Ariella Kirschbaum makes ceramic lighting, vessels, and objects by hand in Los Angeles. Her work explores how a simple underlying form becomes more expressive through smaller shapes, colors, and interruptions across its surface. Throughout her practice she has learned she is guided by limits and feelings, which allow her to become more free in her creations. This is carried through her work, how much of what she creates is participatory — the pull of a flower to turn a lamp on, the arrangement of dried and live flowers in intentional holes in one of her vessels.

She builds compositions from individual elements: patches of glaze, relief flowers, and openings that create rhythm across a form. These elements invite a closer look, drawing attention to where shapes and colors meet, overlap, or leave space between them. She especially likes when her pieces are participatory.

This exchange carries through her practice: she makes objects with a distinct presence that remain open to the lives, gestures, and spaces around them.