Amò Collective

A Black-owned ceramics studio in Minneapolis works to fill a gap seen in the local landscape by being an art resource and workspace, offering classes, and creating a more inclusive community.

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Amò (pronounced “ah-MOH”) Collective, a Minneapolis-based potters collective co-founded by artists Kemi Schleicher and Addis Alemu, formed in 2021. I sat down with three of the four members early one fall morning in their studio in the Longfellow neighborhood to talk about their mission to center Black and Brown LGBTQ+ people in pottery within a community that historically has not always felt inclusive.

What was the impetus for creating Amò Collective?

Kemi Schleicher: I had just moved from London to Minneapolis in the summer of 2020, and I was not interested in the ceramics scene that I was seeing here. Randomly, I found Addis’s Instagram, and it felt like this small world, and we instantly connected.

Addis Alemu: I was posting about the clay community and the racism I’ve experienced and how there is not a lot of space for people like us. And then Kemi reached out to me and was like, “I feel the same way.” We met for food and were full of visions of these big, amazing things that we want to do with Black potters.

Was ceramics the discipline you always intended to pursue?

Hadi Saleh: Ceramics was the first thing that I ever took seriously. I didn’t think I would ever be an artist. When I first started, I felt super isolated, so I was really happy when I met [Kemi and Addis]. It felt really freeing.

Schleicher: I was really discouraged from doing art, but at the end of college I took a ceramics class and said, “This is what I want to be doing.” But I had such a blind spot because classes and memberships were really expensive, so I didn’t really have access for a while, and that’s a whole other conversation. I did a free work exchange program in London where you get to train with the technician in exchange for using his space. After I finished school I had to get a visa, and so I applied, and that’s when I said, “This could become a thing.” And then I came back to Minnesota.

How did you each come to identify your particular design signatures and styles within the way you approach ceramics?

Saleh: It’s a mix of street art and a frustration I have with the ceramics community in Western countries and how I feel it’s been super colonized, but also coming to terms with where I am physically and being OK with that. What I write on each of my pieces is “Maktub,” which is an Arabic word meaning “It is written,” which is also speaking to destiny.

Alemu: The things that I create are based on my feelings, too. Clay has been the one space where I can unplug and just do and feel and create, and as someone who is neurodivergent and experiencing feelings that I wasn’t capable of being as smart as the people around me or understanding and processing information in the same way, clay was the one space where I could actually do it. I really like sensory things. That’s why I like carving designs into my pieces as well. I like to fidget and I get anxious, so it’s cool having pots where people can come to my table and touch and feel and say, “This feels so good.”

Schleicher: All of my pieces are inspired by the concept of home, and I think a lot about the Black diaspora because I grew up in Madison and being in a place that is so opposite from what I consider home. My dad is American, but my mom is Nigerian, and we have a lot of Nigerian relics around our home, and that was really important to me. Even from pictures of the beaches that I’ve been to, I want to feel comfort from the things that I make because I don’t feel comfort in the spaces that I’m in. And I feel like even if people don’t know what I’m referencing, it gives me direction in some ways.

What has been the reaction to your work, outside of spaces like the studio you have created here, when you are doing shows or pop-ups?

Alemu: I work in a clay store, and I do a lot of pop-ups, and I think that I feel that isolation a lot. That’s the reason I wanted to start teaching classes—so that I am not here doing this work by myself. It’s less about the visibility that I get and more about creating the community that I want to see and be a part of. In pop-up spaces, one thing that’s always been disheartening for me is, after putting a lot of time and effort into my work and pricing my things accordingly, I see my white counterparts being able to price their work at higher price points. People will pick up my work and say that it’s too expensive, or when they come to my table, they are surprised that I made the thing they are admiring.

Your Instagram handle is @decolonizeclay. Can you speak to your motivation for stating that intention up front?

Alemu: People outside of colonized countries have been doing this craft for centuries. We intentionally made our Instagram handle @decolonizeclay because we feel like clay is colonized. This is what our cultures are still using as a way to survive and as a means to hold on to our history. There is not enough information about Blacks in ceramics that is available or archived in a way that you can go and learn about us. I am Ethiopian and my dad is African American, so culturally I try to ground myself in both, and it’s really hard having a culture that has been erased and colonized and not being able to connect with your roots of African American potters because it wasn’t documented or credited properly. 

With space and class cost prohibitors as you previously mentioned, how is Amò Collective filling the gap in Minneapolis for people who want to get into pottery? 

Alemu: Ceramics classes are very expensive and have materials that you cannot just take to your house; you have to know how to process your work and store and fire things. So I started teaching classes for Black queer and trans folks the summer of 2020 and then BIPOC classes at my other job around the same time. Amò also mentors one or two other Black artists. There is something safe about having someone who looks like you sitting next to you, helping you to foster this thing that you both want to do. Arts and crafts are what we have for healing and connecting with ourselves. As Black artists, we’re expected to be artists about our trauma and about our pain; otherwise, there is a perception of “Why are you making this thing?” Why can’t we just use this as a means to connect with ourselves and be expansive in our community and feel powerful? I think that’s something that warms my heart about this physical space we have opened but also makes me sad sometimes because I’m like, “Who told you you couldn’t make this art?”