Meet Ian Wallach of IMW Ceramics in Ravenswood

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ian Wallach.

Ian, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I knew pretty early on I wanted to go to art school. It was all I did and I neglected most everything else. Once I had built up the portfolio, applied and had been accepted to a school, I was on a cloud of excitement. Through some help from my grandparents, I managed to get a non-profit gallery space opened for my friends and me to sell work before I went off to school. I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for assemblage, collage and really any of the fine arts. However, I was quickly disillusioned with the art world and found myself searching for something I didn’t know what. At the time, I had some inspirational friends who were potters and made things I was so impressed by. So, I went to the pottery wheel until I could “figure out what I was doing.” I immediately went on auto pilot. I wasn’t very good and I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I just kept doing it. I was failing classes left and right and just kept throwing. It was a weird time.

In the midst of this, I got a job at a restaurant called Telegraph. I discovered a really cool world of food and wine that was new, exciting, educational, and delicious. Chicago Is a great city for restaurants, it has such a big food scene of passionate chefs and cooks experimenting and elevating food. I was hooked and wanted to find a place for myself in this world. I worked every job I could in the restaurant, only problem was I wasn’t very good at any of them. What really fascinated me was the food. Not just the taste, but the history, the origins, the pairings and the attention to presentation. I kept doing pottery, I wanted to make plates. I immediately took on a monster commission, 100 plates for an 80 person lunch at City farm, with the deadline of about 2 weeks.

That was madness. I managed to get it done strictly for the fact that I didn’t sleep for a week. But that experience helped me hone in on what a plate needed to be and how to create multiple of the same size and shape. I sold a few to Telegraph afterward, and started to be a line cook shortly after. I started to cook at a few restaurants, I was able to meet new chefs. With a primary purpose in mind, I recommitted myself to finishing school. I got a lot of militant training on the potter’s wheel from my teacher at the time Sean O’Connell. His assignments really pushed me to be better, simultaneously I had the humbling opportunity to make plates and ramekins for Restaurant Michael, Trencherman, Sixteen, Kai Zan, and Sepia.

Eventually, I graduated school, it was clear I had to make a decision, be a cook or be an artist. The Restaurant industry alone couldn’t keep me content, and I loved creating the plates. The decision was obvious. I got a private studio, linked up with Chicago Kiln where I still work today fixing kilns, and doing workshops, and still making my own ceramic work. It became a reality to me that I could make a living with clay. So that’s what I do today. I fix kilns, I teach classes and workshops, and work day in and day out in my studio creating new work and striving to cut my teeth.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Totally, a bumpy road. The objects I make have to stand up to the day to day pressures of a commercial kitchen as well as be food safe. Sometimes everything breaks, sometimes the pieces don’t come out right and it always throws things into high gear to meet deadlines. Recently I dropped off some Bowls for the Londhouse Chicago and found out shortly after the glaze was chipping and falling a part. I was in panic mode. I was fortunate enough to remember a lesson I learned from cooking. It doesn’t matter that you fell, I am going to keep falling for the rest of my life. It was about how I get up and how I handle things. So I took the plates back immediately and found the issue and remade them and tried to make the whole thing as pleasant as possible. I think that was appreciated.

Outside of some technical issues, I’ve found the biggest obstacle to be myself. I take a lot of pride in maintaining my relationships and I always want to help people out. I have a bad habit of offering help and the next thing I know I’m working somewhere full time and neglecting my own business. Other times, I will work 80 plus hours a week with no days off and crash a burn pretty hard and need to take time off to rest. It seems sort of silly but they become huge unmanageable problems for me. I am fortunate today to have emotional support from my friends and family when things get kooky. I wish I could just sit back and create all day long, but that is not what running a business is. I have to spend a lot of hours doing all sorts of miscellaneous tasks no one warned me about. Ha. I am also so grateful for the invaluable work of my business adviser Angelica Chayes of Getup consulting. She helps me stay transparent, organized helps me out when I am in total meltdown mode, and helps me maintain balance.

Please tell us about IMW Ceramics.
I work with clay and love making all sorts of objects. Today though I am definitely best known for my work with Chefs. I make custom dinnerware for Restaurants and the home. I love working with excited passionate people. With dinnerware, there is a very finite set of parameters for it to function safely and effectively, yet within that is a world of infinite possibility. I am very proud of the range of my work inside these seemingly narrow parameters. I think something I have that most don’t is a hands-on experience. A lot of my teeth were cut in the kitchen. As a result, I was given a set of skills and insight into what chefs, cooks, and diners are looking for.
In school it was very impressed upon me that regardless of the medium I work with, my voice will always show through. I think aesthetically my work is different from a lot of the clay world. I lived with my grandparents and as a result, my influences are a blend of antiques, curios, urban decay, and skateboard culture. Despite what I try and do those things show through in most things I work on.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to start over I think I would’ve taken much more in the beginning stages seriously. I spent a lot of time failing/ skipping classes, partying and work way to hard at the last minute of deadlines. Treating my time like a budget and trying to be efficient with my use of it definitely could’ve gotten me far. But I have to remember to take the good with the bad. Had I not been in certain positions or places in time I wouldn’t have met certain people. If I try and go back and change too much I could’ve wound up working in some cubicle somewhere. I’m right where I’m supposed to be, with the people I am supposed to be with, so I don’t know that it would be wise to change my mistakes.

Contact Info:

• Website: imwceramics.com (Coming soon!!!!!)
• Email: ianmonwal@gmail.com
• Instagram: @imwceramics
• Other: etsy.com/shop/IMWart

Image Credit:
Bethany Hope

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