The Kurinuki Way: Subtracting to Become

In a world obsessed with building, adding, acquiring, Kurinuki offers something radically different: the art of taking away.

Kurinuki (加脫, literally "carving out") is a traditional Japanese ceramic technique rooted in ancient philosophy. It begins not with a hollow shell or spinning wheel, but with a solid block of clay. The maker carves from the inside out, removing bit by bit, until the object hidden within reveals itself. It's a slow, tactile dance of intuition and surrender. No two Kurinuki pieces are ever the same. They can’t be. And perhaps, they shouldn’t.

This is not just craft. It’s contemplation. It’s the embodiment of a life lesson:

We are not made by what we add. We become who we are by what we let go.

Blocks of Raw Clay for Kurinuki Workshop by Martina Geroni

A Technique of the Hand, A Philosophy of the Soul

Where the potter’s wheel demands symmetry and control, Kurinuki invites wildness, freedom, imperfection. It is especially beloved by those who seek a deeper connection to material and meaning. Each gouge, each removal, is a decision and a surrender. What is kept? What is cut? What is no longer necessary?

In this, Kurinuki mirrors the human journey. How many of us walk through life accumulating roles, identities, responsibilities, until we are heavy with shape but hollow of self? The Kurinuki way invites us to do the opposite. To begin with the block. And trust that the void we carve will not destroy us, but define us.

Martina Geroni: A Life Sculpted by Subtraction

Italian ceramicist Martina Geroni is one of the women who has embraced Kurinuki not only as a technique, but as a personal practice of transformation. Trained as an architect, she was living in Mexico when she first touched earth with new eyes. During a workshop on adobe building, she witnessed homes created by hand from raw clay and straw. Something ancient stirred.

She returned to Italy changed. Restless in front of a screen. Disenchanted with designs born only from the mind. And then, through memory and intuition, she found clay. She began to carve. She began to subtract.

Martina Geroni Sculpting a Kurinuki Chawan Cup

“I give my students a block of clay and say: imagine this is 1.8 kilos of your problems,” she shares. “And then they begin to hollow it out. And it gets lighter. And so do they.”

Martina’s Kurinuki pieces are raw, alive, grounded. In a world of repetition and templates, her work reminds us: uniqueness is not created. It is uncovered.

Kurinuki Chawan Cup by Martina Geroni

A Practice for All of Us

You don’t have to be a potter to live the Kurinuki way. Anyone who has ever let go of a dream that no longer fit, left a path that felt too narrow, or released an identity that had calcified around them has practiced it.

It is the soft bravery of subtraction. It is the sacred art of becoming.

Kurinuki reminds us that emptiness is not absence. It is potential. And inside the block, whether of clay, or life, something essential is waiting to be revealed.

Kurinuki Artist Martina Geroni and Her Chawan Cup

Your Home Is a Frequency Field

Your home is more than four walls. It’s a living field. It receives. It reflects. It holds you.

Feng Shui teaches us that space has memory.

Chi (life force) flows through our homes like water, moving through corners, brushing against objects, reacting to what we keep and what we let go of. When you bring in something new, it doesn’t just sit on a shelf. It becomes part of that flow.

That’s why choosing with intention matters. And that’s why handmade objects are so powerful: they don’t just fill a room. They anchor a frequency.

Craft Is Energy in Form

When something is made by a woman with her hands, her presence is encoded in it. Her rhythm, her land, her silence, her devotion. Her joy. Her grief.

A hand-thrown bowl. A dyed scarf. A carved spoon. These aren’t just beautiful items. They’re portals. When you touch them, you touch her story.

Mass-produced items may fill space. But artisan objects fill you. They ground you. They whisper something ancient.

Why Who Made It Matters More Than What It Is

We live in a world of surfaces. But underneath the surface is energy.

When you bring something home, you’re not just decorating. You’re saying yes to the energy of the woman who made it. You’re saying yes to her care, her slowness, her resilience. Or sometimes, you’re unknowingly saying yes to stress, exploitation, and disconnection.

When you choose craft, you choose connection. You say: I want my space to be held by hands that remember beauty.

Image from Martina Geroni

How to Choose with Energy in Mind

Before you buy something, pause. Ask:

• Who made this?

• What energy do I feel from it?

• Is it aligned with the woman I’m becoming?

• Would I want this to live in my field every day?

When we start asking those questions, our homes transform. They become mirrors of our soul, not just our style.

A Living Home Heals

When we fill our spaces with intention, our spaces begin to nourish us in return.

Feng Shui isn’t just about furniture placement — it’s about energetic ecology. About being in relationship with your space. When you surround yourself with handcrafted, meaningful objects, you start to feel it: your nervous system settles. Your creativity stirs. Your energy becomes yours again.

And that’s not design. That’s healing.

A Ritual to Begin

Pick one object in your home that feels heavy. Misaligned. Lifeless.

Replace it with something made by a woman. Something with warmth. With story. With breath in it.

Notice how the space shifts. How you shift.

That’s not magic. That’s energy.

That’s where home begins.

The Art of Alchemization

Why the Artisan's Journey Mirrors Our Own

There’s a sacred stillness in the hands of a woman who creates.

