I once spent four years staring at dirt.

Jenn Choi standing on a mountain path in the fog — It’s me!

Hands shaping a large clay form on a studio table — Studio, Seoul

Close-up of a rough plaster surface, cropped past recognition — Zoomed in until it’s just texture

A group of sand-textured ceramic vessels in earth tones — Graduation work, ceramics

Building a subway-car prototype with a collaborator at ITP — Building at ITP

Basalt rocks along a tidal shoreline — Raw material

As a ceramic artist in Seoul, I learned that clay remembers everything like how hard you pressed, how long you waited, whether you were patient or rushed. The material doesn’t lie. That obsession with what’s underneath stuck with me.

Now I design digital products, but I still work the same way. I zoom in until I find the grain. At museums, I photograph artworks so close that no one recognizes them. Just texture, just the material that made me feel something. That’s my version of seeing.

Same way, I’m drawn to core problems, raw materials, and people who don’t perform. If you want polished small talk, I’m probably not your person. But if you want to dig into why something isn’t working, I’ll bring the shovel.