Lili Todd
ILLUSTRATOR & CERAMIC ARTISTShe has been doing pottery for 11 years, a practice that overlaps with her illustration work. Her interest in folk art, traditional craft, and zine aesthetics is evident in her style - subjects that were present in her childhood. Printing with the risograph machine has greatly influenced her style over time, aiding her love for bright fluorescent colors and DIY aesthetic. The subject of her work always ties back to her innate positivity towards life and healing. Animals, including bunnies, turtles, and owls, appear often in her work, symbolizing themes such as embracing the unknown and appreciating small beauties.
Lili and her husband Keiji Ishida started P.S. Art & Zines in 2024. P.S. Art & Zines (short for Perpetual Student) is a brand that sells risograph zines, prints, and one-of-a-kind items, including hand-painted lamps and pottery. P.S. began as a pop-up shop at Face Gut Gallery in LA. They transformed the space into a curated shop showcasing local artists and hosted various events, including figure-drawing workshops and dinners. Today, P.S. has been miniaturized to fit inside a customized gardening cart and is on display in Palm Springs and Yucca Valley, California at the two Mojave Flea Trading Post locations.
DEC 30, 2025
Can you tell us about your background and how you found your path into illustration?
My parents, Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson, are both artists who started their careers in illustration. I grew up around their artist friends and their kids, so art as a career was normal to me. I am lucky to have found a lot of mentors in my parents’ friends and a lot of healthy examples of how artists can make a living through their work and support their families. Doing art as a career was what I knew to be the norm, and I thought it was fun, so I never aspired to be anything but an artist. I ended up attending LA County High School for the Arts, where I actually met my husband, Keiji Ishida. Then I went to ArtCenter College of Design in 2019, following in my parents’ footsteps, as it was the same school they went to, met at, and taught at later on in their careers.
How do your practices in illustration and ceramics inform and influence each other?
Having illustration and ceramics creates a helpful balance for my art practice. The 2D and the 3D, the commercial and the craft, the idea-based and the process-based. I have been drawing almost as long as I have been doing pottery, starting at my local studio in Sierra Madre.
Ceramics is an interesting challenge that I never get tired of trying to improve upon. It is addictive trying to conquer this unpredictable medium! There are just so many processes to try. However, applying my drawings to the surfaces of pottery using various methods has always been the central focus of my ceramic work. It brings a drawing to another level of interest to place it on a 3D form. I also love the unpredictability of ceramics, where you are forced to collaborate with the medium. The unpredictable results of ceramic glazes can add interest to a piece in ways I couldn’t have chosen myself.
I have been thinking more recently about how to approach my illustration work with more of this experimentation that comes from glazing pottery. Finding ways that I can let go of some control and allow drawing media to spark more interest in the drawing process. Somehow, sometimes a blank page can be more intimidating than a blank pot. I free-draw on my pottery like in a sketchbook, but sometimes I find myself second-guessing myself more when drawing on paper. I think this is because the end result for pottery is so delayed - you have to make the piece, dry, fire once, layer up glazes, fire again. And pottery trains you to give up control, let go of expectations, hold no piece too dear, but also hold hope for success in any piece. Drawing is so immediate, especially since I draw quickly. So maybe that is why there can be more hesitation in the beginning. But, I am looking to approach my drawing more like I do my pottery - tapping into that stream of consciousness. Each medium gives me a different kind of creative outlet that I need to feel balanced.
Can you talk about your interest in folk art, traditional craft, and zine aesthetics, and how they influence the subjects you work with?
We have long-time family friends in Texas who own Webb Gallery in Waxahachie, which specializes in folk art and self-taught art (also called outsider art). They have a 4-story building full to the brim with collected art objects, mostly from America. We visited there a lot growing up, and my parents purchased artwork from the gallery often of artists such as Jad Fair, Carl Block, Rev JL Hunter, and R.A. Miller. We all have had shows at Webb gallery also, but my mom shows there often. She grew up in Texas, and her work is influenced by self-taught Texas landscape artists like Grandma Moses. So, my parents’ art collection and friendship with the Webbs had a lot of influence on broadening my understanding of art aesthetics, who is considered an artist, and what is considered art. I think it has taught me that approaching art as play and representing yourself authentically are some of the most important perspectives to keep in mind when making art.
