Contemporary Tableware by Lodo
Lodo, the ceramic practice of Los Angeles-based Joan Marie Scott, creates handmade, small-batch tableware. Rooted in her Mexican heritage and shaped by a life along the West Coast, Joan’s work draws from the textures, colors, and rhythms of both Mexico and California. Through clay, Joan explores a dialogue between tradition and modern living, creating vessels that carry both memory and use, made to bring beauty into the everyday.
Her tableware exists in that sweet spot between function and art, where everyday objects become something to look at, hold, and think about. For a long time, functional objects like ceramics, fiber, or woven vessels were placed at the bottom of the art world hierarchy, while painting and sculpture were held as the pinnacle of artistic achievement. These objects were often seen as merely practical or decorative, valued more for what they could do than for the creativity, skill, and vision behind them. Today, that perspective is shifting: functional objects are increasingly recognized as fully expressive, thoughtful, and capable of carrying the same conceptual and aesthetic weight as any painting or sculpture.
Form and function have always had a complicated relationship. Sometimes they work in perfect harmony, sometimes they push against each other. In functional art, we often ask: How far can a design be stretched before it stops serving its purpose? How can it do more than simply function, how can it engage, surprise, or inspire? In crafts, these considerations are never simple. Some pieces are made to hold, serve, or perform a task. Others exist to catch the eye, invite reflection, or simply delight. As Patti Quinn Hill has said about her baskets, “They are made to hold nothing but your interest.” Pamella O’Connor speaks to the joy of creating functional objects that also tell their own story. This ongoing negotiation between utility and artistry is what makes craft endlessly fascinating.
Craft has historically been one of the most important spaces for women’s creativity. For centuries, women have used ceramics, weaving, embroidery, and basketry as ways to explore ideas, preserve culture, and express artistry, even when their work was undervalued in the broader art world. During the postwar studio craft movement and the 1970s countercultural revival, women continued to claim ceramics, fiber, and other mediums as spaces for experimentation and expression, showing that functional objects could also be sculptural, expressive, and conceptually rich.
In recent years, craft has begun to receive the recognition it has long deserved, moving from the margins to being valued as a vital part of contemporary art. Joan’s tableware continues this conversation. Each plate, bowl, or cup reflects a careful attention to form, surface, and gesture. These are objects made to be used, but they also invite curiosity, contemplation, and delight. In her hands, craft is not secondary; it is a space of experimentation, expression, and care.
