Julia Elsas

Julia Elsas:

Julia Elsas was born in Birmingham, Alabama and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Julia’s art practice encompasses ceramics, textiles, sculpture, installation and performance. Julia’s most recent three-dimensional work grew out of her ongoing exploration of the sonic potential of clay. She considers her sculptures to be fully realized only when they are being played. In her initial research into creating sonic sculptures, she looked to the shape and sonority of traditional udu drums made by the Igbo women of Nigeria and to the ancient indigenous ceramic water whistles, flutes and horns from Mexico and South America.
In pursuit of activating her sculptures with sound, Julia started SONIC MUD, a band of professional musicians that showcases her ceramic instruments. SONIC MUD musicians play a range of ceramic flutes, drums, natural trumpets, shakers, clayrimbas, rain machines, water whistles and more, all hand-built by Julia. Julia’s line of functional ceramic sculptures for the home was established in 2016. Each ceramic piece is one-of-a-kind and hand-built in Julia’s Brooklyn, NY studio. Her work has been featured and reviewed in Hyperallergic, Salvation South, Foxy Digitalis, Glamour, Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Ceramics Monthly, Domino, Into the Gloss, New York Magazine, Real Simple and more.