric kilns. “The life of an artist, it's a very unstable one,” Moz says with a laugh. “You build a platform that you think you're going to stand on for a while and then, after a couple of months, things change and then you're like, ‘No, I'm not doing this anymore. Time for the next step.”’