clarification
This story has been updated to clarify that Rae Dunn now licenses her work to several companies, in addition to Magenta.
In 1994, Rae Dunn took a ceramics class in San Francisco and figured out almost immediately that she loved everything about working with clay. In particular, she developed a fondness for stamping words onto her pottery pieces as a way to express herself.
“I am a very quiet and super-shy person,” says Dunn, now 60 and living in Berkeley, Calif. “I pretty much have always distilled what I had to say out loud down to using the least amount of words possible.” She started inscribing plates, bowls, mugs and vases with verbs such as “dream,” “focus” and “begin” — aspirations for her own life.