WOLCOTT SPOTLIGHT: ANDIE CHANG

You can find Andie Chang in the light-filled corner near the Cardiff Library if you haven't yet met her. If you have had the pleasure of working with her on Wolcott projects or at industry events, you know her passion for art, design, and plants is infectious.

Andie’s use of color, her eye for composition, and her attention to detail permeate her work. These attributes find themselves at home in her pottery and architectural design, and their influence on one another informs her unique design perspective. We asked her to share some of her personal projects and her inspiration and artistic process:

There’s not enough love in the world for the micro existence of lichen.

Lichen is a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae. The algae provide photosynthesis, while the fungi absorb nutrients from their environment and will determine color and structure. When hiking, I constantly stop and put my face 2 inches from a dead tree or damp rock to study these tiny clusters.

I’m mostly experimenting with what will work for specific plants—looking at low vs. high drainage and shallow vs. deep root structures. I also like to think about how a plant will grow into a vessel: will it drape off the sides, fill out the top, or shoot straight up?

Planters don’t all have to be the same shape. I’m developing non-conventional shapes that will add varied landscaping to your shelves and window sills while keeping your plants alive.

A lot of the completed stuff has been warping in the kiln, and I want to throw it on the sidewalk and see it explode!