Interview with Yoav Sion - Sivoov Ceramics

In 2017, I visited my friend Katie while on a little trip up to Seattle, and got to meet her then-boyfriend (now husband), Yoav. The main things I remembered about him from the very brief meeting was that 1) he was very kind and hospitable and 2) he worked for HBO which I thought was VERY cool (I still do think this is VERY cool, by the way). But a couple of years ago, Katie started occasionally sharing stories of Yoav’s ceramics work and my brain instantly rewired from prioritizing his former at HBO as being the primary reason he is cool to prioritizing his new (to me) ceramics side-hustle as the main coolness factor.

To give you some context, you can check out his website or his Instagram. And if you just want to listen to the interview and read none of this (or both!), you can head to YouTube.

His pottery is beautiful on its own, but I was also intrigued by the clean work he'd done with the elements that support his artwork - I’m talking about his website, photography, and how he shared stories and artwork on his social media. As I suspected at the time (and can now 1,000% confirm), it turns out this is both a necessary AND difficult part of being a creator of any type (if you want anyone to see/buy/engage with your work). However, knowing how to get all of this set up (not even to mention making it look nice), is not an intuitive skill that comes with being an artist. So someone who appeared to be doing ceramics on top of a full-time career, and getting this level of infrastructure set up, caught my attention.

And this is why when I thought of people I wanted to talk to - I knew I wanted to see if Yoav was down for an interview. I was curious about whether this was just a side-hobby or something he wants to do full-time, about his thoughts on navigating your creative self while working in tech, and - rolling off of my chat last week with Rachael of the Sidewalk Joy Project / PDX Dinorama, how community has played into his experiences, especially as he’s moved around the West Coast over the past few years. Good news for all of us, he was down to talk!

Here’s what we discussed: