Cielo Vianzon, a miniatures specialist based in Toronto, says pursuing her art full time gives her a creative outlet for her interests in painting, architecture and interior design.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
Mastering It is a summer series to introduce you to Canadians who have sought to rise above being simply good at their chosen endeavour – and who, by perfecting their skill, strive to become the best.
Cielo Vianzon’s pottery-making process begins as you might expect. She centres a lump of clay on her wheel, a bowl of water sitting nearby in case of dryness. Within minutes, she has transformed the lump into a vase that would look right at home on the website of any modern houseware retailer – CB2, West Elm, IKEA.
One caveat though: This particular vase, like all of Ms. Vianzon’s pieces, would be most at home in a dollhouse. It stands just an inch high.
On a hot day this summer, Ms. Vianzon sits with her newly made vase at a plywood work table inside the just-opened Clayful Mini Pottery Studio in north Toronto. As a co-owner of the studio, she will be teaching students of all ages how to craft tiny pieces of pottery from scratch here. Displays near the entrance, outfitted with tiny shelves, hold some of her creations (inspiration for incoming students), while the worktop tables are dotted by colourful mini pottery wheels, made by a niche vendor from Britain. Ms. Vianzon’s own wheel stands out, emblazoned with a custom “Cielo” (pronounced Shell-oh) stamp in pink lettering.
Cielo Vianzon’s miniature pottery wheels sit in a neat row at her north Toronto studio, where she will teach students to craft tiny ceramics from scratch.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
Having just opened, Clayful is still somewhat in set-up mode, but today Ms. Vianzon has brought along hundreds of her handcrafted pieces of pottery from her home studio. You’d be forgiven for not noticing them, though – most are small enough to sit by the dozens in a set of egg cartons she’s repurposed for portable storage.
Tens of teeny ceramic tea cups, many no bigger than the head of a screw and accompanied by saucers no thicker than a loonie, are mixed together in little piles in the cartons with teensy teapots, matching creamers, sugar bowls, tea trays, and a colourful array of itty-bitty bowls, ramekins, pitchers, vases, ceramic lamps (with working lights to boot) and more.
All have been painstakingly made from scratch by Ms. Vianzon with impressive attention to detail.
She finds minuscule appendages the hardest to make − she throws the spouts for the teapots on her wheel (they’re hollow in real life and should be hollow in miniature as well, she feels) − and the handles are “my nemesis,” she says with a laugh.
“I’m so obsessive sometimes. I want it to be perfect. When I don’t like it, I have to remove it and do it again.”
Lids can also be problematic – they are crafted by hand but, to meet Ms. Vianzon’s standards, they must sit with precision inside their pots.
Vianzon finds appendages, like the handles and spouts of teapots, the hardest to throw. She makes them hollow, as they are in real life.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
Patience isn’t something Ms. Vianzon comes by naturally, but “that’s why miniatures have changed my life,” she says. Her previous career was spent working in IT and as a graphic designer, but becoming a full-time miniaturist has given her an outlet for her many creative interests, including painting, architecture and interior design.
“I’ve been artsy since I was young,” she says. “That’s why I love miniatures, because I can apply everything, all those crafts I have acquired or learned since I was younger.”
Born and raised in Manila, Ms. Vianzon was fascinated by one particular trend that accompanied new construction projects in the 1990s – at her local mall, many up-and-coming projects were previewed to the public via miniature-scale models. Ms. Vianzon was already interested in architecture, having pored over textbooks on the subject that her father had kept from his university days.
“I could stay there all day and see all the details of those structures,” she recalls.
In 2008, while living in Malaysia, Ms. Vianzon started collecting mini-models of kitchen items and housewares from specialty Japanese stores and online retailers. She loved finding tiny food items and appliances (she has a collection of mini Kitchen Aid mixers and mini Smeg refrigerators in a variety of colours), and became interested in featuring them in “room boxes,” or dioramas of typical domestic settings she built herself. A decade later, she began posting her “mini-scenes” to Instagram, building out the minuscule rooms with a mix of her own handmade and collected creations, and eventually, pieces she had designed and 3-D-printed.
“I captured them as much as possible in a realistic way, so that it really looks like a home. It’s always detail,” she says of her scenes.
Vianzon says she became interested in miniatures after she was inspired by the details of the architectural models on display at her local mall in Manila.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
Her preference for realism drove her to seek out better options for the dishes she was using to style her tiny kitchen scenes in particular, finding limitations in quality. After seeing a mini-pottery wheel for sale online, she started watching regular-sized pottery tutorials on YouTube and taught herself how to scale down the techniques. In the beginning, “I was terrible. I have a first video that I cannot watch,” she laughs.
But after a couple of days spent almost entirely in front of the mini-wheel, she was an expert in throwing tiny bowls. “I’m relentless – so, I don’t stop until I get it,” she says.
Her diligence and attention to detail have paid off. After making dozens of pieces of pottery, she decided to try selling a group of 30 of them on Etsy – the batch sold out in 20 minutes. A hundred more would be gone within a day.
As her social-media presence continued to grow, she was cast on the CBC Gem original series Best in Miniature in 2022, where she competed against other miniaturists in building and styling a dollhouse. (Now in its third season, the show has since been picked up by Netflix and Discovery).
After the ceramics are made on a tiny pottery wheel, Vianzon fires them in miniature kilns.Cielo Vianzon/Supplied
With her growing number of followers online, Ms. Vianzon now receives regular commissions from well-known brands.
Her first commission came from Tostitos Canada, which asked her to create three tiny kitchen scenes to match three different flavours of chips.
Other companies followed. Zara Home had her create miniature versions of their vases and lamps, Browns Shoes asked for tiny replicas of their sneakers and stilettos, and Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty brand commissioned detailed mini-models of their entire product line (including dozens of sprinkle-sized lip glosses and blush palettes). Most recently, Heineken hired her to create a miniature TV room, with a mini six-pack of the green-bottled lager sitting on a coffee table.
Social media is also where her pottery studio co-owner, Toronto-based marketer Nicholas Chen, found Ms. Vianzon and approached her about opening Clayful last fall.
“I saw her work and I thought it was really amazing – some of the best I’d ever seen,” Mr. Chen says. He had become interested in opening a mini-pottery studio after finding long wait lists were the norm among many of the wheel-thrown pottery studios (of the regular-size variety) in Toronto. Scaling down the size of the hobby seemed like a good way to introduce pottery-making to more people.
Vianzon’s miniatures have gained her a growing social media following, and she has been commissioned by brands including Tostitos Canada, Zara Home and Fenty Beauty for custom items.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
One of Ms. Vianzon’s continuing passions is refining her 3-D-printing skills, though she often finds a negative perception of the technology within the miniaturist community – that it’s a form of cheating. But certain items that she can make by hand in a day will take three days with a 3-D printer. Pieces have to be designed digitally from scratch, and once printed, they still need to be washed, cured, sanded and painted. “I consider 3-D printing handmade, but just utilizing modern technology,” she says.
The main goal is to keep pursuing the joy she finds in the miniature-making process. “I can do this all day, 24/7, even if I don’t sleep,” Ms. Vianzon says.
“Right now, I’m following my passion and chasing my dream.”
One tiny vase at a time.