Look closely: these carefully crafted ceramic vases aren’t made to hold a bouquet of flowers. In reality, they might just hold a single rose at best. These miniature ceramic vessels are the product of self-taught artist Jon Almeda.
Based in Oahu, Hawaii, Almeda’s reassessed his ideas about size after coming across a book titled Creating Ceramic Miniatures. And while beforehand he ascribed to the notion that “the bigger the better,” nowadays his motto is the exact opposite.
“Size does matter,” reads his short Instagram bio. And with 17 years of creating miniatures, you better believe he knows what he’s talking about. Pushing himself to improve all the time, each of his projects requires a different set of techniques; and according to Almeda, working in such a small scale is much harder than you might imagine, requiring him to test different clay bodies and make his own tools.
But while his art comes in small sizes, his inspiration is larger than life. “There are so many different things that I am interested in, music, photography, just all different arts,” he shared with The Potters Cast. “There would be too many to list just one. I pull inspiration from all different places.”
Take a look at some of his work in the gallery below: