Arizona-based ceramicist Rika Kova grew up in a small town in southern Siberia, Russia, where being an artist wasn't considered a profession.
It was the 1990s, shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed. Factories closed, jobs disappeared and many families survived by growing food and bartering for necessities. Kova lived on her family's farm, where relatives gathered each season to slaughter livestock, harvest vegetables and berries, and preserve food for the winter.
"Your job was planting and harvesting and cooking and cleaning," she says.
When Kova was five, she and her mother moved to a larger city in search of new opportunities. Her mother became a journalist, while Kova discovered a love of fashion. She shopped the sprawling market, darting from stall to stall, trying on outfits in cramped fitting rooms and slipping on shoes while standing on a piece of cardboard so she wouldn't dirty her socks.
Kova also pursued dance, modeling, painting and drawing. With her mother’s blessing, she covered the walls of her tiny bedroom in their rented apartment with pencil and marker. Her mother worked multiple jobs to support them, giving Kova an early sense of independence. At 16, she graduated from secondary school and moved to another city to study economics at her mother's suggestion.
She quickly realized she was on the wrong path.
"Every single day, I would go to school and feel stupid. Your self-confidence goes down when you're not thriving. Everyone around me seemed smarter and happier because they were in the right place."
Then came a summer exchange program in Cape Cod that convinced Kova that life could offer more than what she’d known back home. When the summer ended, she settled in Chicago, where she supported herself as a waitress.
The Midwest gave her something unexpected: permission to slow down, sketchbook and pencil in hand.
"I would sit in coffee shops for hours and draw. It was meditative. I still have that first sketchbook," she says.
One day, Kova noticed a sign in a window advertising adult art classes. She enrolled in a drawing course with an instructor who told her that she had a rare artistic gift.
The words settled in her heart.
Kova enrolled in an art and design program at a community college with the intention to become a fashion designer, but in an elective ceramics class, she fell in love with clay.
After receiving her bachelor’s degree, Kova headed west in a camper van she outfitted herself. While waiting for a load of laundry in Phoenix, she wandered into Pip and Clay. It had been 10 months since she'd touched clay, and she fell in love all over again.
In early 2023, Kova opened her first studio in the Valley, where she creates ceramics and teaches classes.
Today, Kova is exactly where she's meant to be.
"When you're in the right place, I think that a lot of things start to happen for you versus ... against you."
Her artistic philosophy grew from her childhood on the family farm.
"Every object in the home had multiple purposes," she says. "So, I enjoy making things that serve other people.”
Whether it's a table, a candlestick or a stool, she believes each piece should earn its place, and that beginning with an object's intended use often leads to the strongest work.
"I rarely make sketches, but I always start with an idea of what purpose it will have," she says. "When it comes to shape, a lot of it is just going with the flow ... I start with the slab, and go with whatever shape the slab machine gives me, without trying to force the process."
Kova is currently on hiatus while completing a one-year master's degree in London. She plans to return to Arizona afterward and reopen her ceramic studio.
"I'm a believer that ideas and physical objects come into this world not from me but through me. As humanity, we don't really have an agenda. We're just here to create—whether that's more humans or more objects, or both. We get to decide," says Kova.
Follow Kova’s creative journey at onehappyartist.com or on Instagram @OneHappyArtist.
"When you're in the right place, I think that a lot of things start to happen for you versus...against you."