Melisa of MWY Pottery (she/her) is a cancer doctor, National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded researcher, and ceramic artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was born in Malaysia and grew up in Southern California. While Melisa only started her pottery journey in 2023 as a 40th birthday present to herself, she’s been creative her whole life—sewing tiny clothes for her knockoff Barbies and exploring different forms of craft while trying not to burn her fingertips with hot glue. Melisa completed her BA in Human Biology, medical degree, internal medicine residency, medical oncology fellowship, and Master's Degree in Clinical Research in the San Francisco Bay Area (that's 14 years of education/training but who's counting).
Melisa's ceramics have been exhibited by the Charlie Cummings Gallery, Palo Alto Art Center, Sausalito Center for the Arts, The Drawing Room, and Woman Made Gallery. She is a member of the Asian American Women Artists Association and has been interviewed about her approach to pottery as a side saunterer (which is like a side hustler, but without the hustle) on The Maker’s Playbook Podcast. In 2025, Melisa celebrated and featured immigrant ceramic artists in the US in her weekly Score and Slip series on Instagram.
As a cancer doctor and researcher, I have witnessed the healing powers of modern medicine. As a ceramic artist, I have witnessed the same for art. As censorship and oppression have entered science in the US, clay has become my freedom. Freedom to create unencumbered. Freedom to speak unafraid (actually, I’m doing this scared). And freedom to resist.
Through handbuilt resistance art made in the San Francisco Bay Area, I write truths into stone(ware) so they cannot be erased. As a Chinese immigrant, I use my art and relative privilege to support immigrant rights, inclusion, and liberty and justice for all, not some. My fruit flutter bowls honor migrant farm workers and Palestinian families. My resistance frames and spiral mugs share messages of strength, purpose, and dissent. Through my “Uncensored” flutter bowl series, I handwrite words that are currently banned in federal research grants in gold luster to remind us all of their value.