Probably some of the most influential experiences I had growing up were tabling at comic fairs with my parents. Events like ComicCon, LA Zine Fest, and Comics Art LA. I would take naps under the table and draw my own stories while my parents sold their zines and comics. At 8, I started selling my own zines and pet portraits at my own mini table. At those underground comic fairs, I learned practical skills about selling my art, and I felt part of a community. Meeting people who would actually buy my art was encouraging. I continue to attend zine fairs and craft fairs today, even organizing events myself. I enjoy being part of an art community that values self-made, self-published stories. When I am in those spaces, I feel at home.
Allowing yourself to become obsessed over an idea, making what is beautiful to you, and enjoying the craft process of making are all things that I take away from both folk art and zines. I think those two worlds are what keep me striving after these ideals of making.
You describe your work as tied to "innate positivity towards life and healing". What’s your approach to delivering these emotional or spiritual qualities in your art?
I consider myself to be naturally optimistic, but I also have a lot of anxiety that bothers me daily. When I include writing with my drawings, it comes from the positive and reassuring side of my mind that is looking to console my anxious brain. Somehow, this optimistic spirit in me is a strong fighter, and it can really help just to write down those words I need to hear in that moment. A lot of the time, I can help comfort myself if I listen to my rational brain and not my anxious brain. And I hope that the little phrases I am writing, accompanied by the drawings, speak to the anxious brains of other people who see the work, creating a connection and providing some comfort, as it does for me. I believe in an optimistic-centered approach toward healing and growing.
You and your husband founded P.S. Art & Zines. Can you talk about this project and stories about this platform?
P.S. began as a pop-up inside our friend Tim Biskup’s gallery, Face Guts, in LA. He was heading out of town for a month and offered us his space to do anything we wanted. Within that whirlwind month, we curated a shop featuring our own work alongside pieces by local artists. We also hosted figure drawing workshops, dinner experiences, a kids’ craft day, a concert, a tabling event, and a gallery show. It was a ton of work, and I even got sick after, but I think it is the coolest thing that Keiji and I collaborated on.
When the gallery returned to its usual programming, we started dreaming up the next chapter for P.S. That opportunity came with Mojave Flea, a retail store that rents out sections of their shops to different retailers. Today, P.S. lives in two of their desert locations, Palm Springs and Yucca Valley, as a retail set-up built upon gardening carts.
We sell zines, risograph prints, and stationery that we create, along with one-of-a-kind items like Keiji’s hand-painted lamps and my pottery.
P.S. Art & Zines started as a spontaneous experiment, but quickly became a vision we couldn’t ignore. We seized an opportunity, knowing it would take us somewhere exciting, and it has. And it is still growing! We have dreams of having our own physical retail store one day.
Are there any new techniques, materials, or subjects you're curious to explore in your upcoming work?
I have been especially focused recently on creating more products with my illustrations. Both making items myself to sell in our P.S. store and creating products in collaboration with companies. I really enjoy seeing my drawings on surfaces of objects that people can live with. I am lucky to have an ongoing collaborative relationship with the company Blue Q, with whom I have made products such as pencil cases, socks, oven mitts, and notebooks. They are my favorite people to work with. I hope to connect with more companies next year that want to use my work for fun products.
In ceramics, I want to do some more deliberate tests with surface decoration, looking for repeatable ways to apply my drawings onto the clay surface with bright colors and interesting texture. Glaze exploration is something I am still fairly new to, so I would like to put more focus on that. Recently, I have been admiring Picasso’s ceramic work that he made in the late 1940s in collaboration with artists Suzanne and Georges Ramié from Madoura pottery studio in France. This work is inspiring me to possibly try building some larger pieces and to explore more bold, gestural line work on pots.