Pi Oudomsouk

Nomad Design Shop

Cincinnati-based sculptor and fabricator Amphay (Pi) Oudomsouk is a soft-spoken creative. He met with this CMC author at his studio in Camp Washington in the 2701SG building off of Spring Grove to share more about his experience as a Maker in Cincinnati, and the journey he has had so far.

While in his studio, Pi showed off his current work-in-progress: a life-sized sculpture of a beloved basketball coach, Bobby Keith, which was commissioned by Clay County High School in Kentucky. 

For this project, the artist scanned another coach as a stand-in for the honoree, and then sculpted over that using digital software ZBrush, which allows him to create detailed 3D models. 

“This is something that I’ve taught myself,” Oudomsouk says of the digital interface. And it is clear that he has spent much of his life with an enthusiasm for learning new skills.

Pi came to Cincinnati with his family in 1980 as a refugee from Laos when he was just ten years old. Because his father was in the Royal Army, and the CIA was funding them to fight the Viet Cong, (whose Ho Chi Minh Trail passed through his home country), Oudomsouk and his family of seven fled their homeland. 

“After the Communists took over Laos, a lot of the military and government officials left,” Pi explains. “Because what they do is, they send people to the ‘education camp’ and that’s where bad things can happen,” he continues.   

So the seven of them, (five kids and two adults), were headed on the plane to New York when they got word mid-flight that the organization who was supposed to take them in could no longer do so. 

Fortunately, a church in the Cincinnati suburbs of Wyoming that had been in the process of trying to adopt a refugee family, offered them last-minute refuge instead, so Pi and his family lived in the basement of the church for six months until they were able to find themselves a home in their new city. 

“It’s kind of funny,” he concedes. “I feel like I’m not rooted, I’m always kind of floating,” he explains. “I mean, even though I feel really home here, I grew up here, but I feel like I’m kind of floating,” he says. 

And that untethered-ness is most likely the titular origin of Oudomsouk’s creative collaboration, Nomad Design Shop. 

“Nomad is actually a collective,” he explains. “There’s like five, six of us now and we kind of help each other,” he says.

The members share overhead costs to make their space affordable, and divvy up the work on various projects, based on the sets of skills they bring to the table. That malleability also allows their creative process to likewise be flexible and not fixed.

“The way we work is, if I get a project, I would manage it from start to finish,” he explains. So if he needs help on a certain area, he would work with the other members to assist accordingly.  

“We moved in right before COVID happened, and so a lot of the creative jobs were just not happening,” he explains. 

What was happening was that, with so many people staying home during the Pandemic, Oudomsouk and team began doing custom “built-in’s” for their clients instead. 

Explaining what a “built-in” is, Pi describes it as, “a structure within the house that makes their experience more livable—almost like an installation”, he explains. So when you look at Nomad Design’s website to see examples of such projects, you will see bespoke bookshelves, drawers, benches, desks, and other custom-made structures built for domestic use.

But making installations within the home was not where Pi got his start as a Maker. In fact, his work history reveals over a decade of experience creating his sculptural objects inside of cultural institutions.

Pi graduated with a BFA from SAIC in Chicago and stayed in the city to work for both The Field Museum and the Brookfield Zoo for another ten years, after graduating.  He was lucky enough to get an internship at the aforementioned iconic Natural History museum while still a student. During his time on staff, Oudomsouk worked with scientists and a biologist to create and install exhibitions that were meticulous in their attention to detail. 

The maker describes a project for their African exhibition, in which he created a tree from scratch, fabricating every leaf and flower, as well as an accurately-depicted giraffe, posed to be eating from the tree. 

“I think I was the only one who survived that project,” Pi says laughing.  “But I think that having gone through that rigorous [process], it made me stronger and helped to build stamina for doing a project like that.” 

That experience really shaped his work and understanding of his own skillset. “It was really art and science coming together”, he explains.

And so Oudomsouk’s work with Nomad Design allows him to bridge those distances—the ones between art and science, academic and domestic, the learned skill and the practical know-how. It is no wonder that all kinds of clients seek out Pi and his collaborators for their site-specific installation needs. 

To find out more about Nomad Design, visit their website at https://nomaddesignshop.com or follow Nomad Design on social media @nomad_design_shop or https://www.facebook.com/nomaddesignshop/