Returning Earth to the Hand through Clay with Sinclaire Marie

Plus: Channeling 90s Nostalgia and Building a Record Label on two new episodes of micro/Maker.

Author

Tyler Kline
September 05, 2025

🍃 Loose Leaf Transmissions – Weekly Dispatch

On this week’s music/Maker, I’m excited to welcome my first guest from the ceramic arts: Sinclaire Marie!

Sinclaire is a Cincinnati-based potter and a good friend of mine, and we share some surprising connections to place. We both attended Morehead State University, and she even spent a brief time living in my hometown.

While we bond over that a bit, this episode is really a crash course in all things pottery, especially atmospheric firing, which is Sinclaire’s focus as the current artist-in-residence at Queen City Clay.

As I often say, some of my favorite conversations are with artists outside of music, because they cross-pollinate my own creative thinking. So whether you’re a potter, a musician, or something else entirely, I think you’ll find plenty to enjoy – and to be inspired by – in this conversation.

🎧 New on the Feed

🎙 music/Maker with Tyler Kline

Now streaming: Returning Earth to the Hand through Clay with Sinclaire Marie

On this episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline, Tyler is joined by functional potter, educator, and Atmospheric Artist-in-Residence at Queen City Clay, Sinclaire Marie.

A visual artist turned ceramicist, Sinclaire’s practice centers atmospheric firing (wood, soda, raku), functional forms, and a tactile language of texture, intention, and use. Based at Queen City Clay in Norwood, one of the country’s largest community clay studios, she has found both space and support to expand her practice through teaching, residencies, and community firings.

In this conversation, Sinclaire talks about the information a pot carries—throwing lines, flashing, ash, weight, rim, glaze traces—and why she leaves the marks of process visible as a kind of memory. She discusses integrating cedar (a Diné practice of cleansing and balance) by rolling its pattern into clay, and how listening to fire changes what pots become. Along the way: community wood-firings, the barter/trade ethos, teaching as a welcoming space, and the ongoing discipline of showing up to the studio.

Sinclaire and her work can be found at: https://sinclairemarie.com/

Learn more about Queen City Clay at: https://www.queencityclay.com/

New episodes every other Thursday. Subscribe now!

🎙 micro/Maker

micro/Maker 031: Channeling 90s Nostalgia (featuring Emma O’Halloran)

Emma O’Halloran reflects on how the sounds of the 1990s — from grunge to boy bands to tin whistle lessons — became part of her musical DNA.

micro/Maker 032: Building a Record Label to Make Space for Yourself (featuring Chris Opperman)

Chris Opperman recalls building his own label at 19, after the loss of Frank Zappa and a music industry uninterested in young composers.

Episodes are released every Tuesday and Friday. Subscribe now!

🔜 Coming Up Soon

Next week on micro/Maker, two new episodes: we revisit a recent conversation with filmmaker C. Jacqueline Wood, and writer Vanessa Ague shares how her early explorations with violin and minimalism eventually led her away from performance and into a life in music criticism.

And looking ahead to the fall, an exciting slate of music/Maker guests are on the way – with conversations featuring pianist, composer, and visual artist Beyza Yazgan, composers Michael Frazier, Annika Socolofsky, Kurt Rohde, and more.

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Thanks for tuning in, take care, and bye for now.