It’s the rhythm of transformation: of taking what is raw, unformed, sometimes even broken… and transmuting it into something whole. Something sacred. Something that carries story, breath, and soul.

This is alchemization.
And it doesn’t only happen in studios or workshops. It happens in us.

Made By Her didn’t start with a plan: it started with a pull.
A whisper about what it means to be made and to make ourselves anew.

Make it stand out

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

The Artisan & The Inner Alchemist

An artisan doesn’t rush. She listens.
To the material. To the silence. To the invisible.

She begins with what is whether that be clay, metal, thread or memory and enters into dialogue with it. There’s a moment of friction, of resistance, of not-yet. And then, the work begins: shaping, refining, sometimes starting over. Mistakes are folded into the final creation like secret signatures.

Isn’t that how we grow, too?

We are both the raw material and the hands shaping it.
We are the fire and the gold.
The wound and the wisdom.
The thread unraveling  and the one tying it all back together.

Growth, like craft, is rarely linear.
We break. We re-form.
We meet edges we thought we’d already smoothed.
We get it wrong, we lose the plot, we begin again.
But each time, something new emerges: more honest, more alive, more ours.

The artisan doesn’t expect perfection. She expects process.
She knows beauty doesn’t come from avoiding the mess, but from meeting it fully.
With steady hands and a heart that doesn’t flinch.

So do we.
We learn to hold ourselves with the same grace: patient in the becoming, reverent of the journey, aware that how we shape is just as important as what we shape.

Because in the end, we’re not just crafting a life, we’re crafting the woman who lives it.

SHE IS THE PROCESS.

NOT THE PRODUCT.

Imperfection as Portal

True artisans never chase perfection: they honour presence.
The irregularity of the hand. The asymmetry of truth. The scar that becomes a mark of beauty.

In our own becoming, we often try to smooth the edges, tidy the story, make ourselves more acceptable to society. But the real alchemy happens when we stop editing our essence to perform and start integrating our mess.
That’s when growth becomes art.

Made by Her: More Than a Name

Made By Her was born at the intersection of craft and transformation.
It’s about the woman behind the work. The one who dared to shape her pain, her power, her passion into something that can be touched, worn, held.
And it’s about you too, whether or not your hands hold a chisel or a needle.

Because in truth, every woman is an artisan.
Of her life.
Of her healing.
Of her becoming.

What We Create, Creates Us

There’s a secret every artisan knows:
The object isn’t the point.
The process is.

It’s the hours of doubt.
The softening of control.
The quiet courage to begin again.

Whether you're crafting jewelry or crafting boundaries… writing poems or rewriting your story… this is alchemy. This is artistry.

This is how we come home to ourselves.

So yes — we are made. And we are making.
And somewhere between the raw and the refined, between the wound and the wonder, between the dust and the divine...

We become.
Alice
Creative Maker of Made By Her

Conscious Living Is the Real Craft

“How you live is the highest art”

— Made By Her

There’s a deeper layer to craft that no one teaches you in school.

It’s not just about what you make.
It’s about how you live while making it.
It’s about what you carry into the room before you even sit down to create.

Conscious living isn’t something you add to your life. It’s the way you live it.

It’s in the way you stir your tea.
The way you speak to your loved ones after a long day.
The way you respond when things don’t go as planned.
It’s in the way you choose what to carry forward and what to lovingly let go.

We often talk about intention in making. But what about in living?

Because the truth is, everything we create is an extension of our inner state.
And whether we realize it or not, we’re always transmitting something through our work.
Our presence is the real signature.

Image from Pinterest

What Conscious Living Really Means

It’s not about perfect routines or curating the right aesthetic.
It’s not about being calm all the time or always knowing what to do.

It’s about choosing to be awake in your own life.

To stop moving on autopilot.
To question the default settings.
To ask: Is this truly mine, or was it handed to me by habit, by fear, by someone else’s story?

Conscious living is radical in a world that profits off of your disconnection.
It asks you to slow down when everything tells you to rush.
To care when numbness would be easier.
To feel your truth even when it’s inconvenient.

And from that place, you begin to choose.
You begin to listen to your own rhythm.
You begin to reclaim your power, not the loud, performative kind, but the quiet, steady kind that reshapes your life from the inside out.

For the Women Who Make

If you’re a woman who creates with her hands, then you already know this somewhere deep in your bones.
You’ve felt the difference between work made in a rush and work made in alignment.
You’ve felt the shift that happens when you create not just from yourself, but with yourself.

This is the invisible thread that runs through everything we make:
Presence.
Intention.
Truth.

That’s what people feel in your pieces, even if they can’t name it.
That’s what makes your work magnetic. Not the design, not the technique but the energy.

So maybe the real craft begins before the first stitch.
Maybe it begins in how you wake up.
How you speak.
How you breathe through a difficult day and still choose to show up with care.

A Question for You

If your life is your first creation, your first canvas - what are you choosing to make of it?

Let us know in the comments.
Not your perfect answer but your honest one.

We're listening.
We're walking this with you.
And we believe:
How you live is the highest art.