Designing Emotion Through Clay: A Conversation with Dean McRaine
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Every so often, something cuts through the doom scroll. It stops you. It makes you look twice. Hawaiian artist Dean McRaine does exactly that. He creates psychedelic pottery using colored clay millefiori, and his work feels almost impossible at first glance. I spoke with McRaine to understand how he does it and what drives his work.
Husstling Around Town: Tell me a little about yourself. What is your elevator pitch?
Dean: My background is pretty varied. I started in engineering design school, then moved into counseling psychology and worked as a therapist for years. That experience shaped how I see art. I am always thinking about the emotional side of it.
A lot of art education is very conceptual, but I am more interested in feeling and intuition. That is harder to explain because it is not linear. You cannot always put it into words.
I started ceramics in the early 1980s, but I have always made things. I have built houses, guitars, and clothing. Even when I was doing therapy, I always had something creative on the side. Over time, art took over. I spent about 25 years making pottery for production before everything shifted.
Husstling Around Town: And that shift came from a workshop?
Dean: Yes, which still sounds unbelievable. It was only a day-and-a-half workshop, but it changed everything. After that, I started researching colored clay and found a lot of polymer clay work online. That was the spark.
I saw the level of detail and design and realized I could do something similar with porcelain. That idea stayed with me. I had the vision, but not the skills yet, so I spent years experimenting, refining techniques, and teaching myself color theory, which ceramic artists are not usually trained in.
Husstling Around Town: Your work feels completely different. How do you define art?
Dean:To me, art is expressing a feeling through a medium. It could be music, painting, sculpture, or clay. It is not just about showing something. It is about communicating an experience.
Husstling Around Town: What gives you that moment of inspiration?
Dean: A lot of it comes from staying open. I think artists benefit from looking outside their own medium. Polymer clay was a huge inspiration for me, even though some people dismiss it. I have also seen similar ideas in glass and even in baking. Inspiration can come from anywhere.
I also think it comes from nurturing the intuitive side. Music helps. Nature helps. Meditation helps. Anything that shifts you out of a purely analytical mindset and into a more receptive one.
Husstling Around Town: Color plays such a big role in your work. How do you think about it?
Dean: Color is an emotional language. In ceramics, it is traditionally hard to control because glazes move and change in the kiln. Colored clay gave me a way to control it much more precisely.
That allowed me to think more like a painter and work with contrast, composition, and feeling in a more direct way. People respond to color immediately. I hear “I love color” all the time in my studio. That response is emotional before it is intellectual.
Husstling Around Town: Social media has brought your work to a massive audience. How has that changed things?
Dean: Completely. It gave me reach I never would have had otherwise. Everything changed after Art Insider did a video on my work. Once it came out, people started showing up at my studio, and the audience grew very quickly.
That video ended up reaching around 40 million views. The reveal videos, where I slice into the clay and show the pattern, are what people really connect with. Social media created visibility and demand I could not have imagined.
Husstling Around Town: What advice would you give to young artists who want to make a living from their work?
Dean:First, be prepared for it to take time. Second, learn how to market yourself. A lot of artists resist that, but it matters. Presentation matters. Branding matters.
You also have to balance creativity and sustainability. If you only make what sells, you can burn out. If you follow inspiration without considering income, you may not be able to support yourself. You need both.
Husstling Around Town: What does your next chapter look like?
Dean: I am thinking more about what I can give back. I recently spoke at a ceramics conference in North Carolina, and I would like to do more teaching.
I was also invited to exhibit at the Homo Faber Biennial in Venice, which feels both exciting and intimidating. Whenever I move into a new level, imposter syndrome shows up, but I think that is part of growth.
Husstling Around Town: What keeps you inspired now?
Dean: Staying connected to feeling. Staying curious. Looking outside my field. Remembering that art is about emotional truth.
