AnaLuz Sainz Rodriguez: A Glimpse of the Artist Behind the Work
As Troy Bungart Studios hosts a Michiana Pottery Tour stop for the first time, we wanted to introduce everyone to the guest artists visiting us at the 2025 Michiana Pottery Tour September 27 & 28, 2025 here in Three Rivers, Michigan.
Ceramic artist AnaLuz Sainz Rodriguez talks with Troy Bungart Studios about her work in advance of the 2025 Michiana Pottery Tour
AnaLuz Sainz Rodriguez may officially be a guest artist at Troy Bungart’s 2025 Tour Stop #10, but she actually is more like a co-host.
Troy was AnaLuz’s ceramics mentor for a few years, so she is very familiar with his studio set up. In addition, AnaLuz is a Board Member of the Northern Indiana Clay Alliance, the organization that oversees the Michiana Pottery Tour. She has been very helpful as we’ve labored to get prepared to open our studios this year to the public for the very first time.
AnaLuz is a young woman with a confident self-identity and a clear vision of what she wants to do and why she wants to do it. She is joyful yet thoughtful, gentle yet adamant, and those qualities practically sing through her artistic expressions.
'Ceramic art appeals to AnaLuz because she feels it offers a way to apply and combine so many artistic approaches: “Within clay,” she explains, “you can work with every different artistic medium — printmaking and drawing and painting — decoration on clay. Endless adventure!”
Perhaps her boldest and most intricate work so far is her series of face vessels: cups or small vases that show a sculpted stylized face with painted garden products on the cheeks. An enthusiastic gardener, AnaLuz remembers time spent in her grandmother’s kitchen in Mexico, admiring the colors in a bowl of fresh strawberries, or flowers, or citrus fruit or avocados.
In answer to one of our interview questions, AnaLuz said she believes her work belongs in places that are colorful, active and focused on family then mentioned loving the animated energy in the movie Coraline where everything comes alive in the ideal home and how she can imagine her work having that kind of happy energy. Then she laughed because the movie is actually a “family horror movie” and confessed that she has a bit of a dark side and a morbid fascination with listening to true crime murder podcasts. Strangely, that’s not so strange to us because AnaLuz, though upbeat, is not unrealistic about the world. She just choses to be a positive impact.
A Mexican-inspired face vessel by AnaLuz Sainz Rodriguez accomplished through an intricate process of sculpting a stylized face onto a wheel thrown base form followed by several layers of painted underglaze and glaze.
From the vibrant colors of her youth to motifs from the ancient Aztecs, AnaLuz likes to find ways to pay homage to her heritage. She credits her Mexican-American parents as well as earlier generations of her Mexican family for preparing the way for her to follow her passion for producing ceramic art that crosses borders of both space and time. A citizen of both the USA and Mexico, her hope is to create a respectful blend of past, present and future that connects each of her “homes” to the other.
AnaLuz does this by making items that are relevant to and reflective of the contemporary US culture in which she was raised here in the Kalamazoo area. She is also dedicated to being a genuine, interested and involved member of her Michiana community.
AnaLuz Sainz Rodriguez models her handmade ceramic earrings incorporating her version of the Aztec sunray symbol.
AnaLuz Sainz Rodriguez at work on a potter’s wheel.
AnaLuz’s work begins with soft clay that she forms either on the wheel or a slab roller. Though much of her work is sculpted or textured, she is particularly proud of her cántaros, smoothly curved water decanters which have a matching cup that she tightly fits upside down to also serve as a lid. The cántaros have an elegance that works well without embellishments.
AnaLuz signs her work with a chop mark symbol she created that looks like a light bulb giving out light. The “Luz” part of her name translates to “light,.” The concept of being a shining light is meaningful to her. The modern light bulb is a variation on the ancient Aztec sun ray. She uses both images in her work.
It’s appropriate that she has named her business Light Studio Pottery. AnaLuz is truly a light in the life of everyone she touches. Come find her work here at Tour Stop #10 this weekend and light up your life by buying pottery that AnaLuz Sainz Rodriguez has made.
