Process Ceramics
Where ancient craft meets modern consciousness.
Through wild clay ceramics, mindfulness, and science, we guide people through creative, nervous-system-based experiences that reconnect them with their rhythm, vitality, and sense of self.
What Is Process Ceramics?
An experiential offering that blends wild clay ceramics, neuroscience, and contemplative practice.
Participants learn to gather, cleanse, form, and pit-fire foraged clay through a process that mirrors human transformation, regulating the body, restoring creativity, and reconnecting us with nature, community, and soul.
Wild Clay Retreats
A sanctuary for nervous system healing, creative reconnection, and soul renewal.
Rooted in Sayulita, Mexico and Austin, Texas, our retreats guide participants through an elemental process of gathering, cleansing, forming, and firing clay as a mirror for personal transformation.
An ancient ceramic process guiding modern healing.
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Earth → Gather
Connecting with presence, place, and lineage, exploring abundance through our relationship with the nature.
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Water → Cleanse
Purifying both clay and self through mindful release, letting go of what no longer belongs.
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Form → Create
Intentional, inspired action guided by vision, forming through hand-building as a meditation in flow and trust.
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Fire → Alchemize
Transformation through pit-firing, exploring patience, surrender, acceptance, and resilience.
The Principles of the Process
Each stage of the Process Ceramics journey awakens a different quality of transformation, regulating the body, rewiring the brain, and restoring creative flow. These seven touchstones describe the natural rhythm of what unfolds through the work.
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Breath, touch, rhythm, and nature calm the nervous system, creating the safety required for true creativity.
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Let go of stored tension, emotion, and self-criticism through intentional cleansing and elemental surrender.
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Slow down, listen, and rediscover what truly matters, your values, rhythm, and inner wisdom.
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Transform perfectionism into exploration and rebuild confidence through iteration, curiosity, and embodied choice.
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Strengthen focus, flow, and neuroplasticity through intentional, repetitive, sensory engagement.
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Create in community and in relationship with earth, water, fire, and form, belonging to something larger than yourself.
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Awaken resilience, vitality, and creative energy through transformation, returning to wholeness.
Together, these seven principles form the heart of Process Ceramics, a living cycle of creation, restoration, and remembrance.
Where Science Meets Soul
Process Ceramics integrates art therapy, neuroscience, and somatic psychology to explore how tactile creation supports emotional regulation and creative renewal.
Research in neuroaesthetics and embodied cognition shows that creative touch calms the nervous system, balances stress responses, and restores curiosity.
Vessoul Transmissions
: A Wild Clay Oracle for Soul Alchemy :
A 48-card deck and guidebook rooted in the philosophy of Process Ceramics, where earth, science, and soul converge to illuminate insights.
SCIENCE-ROOTED . TRAUMA-INFORMED . HEART-CENTERED
Each card invites reflection and exploration of scientific, spiritual, and metaphorical insights through the language of wild clay ( gathering, cleansing, forming, and firing ) paired with journal prompts and affirmations. The deck can be used alone or alongside retreats and workshops as a practice for creative renewal and self-inquiry.
Hear sample of a card reading below
Retreat reflections…
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“The experience was a lot more than I expected. It was transcending. I don’t think it can be explained unless you experience it. You can give a gist overall of like feeling really close to the earth and people, strangers, who are also on a healing path. But, you just have to experience it.”
— Elsa, 2023 -
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“It is gorgeous. It was empowering and calming. A wonderful balance of the work we put in with time to be calm, which I think is extremely important. A really beautiful job of incorporating it all and aligning the process with the meditations and emotional reflections.”
—Emily, 2023
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“This was an opportunity to reconnect with nature, with art, and ultimately with myself, in a space among such strong and inspiring women. I hope to live my life as my vessel - resilient and imperfect, filled to the brim with love that pours from the spout and ripples into others.”
— Ruth 2022
Pro·cess
\ ˈprä-ˌses , ˈprō-, -səs \
(n.1): a natural phenomenon marked by gradual
changes that lead toward a particular result
(v.1): to integrate sensory information received
so that an action or response is generated
(v.2): to subject to examination or analysis
Founded by designer and artist Jessica VanNess, Process Ceramics bridges art, science, and soul through the ancient practice of creating with wild clay.
Each experience, from luxury retreats to creative workshops, from Oracle deck to technical field guide, integrates mindfulness, somatic awareness, and elemental creation to help people slow down, restore presence, and reconnect with their creative intelligence.
