For May, Blue Whole Gallery is proud to feature emerging ceramic artist Reuben May as Student of the Month. Through deeply personal porcelain vessels inspired by memory, place, and identity, May explores what it means to leave one home behind while building another.
His featured collection, Calling Home, reflects the emotional and physical distance between two landscapes that have shaped his life: Miami, Florida, and Port Angeles, Washington. The work blends memory, material, and craftsmanship into vessels that become both functional objects and visual narratives.
“Home is home, and everything else is not-home. That’s the way the world is constructed.”
— Verlyn Klinkenborg
Each porcelain vessel is carefully carved with imagery inspired by Floridian plants and animals, preserving the lush environment of May’s childhood. To deepen the connection between past and present, he incorporates handmade glazes created from wood ash collected from his own fireplace. The result is a powerful fusion of memory and material — the physical residue of his current home layered over the representation of his past, creating a tactile dialogue between then and now.
Although Port Angeles sits more than 3,400 miles from Miami, May sees unexpected similarities between the two regions. Both landscapes are rich with green life, moisture, and salt air. Yet while Florida shaped much of his youth, it never truly felt like home.
After leaving Florida at eighteen, May eventually found belonging in the Pacific Northwest, where he has built a life centered on family, warmth, and community. From this new perspective, he has begun to reconsider the beauty of the place he once left behind — recalling the heaviness of sun-ripened mangoes, the thick summer air before a storm, and the layered emotional complexity of memory shaped by time and distance.
Through Calling Home, these reflections are preserved in clay. Each vessel becomes a quiet record of migration, identity, and the evolving meaning of home.
May’s artistic journey spans multiple disciplines, including drawing, painting, glasswork, and metal arts. His recent exploration into ceramics began after taking a class at Peninsula College last summer, where he quickly connected with the medium. He was drawn to the balance of art and science in ceramics, as well as the opportunity to combine two-dimensional surface design with three-dimensional sculptural form.
Outside the studio, Reuben May is a nursing student at Peninsula College, as well as a husband and father — roles that continue to shape both his perspective and his creative practice.
Visitors are invited to experience Reuben May’s thoughtful ceramic work throughout the month at Blue Whole Gallery in downtown Sequim. His work offers a moving exploration of memory, belonging, and the places that continue to shape us long after we leave them behind.