The list of actors who have turned to art in recent years is getting too long to write out. Jim Carrey, Brad Pitt, Adrien Brody, Rose McGowan, Shia LaBeouf, and Val Kilmer have all tried their hands at studio art, with varying degrees of success. (Carrey is “definitely an artist,” according to critic Jerry Saltz; Kilmer is being sued for allegedly stealing another artist’s work.)
Now, add another star of the silver screen to the list: Seth Rogen.
The Superbad actor has recently picked up ceramics as an outlet for stress and creativity. “There’s something that’s so therapeutic about it,” he recently told GQ. “It’s like yoga, if you got a thing at the end. If you were doing yoga and then some object was produced at the end of it.”
The Canadian actor been debuting his wares on social media. His output largely falls into two camps, each of which captures a different side of the lovable loser persona.
On the one hand, you have the ashtrays. If you know anything about Seth Rogen, you know he smokes a lot of weed. (He was born in Vancouver and now lives in Los Angeles—two early adopters of legalized marijuana.) Earlier this year, he co-launched a new cannabis company called Houseplant, and has long been a collector of novelty ashtrays. (He showed off a particularly snazzy vintage Gucci dish for the GQ profile.)
The ashtrays represent Rogen’s slacker side, the perma-stoned persona on full display in movies like Pineapple Express, Knocked Up, and This is the End. Like those characters, these ceramics are a little rough around the edges, a little unstable, yet still charismatic.
On the other hand are Rogen’s vases, which—like many of the actor’s best-known roles—are surprisingly charming, especially when you imagine him delicately styling each with a flower or two.
GARAGE Magazine recently sought to answer the natural question: “Are Seth Rogen’s Ceramics Any Good?” While each of the experts surveyed in the article noted that the vessels were clearly the work of a beginner, they also said the ceramics showed promise.
“The vases look a bit heavy, but they have a very hand-done, organic feel that’s on-trend right now,” Linda Bui, a product and operations manager at Glossier, told the magazine. “I would totally buy them, because it looks like someone really enjoyed the process.”